Mayweather vs Cotto: Richard Schaefer Bashing Bob Arum, Selling Another Bad PPV
by Scott Christ on Feb 11, 2012 8:17 PM EST
in Boxing Commentary & Opinion
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Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions continues to bash Bob Arum, a hilarious bit of irony given the seniors' tour undercard he's putting together for Mayweather vs Cotto. Here's what he said to BoxingScene.com's Rick Reeno about his supposed super duper fantasti-card, which will feature a shot Shane Mosley and perhaps a functionally retired Winky Wright, making this the event of the year for 2004:
"I think you really have two pay-per-views wrapped in one. The fact is, Mayweather and Cotto is as big as a fight can be. It is clearly the most dangerous fight that Mayweather has had for a long time. It is clearly, I would say, the most dangerous since the De La Hoya fight. Cotto is coming off one of the biggest wins of his career, a demolition of Antonio Margarito. This is a fight that quite frankly you wouldn't need any undercard because people want to see it [and instead] you could just put a couple of tuneups [on the undercard] and you're done....like most other promoters probably would," Schaefer said.
This is coming from the genius who put together such enormous pay-per-view flops as "Action Heroes" (a whopping 50,000 buys) and Hopkins vs Dawson (an even worse 40,000) in 2011. This from the guy who promoted Hopkins vs Jones II as a pay-per-view, and Mosley vs Mora.
Yup. Only the best from the fan-first gentlemen at Golden Boy Promotions. That damn Bob Arum, ruining boxing.
In fact, if any single American promotional company has done more to put on awful pay-per-view shows than Golden Boy in the last few years, it would be news to me. I know it's fun to believe that damned Bob Arum is just the worst and Golden Boy is hip and fresh (and Noah's Arcade), but nobody has attempted to juice the audience with more crappy $50-70 shows than Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya.
I guess I could agree that Alvarez vs Mosley is more than a tune-up -- it's closer to a fraud than a tune-up, as they attempt to wring the remaining dirty water out of Shane Mosley's career by sacrificing a 40-year-old has-been fighter to a young star. It's nothing different than what they did with Alvarez against Cintron or Baldomir, except Shane Mosley was better than they were back when he was good and thus more famous.
In fact (again), there were four PPV shows in the last four months of 2011. Those shows were Mayweather vs Ortiz (Golden Boy), Hopkins vs Dawson (Golden Boy/Shaw Productions), Pacquiao vs Marquez (Top Rank), and Cotto vs Margarito II (Top Rank).
Be 100% honest: Where did you feel you got more bang for your buck?
Top Rank has put on stinker pay-per-views, too, of course, and honestly the worst (by far) pay-per-view undercard I ever saw in my life was when the two companies got together for De La Hoya vs Pacquiao. But this act Golden Boy (Oscar is even worse than Schaefer) runs where they pretend they're different than everyone else has grown exceptionally tired.
Since I don't care about Oscar De La Hoya taking a page from the Dana White playbook and revoking credentials to anyone who dares criticize his special company (which he's so in touch with that he didn't know where Peterson-Khan II was being held (he later claimed he "got confused"), I'll just go ahead and say that they do nothing differently than anyone, and they sell you the same crap that everyone else sells you.
To Schaefer, Alvarez vs Mosley is a pay-per-view main event in 2012. And that's part of the problem. He'd love to sell you that thing on its own, gouge you for a little more money. Maybe he should, and hope for it to be the rousing success of so many other recent Golden Boy "blockbusters."
Lucky for Schaefer, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Miguel Cotto and Canelo Alvarez should carry this into being a strong PPV success, even if he fills the undercard with the usual fodder, as he clearly intends.
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Awesome examples of Golden Boy PPV undercard superstars since 2008:
Jose Miguel Cotto (twice)
Carlos Baldomir
Cornelius Lock
Jeff Resto
Orlando Cruz
Vivian Harris
Sergio Medina
Victor Lares
Joel Casamayor (2010)
Rocky Juarez (repeatedly)
Yeah totally. Different game at GBP. No “tune-ups” here, punks!
I won’t count Orlando Lora since Shaw put him on that show against Malignaggi.
