Mandatory Eight Count - Empty Seats in the Past, Empty Seats in the Future
by Brickhaus on Dec 2, 2010 9:05 AM EST
in Boxing News Analysis
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Devon Alexander to face Timothy Bradley Jr. Jan. 29 at Silverdome | ESPN
Almost two months after junior welterweight titleholders Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley Jr. signed to fight each other in the first major fight of 2011, the bout finally found a home in Pontiac, Michigan. This is one of the more ludicrous fight locations I've seen in a while, even if it will be set up to only hold 15,000. Dirrell-Abraham tanked miserably in Detroit, and that involved a hometown fighter. To top it off, Gary Shaw is more of a TV promoter than a get butts in seats guy. Sticking this fight someplace with a lot of seats seems like it's just a really bad idea if the fight is anywhere but St. Louis.
Manny Pacquiao: Manny Pacquiao to fight — well, someone — on April 16 | latimes.com
According to Lance Pugmire, Manny Pacquiao's advisors have already set his next fight date and location, on April 16 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This doesn't necessarily mean much - Bob Arum routinely reserves the MGM Grand many months in advance, and the last time he did so, Pacquiao in fact ended up fighting Joshua Clottey in Dallas instead. Arum also maintains that if Floyd Mayweather doesn't show interest, then Juan Manuel Marquez, Shane Mosley and Andre Berto remain the candidates for the fight.
November was a blockbuster boxing month, where were the fans? | Boxing Experts Blog - Yahoo! Sports
Steve Cofield wonders why attendance was so poor at a number of major fights this November. Perhaps having no major fights for months, and bunching all of them together within a month of each other, had something to do with it. Also, perhaps some of them just aren't that great of fights. 4000+ to watch a Ward-Bika fight with no discernible undercard that was available for free on TV is a pretty darn good number, in my opinion.
Dereck Chisora has a mountain to climb to restore public faith in British boxing | Mail Online
A nice fluff piece about Dereck Chisora and his upcoming bout against Wladimir Klitschko. Del Boy says he regrets his prior controversial incidents (domestic violence, biting opponents, etc). He also says he's getting paid "crap money" (about £200,000) and he does have a three-fight deal, should he win, where he would next need to fight Vitali.
Juan Manuel Marquez and Michael Katsidis trade punches, then shoes | Dan Rafael's Blog
An interesting little story about the level of respect between Juan Manuel Marquez and Michael Katsidis. After their fight, the two met up, traded autographed shoes from the fight and hung out for a while, despite having just pounded on each other for nine rounds.
Willie Casey refuses to rest on his laurels | Limerick Leader
Willie Casey has confirmed he is set to return to the ring just five weeks after winning the European super bantamweight title. This should be a warm up for his fight against Kiko Martinez, but there are swirling rumors that Casey may vacate to fight Guillermo Rigondeaux for the interim title he just won. This sets up a couple of interesting plot lines. Casey is one of the 14 fighters who Freddie Roach continues to train (after cutting the size of his roster in half), while Rigondeaux used to be trained by Roach but the two split up about six months ago. I doubt Roach lets the 14-0 Irishman in the ring with Rigondeaux unless he thinks that Casey's balls-to-the-wall style would seriously fluster and possibly overwhelm the extremely tentative Rigondeaux.
Broadway Boxing Results From NYC: Bracero Triumphs | Boxing Scene
In Wednesday night results, Gabriel Bracero stayed undefeated, beating recent whipping boy Hector Allatore by wide decision. Also winning was Tor Hamer, who took on chinchecker Demetrice King.
Hatton Boxing: The Hitman Tips Vassell For Big Things | Saddo Boxing
Ricky Hatton has revealed that Commonwealth welterweight champion Denton Vassell is helping him fall back in love with boxing. Quoth Ricky, who compared Vassell to Mike Tyson "I like Denton a lot and I am convinced he is going to become an elite fighter over the next 18 months." Sure Ricky. At least he seems to have this whole promotion thing down, but if he gets too deep into hyperbole, people will start to forget what a likable fighter he was and start to view him just like any other smarmy promoter.
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Steve Cofield wonders why attendance was so poor at a number of major fights this November.
Recession.
"All the time he's boxing, he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him." - Jack Dempsey
november means spending money on thanksgiviving and buying stuff for the forthcoming xmas.
virtually all the fights in november went how they were supposed to go.
seriously. none of the fights had much chance of going other than how anyone who follows boxing thought they would go. ward grinded out a tough/earned decision over bika, i’d froch surprised me with how good he looked over abraham, guillermo did what i knew he would, ,erislandy….JMM did what i thought he would (great fight, i’ll always watch those 2 guys fight, just as a fan, period).
i dunno, just not fights that intrigued me other than seeing Ward improve his skill set and watching JMM and Katsidis go to war with one another.
