They used to gripe that he was giving his fighters soft touches. They used to complain that his better boxers weren’t swapping punches with each other.
They moaned how he was the shotcaller for HBO Boxing.
Now, in the wake of the artistic if not (yet) financial success of Premier Championship Boxing on various TV platforms, it’s hard to decipher why the (Al) Haymon Haytas keep on hating.
Maybe it’s a habit the moaners and groaners can’t shake.
You don’t see Haymon taking any public bows, not his style, but you have to search the memory bank for as solid a card as the PBC show held Saturday night (NBC) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
There’s fresh news that Haymon Guy Adrien Broner is calling out stablemate Danny Swift Garcia and that’s an indicator of more solid rumbles like we saw between Garcia and Lamont Peterson and Peter Kid Chocolate Quillin and Irish Andy Lee.
The quality of these rousing bouts is mainly attributable to one heretofore unseen factor.
The “secret sauce” for the Haymon Troupe is not a secret anymore.
On any given Saturday afternoon or night, anyone of them can beat anyone else.
None of his top guys, with the possible lone exception of Keith Thurman, is a genuine superstar. None of them, including Thurman at this stage, is at the lofty level of Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao.
Which makes fights between the not so motley crew all the more intriguing.
What would you rather watch, the Hayman Heroes colliding, or some junk like Amir Khan against Chris Algieri?
PBC is giving the boxing public what it wants, fights in which the “B Side” can and will sometimes beat the “A Side.”
It helps that most of them, with obvious weaknesses, are “B Side’ types.
Let me say something else about Haymon.
History will record Floyd and Manny as cementing their May 2 showdown, an event the media and fans have been salivating over for six long years, and that is somewhat true.
But two guys on the planet could’ve derailed Mayweather-Pacquiao.
One is named Haymon, the other is Bob Arum.
Not that they did anything for philanthropic reasons but you get the point.
As for the wolf pack of Haymon Haytas, you need to look for a new target.
