Kathy
Duva admits finding out last Friday that Eddie Chambers- slated to face Sergei
Liakhovich in the main event on the inaugural edition of “Fight Night” on NBC
Sports Network (Saturday, 9 p.m., ET/6 p.m., PT from the Asylum Arena in Philadelphia)-
pulling out of his assignment wasn't just a mere punch in the gut. The bottom
line is that Main Events has four opportunities in 2012 to make this deal work.
Having your featured fight go into the scrap heap eight days before the card’s scheduled
date is a rather foreboding omen.
For
Duva, this wasn't just a left hook to the body; it was also, “followed by a
right hand to the chin,” she told Maxboxing on Tuesday afternoon.
“Eddie
Chambers came into my office and he sat there and he showed me the letter from
the doctor and the only thing he did wrong was not telling me about it when it
first happened because we would've had another week. And he showed me the
letter from the doctor and he said, ‘I'm trying to get through it. I really
want to fight.’ I read the thing. It said, ‘displaced fractures in two ribs.’ I
said, ‘You can puncture a lung. I'm not going to put you in the ring. That's a
serious injury. There's not a doctor on Earth who's going to clear you to fight
and rightfully so and I can't knowingly put him in the ring knowing he's
injured that badly. I wasn't going to do it.”
The
original plan was to find a replacement for Liakhovich. In an era when the
heavyweight talent pool is as shallow as it has ever been, that was no easy
task. As one boxing insider cracked, “It's hard enough finding a good heavyweight
on eight months notice.” Eventually, the usual suspects like Larry Donald,
Jason Gavern and Tye Fields (ironic, given this network- known as “Versus” until
the beginning of this year- had infamously dabbled in boxing with Top Rank and
was fit to be Tye’d as Fields was featured once too often for everyone's liking)
were brought up.
“When
I heard the name Tye Fields, I took it as a sign,” said Duva, who explained, “I
could put on a really good 10-round fight that no one's going to know who's
going to win with two guys from Philadelphia who know each other and who
expressly wanted to fight each other and jumped at the chance to fight each
other.”
So
the announcement was made that a pair of big men from Philly, Maurice Byarm and
Bryant Jennings, would make the new co-feature, alongside the junior
middleweight tussle between Gabriel Rosado and Jesus Soto-Karass. The equation
here: Real Fight > Names.
“Yeah,
over a name and an ‘appearance fight,’” stated Duva. “We went through everybody
who was in training, everybody who was sparring, anybody who might plausibly be
in shape, who would not have been in an ‘appearance fight.’ And frankly, there
were several fighters who wanted to do it and their trainers talked them out of
it and I can't blame them for that on a week’s notice to fight a guy like
Liakhovich. But look, [Wladimir] Klitschko has pulled out of two fights in less
than a year with a pulled muscle and a kidney stone. Erik Morales pulled
out of a fight with gallstones a few weeks ago. In the world of premium cable,
you just put the show off for a couple of weeks. We don't have that luxury here-
the show must go on.
“So
Liakhovich and Chambers will hopefully get to fight each other at some point.
It's a bad break for Sergei but I cannot in good conscience say that we're not
going to be doing boxing as usual and then put Sergei Liakhovich in with Tye
Fields- and not to cast aspersions on any person. The only people who would do
this are people who are desperate and didn't have any other opportunities.
That's exactly what we didn't want to do.”
One
of the major goals of this series is to have lively and energetic settings. Because
both Byarm and Jennings are local, giving back refunds en masse has not been a
problem, according to Duva. “It's an evenly matched fight. I don't know who's
going to win,” she said. “The styles, Russell [Peltz] loves it. You got Byarm;
even though he's a southpaw, he doesn't fight like a southpaw. He comes
straight in; his nickname is ‘Freight Train.’ He goes straight ahead throwing
punches. He's a big, big puncher against a really good boxer. It's a classic
boxer-puncher match-up.”
BULLPEN
Finding
suitable fill-ins (namely when TV fights or main events are involved) is never
easy- especially on such short notice. Nowadays, it's much more. Peltz, matchmaker
for Main Events and this series, had the arduous task of coming up with a
replacement. He says that the boxers of today are less prepared to come in on
short notice.
“Yeah,
because in the past, fighters stayed in shape. Today, they get in shape,” Peltz
lamented. The fact is with boxers fighting much less frequently than in the
past, they are more prone to having long stretches out of the gym. Peltz heard
the phrase “not ready” frequently throughout this past weekend. “All the time, ‘I'm
not in shape,’ this and that. I don't know how many times we went through from
Friday afternoon till we locked it in last night (Monday).”
Message
to any young fighters out there: Stay in the gym; be in reasonable condition at
all times; you never know when that call might come.
“I
thought this years ago,” said Peltz. “If I was training a fighter and every
time there was a fight in town, if my guy wasn't on the show, I would have him
ready to step in at the weigh-in the day of the fight, so they could get the
experience.”
