A long time ago (a lifetime, seemingly) Curtis “50
Cent” Jackson, rapper, entrepreneur and now boxing promoter, once laced them up
himself as a Junior Olympics hopeful. It’s all part of the constant evolution
of a man in perpetual, positive motion.
“I competed a long time ago as an amateur,” 50 told
Maxboxing.com’s Radio Rahim during a media day to inaugurate his career as a
boxing promoter (See video embedded on this page - Press play). On hand was Yuriorkis Gamboa,
Jackson’s top fighter, who appears on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan
Manuel Marquez IV this Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV. “I kind of
got distracted and went across the street and got into the wrong things. Once
they told me how to fight, I was a little more comfortable over there. But now
I am having the opportunity to live vicariously through the fighters I
represent. I try to stay in shape doing portions of the workouts. You see how
hard these guys work. You’d fall out if you see what they are actually doing.”
Gamboa would display exactly what Jackson was
talking about later on in the day. The meantime was all 50 as he worked the
room, giving extended time to reporters, playfully answering questions and
skillfully avoiding a few with a clever quip or a knowing smile. If first
impressions are the most important, this initial glimpse into boxing life with
50 Cent was as good a first look as they get.
“[I’m here] to make exciting fights and I am lucky
to be associated with fighters that are willing to take the tough fights,” said
Jackson, who also represents IBF featherweight titlist Billy Dib and Andre
Dirrell.
Jackson’s SMS Promotions was initially intended to
be a joint venture with Floyd Mayweather Jr. called “The Money Team,” a name first
appearing as a Twitter hashtag take on Mayweather’s “Money” nickname. But the
two men recently had a falling out seemingly over Mayweather’s refusal to leave
his adviser Al Haymon in favor of going into business with Jackson and another
associate. Jackson expressed concern for Mayweather’s financial well-being,
telling one reporter about a pattern he observed that saw Mayweather only
making money through fighting. He worried his friend would end up like so many
boxers do when the paychecks end. Still, he appeared to bear no ill will toward
Mayweather.
“That’s my brother,” said Jackson. “Competitors?
We’d be competitors if he was fighting Gamboa. I’d be more upset at him for not
calling me if his son breaks his arm than deciding not to be financially
involved in our business venture because Gamboa, he retains his value. Andre
Dirrell, the same. You could feel he had done something wrong if he had made
you invest in something that was worth nothing or had no knowledge of. And who
should you blame at that point? You should probably blame yourself for not
making yourself aware of what you were investing in.”
Soon after publicly announcing on his Twitter feed that
he would go it alone professionally as a boxing promoter, Jackson (licensed in
both New York and Nevada to promote fights) went at it with Mayweather a few
days later in a much-publicized 140-character war that got personal before it
got friendly. Jackson confused Twitter followers and boxing fans alike by
seemingly taking back the fight and declaring the two men friends. The mea
culpa further confused the public as to what was really going on.
“Oh, they shouldn’t be confused. I can say anything
about Floyd Mayweather. I don’t know what they talking about. Don’t you say
nothing about Floyd Mayweather while I’m standing there; you get it?” clarified
Jackson.
There are many arts within the promotional world
that a successful fight promoter must master. The arts of media manipulation,
matchmaking and its many facets from building, sustaining and extending a
fighter’s career to creating fighters that can fight and draw large audiences
take years to learn. As Golden Boy Promotions likely learned in the last two
weeks with the defeats of established franchises Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto
against fighters a more experienced promoter would have never matched aging and
lucrative stars against, it’s difficult to protect an established brand so it
yields the highest return on the investment.
“With Miguel Cotto, you don't sell out or have big
attendance by accident. You work it,” said Top Rank founder Bob Arum, referring
to this past weekend’s Austin Trout-Miguel Cotto fight at Madison Square
Garden. The Puerto Rican Olympian Cotto spent a career under the Top Rank
banner, being built as a draw in New York’s Puerto Rican-rich population. This
weekend was his eighth time at the Garden as well as his first loss in the
legendary venue. Cotto, who co-promoted the event with Golden Boy Promotions,
lost to a style in Trout’s that is all wrong for him. At age 32, with years of
wars under his belt, fighting a taller, quicker, southpaw with a movement-based
style could not have been a worse decision for Cotto considering he was setting
up a lucrative May 4, 2013 showdown with Mexican star Saul Alvarez.
“This will also be the smallest attendance since we
broke him in at the Garden,” predicted Arum. That first fight against Muhammad
Abdullaev drew a little over 10,000 people. The announced crowd for Trout-Cotto
was 13,096. A club report breaking down all the numbers of the tickets sold,
comped, etc. was not available at press time. Last year at this time, Cotto
faced off against archrival Antonio Margarito, who had basically one good eye
and a terrible reputation. The two men drew 21,239 to the Garden in Cotto’s last
Top Rank fight. Granted, with Hurricane Sandy devastating much of the East Coast,
sales would inevitably be down. At the same time, Golden Boy made a key mistake
in pricing the tickets exactly like Cotto-Margarito II, except involving two
fighters with much more brand recognition and a built-in storyline.
“[Golden Boy Promotions] don’t know how to work it,”
said Arum. “[Golden Boy CEO Richard] Schaefer, he doesn't have the knowledge
and experience that is necessary. He does everything cookie cutter. For
example, this Saturday, he has a press lunch in New York at Gallagher's for Zab
Judah and [WBC junior welterweight titlist Danny] Garcia. Now it is one thing
to do it in Vegas with all the media there and you give them a good lunch and
then they go up to their room then come down and cover the fight.
