The Way I See It: 02.03.10: Oscar We Have A Problem!

Posted by Joe Roche on 02.03.2010

This week 411Boxing's Joe Roche takes aim at Golden Boy Promotions and we're not even dealing directly with that whole judging issue.

As I begin this column I'd like to assure you all that I am going to do my best to avoid the topic of judging, judges or scorecards. I know that there are other writer's on this site working on columns that deal with that particular black eye that seems to have become more prominent after the weekend and I'll avoid it for the time being. That being said there is a major problem brewing across the boxing landscape and it has nothing to do with the three individuals sitting on the outside of the ring – it has to do with Oscar De La Hoya, and more importantly with Golden Boy Promotions.

You can see how simple it would be to travel down the judging road and trust me this all winds up back on that subject in the end but for now let's forget about the judges for a minute and just try to get to the bottom of the GBP dilemma.



The Way I See It: Over the last two weeks there have been quite a few "major" fight announcements made. We've had John Ruiz – David Haye for the WBA World Heavyweight title on April 3rd, Bernard Hopkins – Roy Jones Jr. II for the AARP Fighter of the Year award, and Shane Mosley – Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the How Did We Get Here Bowl. Now other than Roy Jones Jr. every one of those fighters is represented in some way by the Golden Boy Promotions team, and frankly RJJ shouldn't even count because he represents himself and had absolutely ZERO leverage after his first round beating at the hands of Danny Green. Of course a handful of talented fighters under the same banner agreeing to meet in the ring isn't a surprise – in fact my interest did not begin to pique until I started hearing the unpleasantness going on in the rest of the boxing world.



Paulie Malignaggi and Gary Shaw appear to have formed the strangest alliance in recent memory as they both have aimed their vitriol at WBA world light welterweight champion Amir Khan. Malignaggi has a problem with Khan because allegedly the two sides had spoke about a Khan-Malignaggi fight but Paulie demanded a co-promotional contract while Khan's people held out and said that if Golden Boy didn't promote 100% of the show then the fight would not happen.

You can understand why Paulie would be a little skeptical of appearing on a wholly Golden Boy promoted card at this point. I know I said I wouldn't talk about judging but the last time Malignaggi put himself on a GBP card he was flown to Houston and taken advantage of to the point where I believe his life is being made into a movie starring an overweight African American girl. When the playing field became more level Paulie avenged himself and put the whole episode behind him – though I'm sure the thought of being placed in a similar predicament again gives him pause before he goes to sleep at night. He might be the "Magic Man" but he's seen the sleight of hand that the opposition has and there is no amount of card tricks in his arsenal to battle Gale Van Hoye and the Golden Boy sponsored officiating crew.



So Paulie's position is clear – that still leaves a little explanation due to Gary Shaw who if I may say so myself is a pleasant man who always seems eager to talk to the media…

I'm sorry I blacked out there for a minute --- what happened? Oh right Gary Shaw. According to Shaw he was in the midst of negotiating a super fight between Timothy Bradley the unbeaten WBO welterweight champion (and Gary Shaw promoted fighter) and Amir Khan. Shaw was in talks with Frank Warren about the fight and seemed pretty confident that the fight would get done, until the rug was pulled out from under him when Khan signed a promotional deal with GBP. According to Shaw he was told there was "absolutely no chance" "no way" that a fight would happen between Khan and Bradley.

According to some people the plan for Golden Boy was to match Khan up with Marcos Maidana (another Golden Boy promoted fighter) and that was the reason Khan would not fight Bradley or Malignaggi. Gary Shaw for his part said that a Maidana-Khan fight would never happen because Khan was afraid of Maidana just like he was afraid of Bradley (no word from Shaw if he thought Khan was afraid of Malignaggi). "He's scared of Maidana. He's scared of Tim Bradley. What champion do you know is willing to give up his title to fight someone else with no title? And I believe Amir Khan is a fraud. And I'll believe it until he accepts the challenge to fight Tim Bradley. Until that happens I will continue to say he's a fraud. We'll even go back to England to fight him so he feels comfortable, warm and fuzzy in his own country," said Shaw.



It should be mentioned at this point that a Khan-Maidana fight is not happening (at least not soon) as Maidana, the mandatory challenger to Khan's title is slated to face Victor Cayo on March 27th. For purposes of this article I will mention that Cayo is promoted by Warrior's Boxing – but the card on March 27th will be a Golden Boy doubleheader on HBO so if anything the fight only strengthens my feeling that something fishy is going on.

So if Khan isn't going to fight the mandatory WBA challenger for his belt, and he obviously won't be fighting Paulie Malignaggi or Timothy Bradley then where do we go from here? It appears as if there is talk of a Khan – Juan Manuel Marquez fight which would again be an all Golden Boy promoted show between two GBP fighters. The interesting thing about a Marquez match up that doesn't exist with the other guys on the card is that Marquez is at a perfect point in his career for Khan in that Marquez can lose a fight (by hook or by crook) and not suffer much with his fans, while still giving a quality win to Khan who Golden Boy is trying desperately to build up in the United States. It's a win/win scenario for Golden Boy which appears to be the only type of scenario that they're willing to engage in lately.

Frankly if boxing promotion was Elementary school Golden Boy Promotions would be getting a note sent home to their mother saying "does not play well with others." Still not convinced that something is amiss then how about this? Joan Guzman – Joel Casamayor, Victor Ortiz – Nate Campbell and Robert Guerrero – Michael Katsidis. Other than Katsidis not a non-GBP fighter in the group and the Guerrero-Katsidis fight is likely headed for March 27th on HBO, a GBP promoted fight which they will fully control and should be for the WBO lightweight title (due to Marquez fighting Khan presumably).