As
Peltz began promoting back in 1969 with, shall we say, much looser regulations,
it was easy to get guys to pinch-hit on short notice. “Oh, sure, because the
gyms were packed. If they weren't packed, we'd go in the bars the day of the fight
and get ex-fighters or drunks out of the bar. I'm not joking; I've done that. I
went into bars and got guys that maybe had a fight or two and we would bring
them into the dressing room and Jimmy Arthur, who trained Tyrone Everett, an
excellent trainer, he would show the kid in the dressing room how to hold his
hands so that when he went out there, he didn't flail around like some fifth
grade kid. And he could do that on an hour’s instructions. I've done that- I'm
not proud of it but we've done that. There were no medical requirements, none
of that stuff.”
(Ah,
the good ol’ days...)
It
drives Peltz crazy when boxers, trainers and managers talk about getting “only”
four or five weeks to prepare for a fight and opportunities to advance a career
are rejected. To him, it's all part of a systemic breakdown of the boxing
business and its infrastructure.
“I've
said this for years and years- and this is an old Cus D'amato line- ‘It’s not
that they're not any good fighters. There aren't any good managers.’ They don't
know what to do and, unfortunately, HBO and Showtime- and even ESPN- foster
this because they don't want to show the best fighters. They want to show the
fighters with the best records. I said before the Teon Kennedy fight, ‘When
fighters fight good fighters, they lose. If you're going to consistently fight
good fighters and learn your craft, you're going to lose.’ You show me any kid
today who's 15-0 or 20-0, he's either the next Sugar Ray Leonard or he's a
fraud.
“And I don't see too many Sugar Ray Leonards around.”
As
for Byarm-Jennings, Peltz says, “It's the best fight we could make and I'm very
happy with it. Byarm comes forward; he's an aggressive southpaw, originally
from South Philly and his father fought for me and Jennings is an action
fighter from North Philly. This is the kind of fight, nine times out of ten,
they would say, ‘Hey, let's wait a couple of years and we'll make some real
money,’ but now, they're willing to do it at this level and that's what boxing
needs. It needs showdown fights like this at this level.”
FATHER-SON
If
the surname “Byarm” sounds familiar, it's because Maurice's father, Lionel, is
a footnote in boxing history as the pro debut opponent for Evander Holyfield on
the night of November 15th, 1984, as the members of the 1984 U.S.
Olympic boxing team made their debut at the Madison Square Garden on ABC.
Back
then, as her late husband, Dan, ran the company, Kathy was the lead publicist
for Main Events. Did she ever think years later, she'd be promoting a fight
with Byarm's son?
“No, I didn't," answered Duva, laughing at the thought, “and y’ know what?
Watching that fight that night- because Byarm was new and untested, nobody knew
what we had either. Both were very inexperienced- seeing how Evander was the
one who had the toughest night, no one would've believed that night he would've
turned out to be the greatest fighter. So it's about the match-up. It's always
about the match.”
“The
Real Deal” got past Byarm that night, winning a unanimous six-round decision.
FIGHT PROMOTER U
Roy Englebrecht is staging the latest edition of “Fight Promoter U.” For those interested,
here's the 411 from his press release:
Southern California based fight promoter
and Fight Promoter University founder Roy Englebrecht announced today that the
next four day session of Fight Promoter University, FPU VIII, will be held April
10-13, 2012 in Southern California and will be held in conjunction with his
April 12th Fight Club
OC show.
“I am extremely excited to finally
announce another FPU session,” said Englebrecht, “and I’m thrilled that
attendees and future promoters will get to learn and experience all aspects of
the fight promotions business, as well as be taught all the keys to the success
of the new Fight Club OC concept that we launched a year ago.
It is my hope that every student that attends FPU VIII will go back to their
respective markets and launch their own fight promotions business, taking the
business knowledge and fight promotions philosophy that they have been taught,
and launch their own Fight Club series.”
“McDonald’s has Hamburger U, Donald Trump
has The Apprentice, so why not a place for future fight promoters to learn all
aspects of how to build a fight promotions business from scratch,” continued
Englebrecht. “And with a great line up of ten guest speakers including some of
the best in the fight business, the hands on experience of working a Fight Club
OC show, and the chance to network with other people who share a love for
combative sports, attending Fight Promoter University is a must. Plus students
can take advance of our Special Early Bird Sign-Up Discount and save money.”
Launched in 2006, Fight Promoter
University has seen 134 students attend the first seven sessions, coming from
eight foreign countries and 38 states, with a number of FPU graduates currently
promoting shows. For the April FPU VIII session students will be housed and all
classroom meetings will be held at The Hotel Hanford, a new boutique hotel
located in Costa Mesa, California, only five minutes for The Hangar, the home
of Fight Club OC. Cost for the four day FPU VIII session will be $1,599, and
that fee includes three nights lodging, all meals, the 265 page FPU Manual, FPU
credential, all local transportation, FPU merchandise, and all classroom
instruction.
To register for Fight Promoter
University VIII, and to take advantage of the Early Sign Up Discount go to www.fightpromoteruniversity.com.
SOPA FLURRIES
The March 24th edition of “Fight Night” on NBCSN will have a main
event of Zab Judah vs. Vernon Paris and Duva will focus on hosting it at the
Aviator in Brooklyn...Edner Cherry has signed a promotional deal with 8 Count
Productions and will fight in Chicago on Feb. 24th...So is Peyton
Manning going to retire? If you can't take what Rob Lowe says as gospel as it
pertains to the NFL, who can you trust?...With what the Rangers have invested
in Yu “The Whirling” Darvish, he better win 25 games a year...
