FROM ALI TO PACQUIAO, MURAD MUHAMMAD IN HIS OWN WORDS PT. 2: THE BUSINESS

"I came in the business showing the fighter where the money was. We sat down and talked, he knew how much I was making and I knew how much he was making. Keep in mind, I have to create. See, that's what a promoter is. A promoter is a creator. He has to create the money. Once he creates the money, he is the insurance man," stated promoter Murad Muhammad as he recalled his experiences in boxing. Don't miss this behind-the-scenes look into the history of the sport as Murad himself tells his story in his own words. From Muhammad Ali to Manny Pacquiao, he has worked alongside some of the biggest names in boxing and you don't want to miss more of his extremely revealing tales. Check it out...

That's what made me come into the boxing business, traveling with Muhammad Ali. I learned that fighters weren't being paid properly. What I mean by not being paid properly is the Muhammad Ali Law is something that I created, before someone else came along and thought, "Oh, we're going to come up with a Muhammad Ali Law." I came into the business and I said, "Okay, let's use common sense." Say you tell an ignorant man, "Hey son, that's a beautiful diamond you got there. How much do you want for it?" Now his father left him the diamond. He doesn't know nothing about diamonds and you know he doesn't know anything about diamonds. So what could he say?

He's going to put a price on it and if he's black, he's going to be very modest because he don't want to beat nobody. He says, "Well, give me $5,000 for it." And then the guy says, "You got it son!" But he doesn't know that the diamond is really worth a million dollars. If he had known the diamond was worth a million dollars, he wouldn't have asked for $5,000. If he was intelligent, he would have said, "The diamond is worth a million dollars, so give me $700,000 for it." And the buyer would have gave him $700,000 if he has $300,000 worth of equity in the diamond. Well, it's the same way with the fighter.

The fighter doesn't know what he's worth. No one has told him how much he should get and he don't have a manager or someone who cares for his welfare. So what happens is a fighter will ask for what he thinks he's worth. So it's like I'm about to put you in this world title fight. How much money do you want for this world title fight? Well, the fighter never made over $20,000, so $100,000 sounds good to him, so he says, "Give me $100,000 for the fight." They're promoter says, "You got it!" But what he [the fighter] don't know is that HBO gave him [the promoter] a million and a half for that fight, so he buys the fighter for $100,000, he buys the opponent for $25,000. You do the math! That's what happened when I came into the boxing world.

So I say to the fighter, "Listen, I just got one million from the network. Now I gotta pay the expenses and I gotta buy the opponent. And I believe the expenses is going to run me $150,000 and I believe that the opponent is going to run me $50,000 and I believe I'm going to need another $50,000 on miscellaneous.  How much do you want for this fight?" The fighter could be intelligent and say, "I tell you what, I'll take $350,000 and the rest is yours." Okay, good deal! You got a good heart! Some fighters will say, "I'll take $500,000 and $200,000 is yours." Alright, the fighter puts his life on the line. That's $200,000; I can do another fight. Good deal! Then you got some fighters that find out how much money is there and they want it all. That fighter becomes an ingrate and you have to deal with them, but that's very rare.

So I came in the business showing the fighter where the money was. We sat down and talked, he knew how much I was making and I knew how much he was making. Keep in mind, I have to create. See, that's what a promoter is. A promoter is a creator. He has to create the money. Once he creates the money, he is the insurance man. Everybody gotta get paid but him. On some fights, we promoters don't make money, but if you do 12 fights a year and you lose on 4, the others could pay you off at the end of the year because they were successful. So there is an old saying: you gotta spend money to make money.

BE SURE TO CHECK BACK FOR PART 3 AS MUHAMMAD REVEALS HOW HE, BOB ARUM AND DON KING BECAME PROMOTERS THROUGH THEIR CONNECTION TO MUHAMMAD ALI

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE

 

[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]

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