Last year Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer spoke openly of forming a strategic partnership with the Anschutz Entertainment Group – which owns various sports franchises and venues across the land – and it looks like the union between the two is coming together.
“We’re going to have ‘May Madness’; we’re going to have back-to-back, two, two-punch combinations from Los Angeles,” Schaefer would tell Maxboxing on Monday night. “May 20th, Staples Center with Marco Antonio Barrera and Rocky Juarez and then Jorge Barrios against Janos Nagy, and most likely we’re going to have our two new guys from the Philippines, Rey Bautista and Z Gorres.”
The next week, GBP, will hold another nationally televised show from a different AEG property.
“May 27th, the following weekend is going to be from the Home Depot Center. We’re going to be doing an HBO ‘Boxing After Dark’ which will have Jhonny Gonzalez versus Fernando Montiel and Kassim Ouma and Marco Antonio Rubio,” said Schaefer. The Home Depot Center in Carson, California, is the home to ‘The Galaxy’ soccer club, which is owned by AEG.
A rematch between Shane Mosley and Fernando Vargas, penciled in for mid-July, could wind up at the Staples Center.
“With these fights, when it’s signed, it’s done. It’s not signed, yet,” Schaefer pointed out. “But we’re very close on getting it done. So it’s going to get done for July 15th. We’re still looking at whether it’s going to be in Los Angeles or Las Vegas.”
For Golden Boy, which is Oscar De La Hoya’s company and run on a day-to-day basis by Schaefer, Los Angeles is more than just a home base of operations.
“The Los Angeles market is one of the key markets for boxing; it’s a key Hispanic market,” he states. “So whenever you have a city with that kind of demographic, with a large Hispanic population, it usually translates into a large fan base. So Los Angeles is absolutely one of the key cities for Golden Boy Promotions. But not only for Golden Boy Promotions, for any boxing promotional company, irrespective of where they are based, Los Angeles is a very important market.”
AEG also owns other venues such as the Toyota Sports Center, and books sporting events for the Forum. Golden Boy Promotions is hoping to have a more regular boxing schedule on their properties.
“That is something that we are hopefully working out in the next few weeks. I really admire the Anschutz Group and the kind of assets they have, and the kind of business philosophy we have and they have. They’re very similar. I admire people like that and it’s a pleasure to work with people like that. They really know sports, they know the venues, they really are the perfect partner for us,” Schaefer remarked.
With AEG group owning four soccer teams, he sees vast opportunities for cross promoting the two products.
“The fan base for soccer is very similar to the demographics in boxing,” said Schaefer. “There is a cross-promotion to the fans, the season ticket holders, and there are cross-promotions at basically every level. It’s good for boxing and it’s good for them as well because they can offer their content to their season ticket holders, which fits the demographic profile of these season seat holders.”
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
It’s my understanding that the Barrera-Juarez fight could’ve taken place in Juarez’s hometown of Houston, Texas at Reliant Stadium (home of the Houston Texans and the 2005 Super Bowl). In fact, they may have made an offer that was significantly better than the one made by Staples Center, with around a million bucks being offered.
It seemed like a good fit, Barrera a Mexican legend, in a city with the second highest concentration of Mexican nationals in the United States (behind only Los Angeles), fighting a local fighter.
But I hear that Barrera wasn’t keen on fighting a Texan in the Lone Star State, especially in light of the Paulie Ayala-Hugo Dianzo decision from a few years back and his loss to Manny Pacquiao there in 2003. Also Juarez – who Barrera deems as much more of a threat than Mzonke Fana – has expressed in the past that he’s not entirely comfortable fighting at home.
It’s a shame, because in the past Texas has hosted some big-time events that drew well, from Whitaker-Chavez (which drew over 65,000 in 1993 at the Alamodome in San Antonio) and De La Hoya-Charpentier (that brought in over 49,000 to the Sun Bowl in El Paso in 1998).
But Barrera – and to a certain degree, Juarez – didn’t want to mess with Texas.
MID-WEEK FLURRIES
I guess the next ‘Contender’ card on ESPN will take place on May 4th from the Aladdin Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas featuring Sergio Mora and Alfonso Gomez…..Gomez’s people are focusing in on Jesse Feliciano, who is coming off a victory over Vince Phillips last Friday night, while I understand that ESPN is sifting through all the dead bodies being proposed for Mora to find an acceptable opponent…. Featherweight Joan Guzman, who is now co-promoted by Golden Boy and the Sycuans, could be appearing on the June 10th undercard of Tarver-Hopkins….. Guzman and his representatives are now pushing WBO president Paco Valcarcel for an interim title shot in lieu of Scott Harrison pulling out once again…..Also on the undercard could be Nate Campbell and Demetrius Hopkins (most likely on the non-televised portion of the card)…..
