It might shock ya and amaze ya but I?ve come to defend Richie Rich Schaefer.
The money man, the Uber Banker, is getting widespread criticism for how he is running the expanding store that is Golden Boy Promotions.
Fight fans and a few ?pressmen? (as Ali called them) are rapping Richard The Fainthearted for keeping his big bouts in house.
For example, Schaefer makes no bones about the fact that he has no intention of having Juan Manuel Marquez fight only other GBP promoted boxers.
That leaves the Don King promoted Nate Campbell, more than a worthy foe for Juan Ma, on the sidelines.
Mark my words, pupils, because I still believe Soupy Campbell is likely to fight Joan Guzman next despite the Big Blunder In Biloxi.
And, for the record, I have not been Gooseman?s publicity guy for about five years. I am an occasional adviser to Team Guzman but, as a real heavyweight, I offer no advice about losing weight. If I knew how, I?d keep that to myself.
Back to Herr Schaefer. His main responsibility is to Golden Boy. His goal is to make the bottom line blacker and blacker each passing year.
Nobody loves an in house big bout like Donald King. Do you think that parade of clowns who fought Brother Tyson when he left the Indiana Big House were all free agents or fighters who belonged to Uncle Bob Arum?
If you do, then wake up and smell the jolting java, my friends. None of those cats got a payday with Tyson before they signed on the DKP line which was dotted.
Got it? So, while it is not a fan friendly business practice and does not lend itself to the best fighting the best, Schaefer is doing right by Golden Boy?s deep pockets.
Schaefer is only doing what King, Arum and the Duvas did for decades when they were running 1-2-3 in the business.
It?s prompting fights IGM, meaning I?ve Got Mine. When you have paper on both fighters, you sit back, light your cigar and watch with delight.
Then you know you just can?t lose with the stuff you use.
I don?t think Oscar brought former UBS money man Schaefer into his Golden House to be a boxing pioneer. Oscar did not hire him to be altruistic and do Golden deeds for others, especially for competitors.
Do you think Big Gary Shaw?s first waking thought, after he swallows his first Jamba Juice of the morning, is how can I help my rival promoters today?
No, of course not and then why should it be left to newcomer Schaefer to blaze such a trail?
I criticize Schaefer the way Republic strategists knock Obama but fair is fair.
This is why I doubt we will ever see a rematch between Campbell and GBP?s Juan Diaz. This is why a lot of good and possibly great fights will never happen.
When King was rolling with a post-prison Tyson do you think that, if King had George Foreman versus Tyson would have been made in the shade?
Indubitably, my Maine and New Hampshire Man, indubitably!
But the biggest moneymaking bout in boxing history never came close to fruition. Instead, you got see real schleppers such as Bruce Seldom, I mean Seldon, getting their knickers in a twist as they marched to execution, oops I mean to the ring against Michael Gerard Tyson of the Amboy Street, Brownsville, Tysons.
So what if Schaefer prefers, to twist a King phrase, prefers to remove a splinter from his own eye before he removes a two by four from yours?
I didn?t see Goldman Sachs rushing to hurl life preservers to Lehman Brothers, did you? I didn?t see other big insurance companies reaching out to ease the pain of AIG, either, did you?
So who is responsible to make the better fights happen? The guys who write the big checks, the guys at HBO and Showtime, that?s who.
Now you cynics may say, well, HBO is a subsidiary of Al Haymon and Golden Boy. I hear your cry, I feel your pain but maybe Golden Boy is delivering product that the others don?t.
The Goldens are monopolizing the craved for HBO dates. I don?t say they?re doing it by hook or by crook but they are doing it.
Are their rivals coming forth with fights and fighters that HBO cannot resist?
It?s clear that GBP aims to be boxing?s Wal-Mart and turn the other ?stores? into noncompetitive bodegas. Or to put the other guys completely out of business. They want to be the only vendor to HBO.
They want to eliminate the Alphabet Groups and make Ring magazine the only and one sanctioning group. Say hello to Don Jose Marian Mendoza Valcarcel Nigel Collins.
Hey, you gotta like that fight fans.
Give Herr Schaefer credit.
He does have that killer instinct. In his case, he aims to be a category killer.
Let others idolize Tex Rickard and Mike Jacobs.
Richie Rich idolizes Sam Walton.