“You’re in New York,” Arum continued. “The writers live
in New Jersey or…it takes them quite a bit of time to get to New York. So you
are expecting them to come in for a lunch, go back home, and that's like two
hours and then come back for the fight. They're not going to do it. They're not
going to do it. Why doesn't [Schaefer] ask somebody? [They] do things stupidly
because they work in Las Vegas.”
At age 81, Arum sees in Jackson someone who can help
him and his company grow into the future and understand a market his company
has historically not thrived in: the young African-American market.
“I think it is a real good plus for boxing because
[Jackson] has the ability to attract another demographic, the urban market. And
that is something to a great extent we are lacking in boxing,” said Arum. “If
through his efforts, we can energize that urban market given the popularity of
boxing among Hispanics and Filipinos, now we have something that really can't
be stopped. It will be absolutely huge.”
Most fight fans will hold it against Arum’s
promotional prowess that he allowed Floyd Mayweather Jr., the biggest star in
boxing, get away from him in the first place. Before they split, following
Mayweather’s first pay-per-view fight against Arturo Gatti, Floyd asked for a
match with Oscar De la Hoya, asking for upwards of $20 million for the fight.
Arum refused, saying, at the time, the money just wasn’t there. When they
finally squared off on May 5, 2007, the junior middleweight match broke
pay-per-view records and instantly made “Money” the biggest star in the sport not named Manny Pacquiao.
“The point is that, to a large extent, we didn't
know,” ceded Arum in hindsight. “In other words, we were able early to see the
Hispanic situation and to learn how to promote to the Hispanics, coming from an
era where most of the fighters were black like [Muhammad] Ali and all the
heavyweights. Or you had [Sugar Ray] Leonard, Tommy [Hearns] and Marvin
[Hagler], we were marketing to a white audience even though they were black
fighters. Then when the white audience fell off and you had to figure out how
to reach the black audience, we didn't have the knowledge or the feel to do it.
We didn't understand that market which Floyd instinctively did.”
Beyond that “urban,” “black” or “African-American”
market, however you want to label it, it’s the young white male market that’s lost
to MMA (generally) and UFC (specifically). With boxing programs in high school
and college either extinct or few and far between (though wrestling programs in
nearly every school are quite prominent), the battle for the young, white
violence enthusiast may be a losing battle.
“The youth market is in boxing with Hispanics and
Filipinos and to some extent with African-Americans,” said Arum. “That's where
the upside is, with young African-Americans. As far as white young people,
that's going to be a more difficult battle. And in order to reach and get more
white Anglos paying attention to boxing, we are going to have to find a way to
develop Anglo talent. That’s what we are doing. We have some very good white
fighters that Cameron Dunkin is bringing in to us like Trevor McCumby and
Mikael Zewski and, hopefully, we will be able to build on that.”
A big part of building a draw is familiarity. Train
the local audience to come see your guy and build a relationship with him and
they will follow. But in order to be successful, fights have to carefully
manufactured. Audiences don’t just show up because you have a casino and a TV
date. As they say in business, it’s all about location, location, location.
“They don't know what they are doing,” said Arum of
Golden Boy, who so far has put Chad Dawson-Bernard Hopkins in Los Angeles, Garcia-Morales
II in Brooklyn, Robert Guerrero-Andre Berto in Ontario and are looking to do
Kell Brook vs. Devon Alexander in Las Vegas. All of these are fights that make
no sense when relating the fighters to the venues. “We know what we're doing or
we try and we work hard at it. We don't make these crazy decisions they make.
We would never take a Berto-Guerrero and put it in Ontario. What the f**k are
they doing in Ontario? It makes no sense at all. Or what are they doing…they
announced Kell Brook and the Alexander fight. Now where are they putting it? In
Vegas. Vegas, like who gives a sh*t? We have nobody in Vegas to sell tickets
to. We have people who want to come in and watch the fight. [Kell Brook?]
Nobody ever heard of him. And Alexander? Nobody wants to hear of him. It just
makes no sense. Two places for that fight or else you don't do it: One is the
United Kingdom or, two, St. Louis.”
Beyond criticizing the competition, Arum looks
forward to teaching this new addition to the boxing world what he can about the
art of promotion. And Jackson looks to learn what he can. Observing him
interacting all day with the media, locking in with each interviewer and
engaging everyone around him with eye contact and a genuine smile (or when he
shuts out the world to focus in on his fighter as he worked), it was obvious
why Jackson has been such a multi-platform success. He takes genuine care in
what he does.
“Bob Arum is an 800-pound gorilla. We’re talking
about Top Rank,” said Jackson. “You see Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Cotto, Manny
Pacquiao, Timothy Bradley, they all have one thing in common. That’s Top Rank.
They have a better farming system and they actually invest in the future.”
As he learns from a master boxing promoter, one has
to wonder what changes this master self-promoter will bring to a game that,
more often than not, changes people for the worse. Time will tell.
“What you won’t see is fighters saying ‘50 took all
the money,’ because that’s what you saw in the past,” promised Jackson. “This
is not my sole source of income. This is really me being a part of boxing
because I’m passionate about it. I look forward to make the best possible
fights and bringing the excitement that you actually want to see.”
Who knows how long 50 Cent will stay in the game?
From the sound of things, as long as he likes.
If nothing else, maybe he’ll
get Gamboa a guest spot on wax…
.