Bad Left Hook
"The internet has undermined professionalism in journalism, which is a good thing." - Bill James
also
frankly
Malignaggi in 2011 (twice)
Bad Left Hook
"The internet has undermined professionalism in journalism, which is a good thing." - Bill James
by Scott Christ on Feb 11, 2012 8:29 PM EST up reply actions
You must be on Top Rank's payroll
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer"
---- Muhammed Ali
by pakinpower on Feb 11, 2012 8:45 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
card of the year in 2004
Fuck yeah I was broke most of 04
cue glory days
this is gonna be great
He knows the guy with the bandage on his ass is going no were. Were you going fucking no were
by Elstriko on Feb 12, 2012 12:45 AM EST via Android app reply actions
“Selling Another Bad PPV”
okay i’ll be honest here, i got into boxing because of this site, but it doesn’t sit right with me that you’d call this a bad ppv. Mayweather is a huge star, and so is cotto. It seems that cotto will have as good a chance as anyone at the weight they are fighting.
by calling this a bad ppv doesn’t feel right… canelo needs to fight shane, he wants to be a bigger star, this isn’t the main event. i may have learned from you that sugar has little chance, but i know that people will want to see this fight. sugar lost to the 2 best in the world and has aged a lot i understand that. but u also must understand that canelo needs that fight, and it was going to happen, and it just gives casual fans another big star to care about. it should feel like a party atmosphere…not a funeral.
I’ve heard you say on here that you thought Cotto was as good of an opponent as anybody. So why the bad ppv remark? It comes off a bit as you buying into mayweather being the one blocking the manny fight but we can’t be sure of that nobody knows, and from what we say from arum, it could very well be arum blocking it and mayweather just getting pissed off and saying he’ll no longer take the split out of anger..because he’s dumb with that shit.
quote of the week:: Miesha Tate - "She better keep that pretty little chin tucked if she doesn't want to wake up with the lights in her eyes."
Here here minister Robespierre
it should feel like a party atmosphere…not a funeral.
Where should we deposit his head?
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer"
---- Muhammed Ali
canelo needs to fight shane
Completely false.
i know that people will want to see this fight.
There are also people who whooped and hollered while Demetrius Andrade whacked a guy with health problems in the head until he crumpled, moaning, on Friday Night Fights. Many congratulated Vanes Martirosyan for beating the piss out of Troy Lowry. People want to see Transformers and Twilight movies, too, and they still suck.
it just gives casual fans another big star to care about.
Yeah, they keep saying things like this, but the truth is the PPV needle moves for the main event. Canelo Alvarez may have some impact on the sales here, but it probably wouldn’t matter whether he was fighting Mosley (which sucks) or Delvin Rodriguez (which would be a good fight).
The undercards have had no effect on sales in any of the Pacquiao/Mayweather era PPV shows, and that’s whether or not they try to load them up with good fights (it’s happened sometimes) or they just completely ignore it and give us crap (more often than not).
So what they’re giving you instead of something decent is something they can be the absolute most positive is basically a “controlled environment.” How is that sporting? Wouldn’t you prefer something better?
I’ve also heard that Winky Wright is a big name. So’s Tommy Hearns, let’s stick him out there, too.
I’ve heard you say on here that you thought Cotto was as good of an opponent as anybody. So why the bad ppv remark?
Because I personally give a shit about more than the main event, even though frankly most people do not. And by most I mean an overwhelming majority. Mayweather-Cotto is fine. Alvarez-Mosley is a farce. Winky Wright coming back as part of the show I’m paying money to sit through is disturbing.
It comes off a bit as you buying into mayweather being the one blocking the manny fight
This belief of yours appears to have been conjured out of thin air, as no other explanation is even reasonable.
Bad Left Hook
"The internet has undermined professionalism in journalism, which is a good thing." - Bill James
by Scott Christ on Feb 12, 2012 2:07 AM EST up reply actions
Scott has already answered all your points, which were quite weak to begin with, but this needs emphasis: This is not a bad card, it’s a travesty of a card. Although nothing is sure in boxing, I’d say I’m 99.9% sure that there is nothing Mosley can do to even bother Canelo a little bit at this point of his life. Furthermore, they could have found a better fight for Canelo… anywhere really. I know Scott bashes the Canelo/Cintron fight regularly (and with good reason), but honestly, Cintron had a 500% chance more of having a re-birth than Mosley. Furthermore, compounding this card with WINKY WRIGHT is just…unbelievable. Seriously, it’s like Schaefer and De la Hoya were literally looking to put on a Seniors Tour. It’s like they dreamt this “dream” card of old men. I’m still waiting to see which old man they stick in the first spot of the card.
