As
the calendar heads toward 2012, the last few remaining shows in the world of
boxing are being staged. This Friday night at the El Faro Discount Center in
Vernon, California, the always busy club show schedule in the “Golden State”
moves forward with a card that features a main event of Arman Ovsepyan vs.
Augusto Gamez.
Ray
Alcorta, who is running the promotion says, “The card is with Showdown
Promotions in association with UBM-Union Boxing Management. Union Boxing is a
relatively new boxing management group that represents a variety of fighters,
Mexican-American, Russian, Russian-Armenian fighters. They really have no
barriers on who they have. They want to make a name for themselves. They're
starting to sign a lot of talent. They got a couple of guys like Jesse
Villanueva and they have a guy, Andrey Klimov, who was just signed by Top Rank
and on this card, the 154-pound California State Championship between Ovsepyan
and Gamez. Gamez is a veteran fighter who's coming of a win versus Robert
Valenzuela and he lost a 10-round decision to Gabriel Martinez. So we know he's
a durable guy who's going to come to fight.”
The
hope is that they can turn this into a regular series where young boxers can be
developed and records built before they go on to bigger, televised platforms.
“One
of the hard parts of doing a steady schedule is finding the right venue where
you can do it,” explained Alcorta, who has run various promotions from a
variety of venues in Southern California throughout the years. “And I think we
got with the El Faro, which is right next to the Alameda Swap Meet, which is a
venue we used with Top Rank before we did a couple of real memorable
Telefutura shows.” Alcorta, who said that he has a television deal with the “Russia
2” network to distribute this show, added, “So we know the venue is a real
boxing-friendly venue and they want to do something on a regular basis. They
want to go at least every other month, so I think if we're able to schedule
ahead of time, this is going to be a regular venue where we can do a show at
least every other month next year.”
Local
club shows, often devoid of television money to fund these promotions at the
top levels of the sport, are the real essence of promoting. Every ticket,
sponsorship and ancillary cost is on the dime of the organizers. In major
metropolitan cities, there is still a market for boxing. The last two weekends
have shown that.
“Absolutely,
there's a real steady audience. People like boxing. If you give people a good
match, they're going to go. When you had [the rematch between] Cotto-Margarito,
there was a real big storyline there. There was some bad blood there and the
people came out and they paid their money to go out there to see it despite the
real bad economy or whatever they want to say or ‘Boxing's dead,’” said
Alcorta, alluding to the card that played to a sold-out Madison Square Garden
with over 20,000 patrons in the house.
This
past weekend saw over 9,000 fans in Washington D.C. when Lamont Peterson upset
Amir Khan. The reality is, for all that is said about boxing, people still go
to live shows. “Amir Khan was not really drawing well in Vegas because that
really wasn't his place to be. But they had a good B-side. They had Peterson,
who came to fight and he had a hometown. He had a fan base and they gave people
something they wanted.
“People
will show up for something they want to see.”
REF
In
the past I've referenced how more referees need to adopt the tact of Keith
Hughes, the third man in the ring when Andre Berto and Luis Collazo battled
tooth-and-nail back in 2009. Hughes played a large part in that fight being as
entertaining as it was by penalizing Berto early on for his bear-hugs on
Collazo. Hughes didn't do anything special except enforce the rules of the
sport and the spectators benefited from it.
Boxing
needs more referees like Hughes and Joe Cooper because, after all, this is the “Sweet
Science,” not the MMA.
CP3
FLURRIES
The
El Faro Discount Center is located at 4433 S. Alameda St. in Vernon, California
90058. Doors open at 7 PM on Friday with first bell scheduled at 8. Tickets are
$30 and $50. For more info, please call 323-233-2261...Lupe Contreras will be
the ring announcer for this show...The eighth season of “Broadway Boxing”
from DiBella Entertainment kicks off on Jan. 21st from the Roseland
Ballroom in New York and features NABF light welterweight titlist Gabriel “Tito”
Bracero...I give the Clippers credit. They went “all in” regarding Chris Paul.
If this works out for the Clips, David Stern has to be the runaway choice as the
NBA Executive of the Year...As for the Lakers, well, I'm not so sure what to
think...With all these juniors leaving Miami for the NFL Draft, it almost makes
it seem like the Hurricanes were better than 6-6 (unfortunately, they weren't) ”…The latest episode of “Maxboxing
Radio” featuring Corey Erdman and Yours Truly can be found right here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/maxboxingradio/2011/12/15/max-boxing-radio--december-14...
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