If nothing else doesn't it appear as if Golden Boy Promotions is doing everything in their power to make sure that they control all the angles when their fighters step into the ring? Why might that be you ask? Let me give you a couple examples…

- Juan Diaz – Paulie Malignaggi I

- Joan Guzman – Ali Funeka

- Gabriel Campillo – Beibut Shumenov II

Many people will see those fights and immediately think of three of the most unquestionably bad decisions in recent memory. What most will neglect to recognize is that all three of those fights came down with poor decisions in favor of Golden Boy Promotions fighters, on Golden Boy Promotions controlled cards.

While looking through the entire Golden Boy Promotions roster there is only one fighter that jumps to my mind that is involved in a fight not wholly controlled by his promotional company and that is Israel Vazquez. On May 22nd Vazquez will face Rafael Marquez for the fourth time in a fight that is being co-promoted by Gary Shaw and will be shown on Showtime. The only other fighter that I can even think of being allowed to fight outside the GBP banner was Librado Andrade when he fought Lucian Bute. There may be some who would argue that these two examples (out of many) show that GBP isn't protecting their fighters like I claim, however I'd take the opposite view point. Andrade and Vazquez aren't necessarily marketable stars, hell the only fight that is even out there for Vazquez is the 4th Marquez fight so there wasn't much of an option for GBP on that front. As for Andrade he really only had one choice in a fight as well – not to mention the fact that GBP just doesn't have a super middleweight division so there isn't much that can be done inter promotionally for him. Essentially GBP can't make money off those two fighters so they're allowed to go outside the banner to get a payday.

One interesting thing to note is that when the Super Six World Boxing Classic was announced and formed there was almost no discussion of Librado Andrade being considered for a spot in the tournament. Granted his name shouldn't have come up before many of the fighters mentioned for a spot in the tournament but I always thought that the reason GBP (and Top Rank) weren't involved in the Super Six was because they simply have no desire to work with outside companies.


- Sorry Golden Boy nothing to see here

Granted much of their sheltered personality comes from the deal that Golden Boy has with HBO. They're not in a very strong position to send fighters to other networks and as other promotional companies have deals with other networks (Gary Shaw) it becomes somewhat difficult to negotiate a deal. However, just because GBP can hide behind HBO doesn't mean that they're not hiding.

Does any of this circumstantial evidence prove that something is amiss in Golden Boy land? Of course not, it's nothing more then speculation and conjecture but if there is one thing that I've learned from the law it's that when there is smoke there is usually fire (although I might have learned that from G.I. Joe). However, the idea that GBP is only booking their fighters against other Golden Boy contracted fighters presents many problems for boxing in general not the least of which is that it raises the assumption that GBP is doing something that tip toes on wrong(ish).

If Golden Boy is unwilling to put together the best fights and co-promote the best shows then what are we left with? I hate the idea of a company holding their money (and the exposure that can be gained by their deal with HBO) over the heads of hungry fighters who may just be willing to sacrifice fairness in the name of making a paycheck. Paulie Malignaggi was in a no-win situation when he took the first fight with Juan Diaz because many people had written the "Magic Man's" career off – so he took a fight fully promoted by GBP and he paid for it. With his name rehabilitated though he didn't make the same mistake twice and he was successful. Ali Funeka has no bargaining power so he fought on a GBP card against Joan Guzman, dominated his opponent and still left without the belt that he had fought so hard for – and nobody cared to put Gabriel Campillo on television so he flew to Vegas and fought on a GBP card, he made some money on the fight but it cost him his championship.



Boxing as a sport is on the comeback trail – fueled in large part by the boxing community online the sport has seemed to be re-energized in the past few years and the only thing that can stop it is if companies resort to those things that got boxing blacklisted in the first place. If Golden Boy decides that making money is more important then putting on the best fights on an even playing field then boxing is no better then professional wrestling – except professional wrestlers know before the fight begins who is going to win or lose, in a Golden Boy era of boxing a fighter doesn't realize until the scorecards are read that he's been set up.

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The Way I See The Rest

- Wanted to take a moment to congratulate Jesse Brinkley not just for shutting up Curtis Stevens but also Teddy Atlas on Friday night. Atlas agreed that Brinkley would have a tough time getting out of the second round and boy was he wrong. Loads of credit should be given to Peter Manfredo Sr. who stuck with Brinkley (with Jr.'s blessing) even though his son was fighting on the same night. Manfredo Sr. is a great guy who I've met on multiple occasions and he does some of his best work with amateurs in Rhode Island. You can always tell when Peter is in the house because his voice can be heard over the crowd whenever he has a fighter in the ring.

- Between Ouma/Martirosyan, Brinkley/Stevens and Campillo/Shumenov II we're only a month into 2010 and we've had three potential Fight of the Year candidate's all on FREE television – it's a good time to be a boxing fan.

- I'm hearing that Edwin Rodriguez the undefeated middleweight prospect from Worcester, MA will be making his national television debut on March 19th on Friday Night Fights. Mark that date on the calendar folks because Edwin is a truly talented fighter and one of the best guys in all of boxing.

- Nice move to Showtime for airing Antonio DeMarco – Edwin Valero on Saturday. Nothing else to add I just love when fights I want to see get picked up by networks that I spend money to get. But to be on the record I predict that Valero wins by a mid/late round stoppage.

- It appears that Kevin Cunningham who represents Devon Alexander wants to be included in the junior welterweight throwdown as Alexander reminded everyone that Timothy Bradley refused to fight Alexander when he was the mandatory for the WBC title that Bradley held. Instead Bradley took a fight with Nate Campbell who didn't have a belt at the time. Alexander fights Juan Urango on March 6th at Mohegan Sun and if he wasn't represented by Don King I'd say we might see Alexander/Bradley in 2010 – but this will be Alexander's one fight this year so hey maybe April 2011?