If you only care about name value, then I’m sorry to say you’re nothing but the kind of fan that these sleazy promoters pander to and you’re an integral part of the problem.
This conversation is about Schaefer selling a PPV package
Not about Floyd. Your comment below suggesting that any criticism of the promotion is a shot at Floyd reveals a predisposition that further undermines the rest of your otherwise weak argument.
It comes off a bit as you buying into mayweather being the one blocking the manny fight
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer"
---- Muhammed Ali
I think this boils down to...
People are going to buy Manny or Floyd PPVs no matter what the undercards are. So they can keep their second tier guys safe, until they get their own PPV. This is the era of big money and low risk. I dunno when we will return to the days when competitive fights where more plentiful on all skill levels.
Well, yeah, people will buy it – but this article isn’t debating that; it’s calling Golden Boy out on the pitiful rubbish it consistently serves to people.
"Occasionally, there is a boxing match that, in its demonstration of skill, courage, intelligence, hope, seems to redeem the sport - almost. Perhaps boxing has always been a sport in crisis, a sport of crisis."
by Oli Goldstein on Feb 12, 2012 5:15 AM EST up reply actions
And that’s the reason for the rubbish. I think the way they see it is, why put on 100% great show, when probably 90% of the viewers only care about the main event. They majority of the people who are going to view this will because of Floyd. Except for the Mexican fans and boxing fans I don’t think Canelo is still that well known, so why risk him getting beat in front of millions before he turns into a ‘boxing star.’
And sense Ortiz and Khan kinda dropped the ball lately, it kinda makes business sense to coddle whats left of their prospects.
Or they could remame themselves
Lower Rank.
No… this is more an article about self-righteousness than it is about the undercard itself, which sucks. If GB had simply gone into businness with a pronounced mission to be a good promoter, Scott wouldn’t have bothered with the titles of these leads.
But They didn’t. They claimed to be saving Boxing from your the likes of King and Arum; a goal to which their accomplishments reveal no conviction or efforts whatsoever.
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer"
---- Muhammed Ali
Golden Boy is one of the more delusional outfits I've ever seen.
Amidst all the promises to change boxing, to bring the fights to the fans, to do something – anything – differently, they just deliver repeated rubbish. It is, as Scott says, a tired act. De La Hoya is one of the more inane characters out there.
"Occasionally, there is a boxing match that, in its demonstration of skill, courage, intelligence, hope, seems to redeem the sport - almost. Perhaps boxing has always been a sport in crisis, a sport of crisis."
I think they sometimes put on good shows for World Championship Boxing on HBO type stuff: Ortiz/Maidana, Khan/Maidana, Khan/Peterson, etc. But their PPVs suck ass.
Ortiz/Maidana
This wasn’t meant to be competitive, or the main event. They occasionally walk ass backwards into something good. that fight, Maidana-Morales, etc.
Which is better than not walking into it at all, of course.
Bad Left Hook
"The internet has undermined professionalism in journalism, which is a good thing." - Bill James
by Scott Christ on Feb 12, 2012 5:58 PM EST up reply actions
Talk about ass backwards
Ortiz ….. Berto.
They were cashing in and feeding the kid to the lions when he suddenly shocked them into realizing they had something of value.
So then the threw him in with floyd for good measure.
Their talent management is wanting. As is their match-making.
Khan is another example IMO. Having a bright marketable star fight in Lamont Peterson in Washington DC was like putting ODLH in Norfolk VA against Pernell Whitaker. Stupid.
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer"
---- Muhammed Ali
bull shit, schaeffer is such a loud mouthed prick. i just wish we could get back to ppv cards worth buying with undercards to match (dont get me wrong im hyped for mayweather/cotto and even to an extent pac/bradley but undercards always let these events down)
but, again, that was another one where the promoter walked into it, as Scott says because that was not meant to be competitive at all
fair point, though my borther also pointed out to me some other promising upcoming cards such as alexander v maidana with broner’s tricky undercard bout and morales v garcia with the kirkland v molina undercard but i suppose since these arent massive cards like a mayweather or pacquaio card it doesn’t really count lol
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