Gatti. Dekkers. Pele. Aoki. Kang. Vanderlei. Basillio. Harry Greb.
by theworldsoldestsport on Dec 2, 2010 11:47 AM EST up reply actions
I was going to do something on the location for Alexander-Bradley yesterday, but then I thought, why bother? They’ll be lucky to get 5,000 fans and it’s going to look pathetic. The Silverdome is a run-down dump that nobody wants to go to, Bradley and Alexander have zero name value in Detroit, and Detroit itself is not a boxing city just because it used to be. Chicago would have been a good choice, actually. They could have done, I dunno, 8,000 or so at a more intimate venue, with enough people driving up from St. Louis for the fight, and Chicago’s actually got a boxing fanbase and local promoters could have been called on to help assist in spreading the word. King and Shaw really made a terrible, terrible choice here. They might as well have put the fight in Guam. At this point in time, the people of Michigan could not care less about boxing. UFC recently did pretty well in the Detroit area but UFC is roughly ten million times more well-known than Tim Bradley or Devon Alexander.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Dec 2, 2010 10:45 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
4000+ to watch a Ward-Bika fight with no discernible undercard that was available for free on TV is a pretty darn good number, in my opinion
Yeah…well. It wasn’t 4,100 paid, let’s put it that way. But at least it was a rowdy crowd. Vegas was flat dead for some real good fights (Marquez-Katsidis, Lopez-Marquez).
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
part of the vegas problem is the economy
there aren’t that many people in vegas right now in general.
by journeyintosound on Dec 2, 2010 10:57 AM EST up reply actions
yep
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Dec 2, 2010 11:01 AM EST up reply actions
well, or Floyd
I mean he doesn’t sell out (he’s a TV guy, honestly, and that’s fine) but he does pretty well, certainly a hell of a lot better than anyone else has lately.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
Floyd’s a TV guy. Floyd isn’t a big live attraction. Manny has him beat there.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
I believ Manny is better for live business in the casinos these past years than Floyd
Hence the goal of returning to Vegas soon.
Define star power?
For the fact that there were a ton of awesome fights and he still brought in 4,000 when most people were with their families, its incredible. If you make this “well he can’t draw outside of Oakland,” its just ignorant. Floyd can’t draw without 24/7, Cotto can’t draw outside of NY & Puerto Rico Day Parade, Kessler can’t draw out of Europe/Denmark, Klitschkos can’t draw outside of Germany/Ukraine/Russia, AA can’t draw in the United States, the list goes on. Everyone has their gimmicks to draw people and Ward can draw peeps in Oakland. If he was given the 24/7 treatment and a big name opponent like Bute, and he can easily sell out Oracle Arena.
"The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register."
-Bob Verdi
What the hell is this mystical “Star Power”? Is this some fictional thing that you can only put Pacman and Floyd in because they can generate ridiculous PPV numbers?
"The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register."
-Bob Verdi
Ward has done about “7,000” for most of his recent fights, and that “4,000” was pretty papered, dude. It’s time for him to hit the road.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
Worst case scenario, the S6 finals will be in Vegas
Someone was arguing that Andre Ward is starting to become the US version of Sven Ottke, and I couldn’t really argue too much there (especially considering that Ottke’s ‘robbery’ decisions didn’t start coming until very late in his career).
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
I'm not trying to argue that Ward is some huge star
But honestly who else in the US can draw more than 7,000 in an arena pretty much by himself? Cotto, Mosley, Adamek (maybe)……who else? Hopkins? Pavlik?
Don’t think there is too much of a problem with Ward fighting in Oakland and building a fanbase, but the Super Six finals should be at a neutral site.
"The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register."
-Bob Verdi
Adamek can definitely draw that much
Adamek-Grant had 9,000 people there, and I guarantee you that nearly every ticket was paid.
Devon Alexander in St. Louis is another one. Juan Diaz in Houston. Cris Arreola in LA. Not that they’ve tried, but I’d be willing to bet that Juan Manuel Lopez could pull those numbers now, as he’s sold out 5k seat MSG Theater a couple times now. I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that’s about what Peter Manfredo pulls in for his fights in CT/RI.
Probably not Hopkins though. I don’t think Hopkins-Calzaghe even sold 7k tickets.
So yeah, there aren’t many of them.
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
And while they don't pull in quite that much
Jesse Brinkley and Jimmy Lange are really solid draws in Reno and NoVA, respectively.
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
How have Judah’s last two fights done in Newark?
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Dec 3, 2010 11:49 AM EST up reply actions
I think reasonably well
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
He’s probably built that fanbase as much as it’s going to be built right now is all I’m saying. He might be better served to hit the road, win a couple more big fights, and have a “homecoming” as an established star outside of Oakland.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Dec 3, 2010 11:52 AM EST up reply actions
Isn’t that what the finals of the Super Six should hopefully do?
"The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register."
-Bob Verdi
hopefully, yes
I know I’ve said I’m not his biggest fan, but I like watching him fight and think he’s the sort of guy who can become a star. I hope he does. I just think for the time being that Oakland is probably milked as far as it’s going to be milked, and Ward is so good he doesn’t need home field. If he were doing Bute numbers in Oakland, I’d understand more, but he’s not and I don’t think he’s going to solely by continuing to fight and win there.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
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