This Saturday night at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, two local favorites engage in a championship doubleheader. Rocky Juarez faces Chris John for the WBA featherweight belt and Juan Diaz and Juan Manuel Marquez duke it out for lightweight supremacy. If there was ever a fight card that belonged in ‘the Big Heart’ it?s this one.
Buoyed by the success of Diaz and Juarez back in September, Golden Boy Promotions is reaping the benefits of what could be the most lucrative night in boxing that the state has ever seen.
?It?s shaping up to become the biggest gate in the history of Texas for boxing. And so it’s going to be an electrifying night in Houston and I think that goes for many other markets: if you have the fight, you take them to the local fight fans, that’s what people like to do,” said Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer last week, who mentioned that the Toyota Center is scaled for around 15,000 and can do approximately $1.4 million at the gate.
When you think of non-casino boxing markets, you immediately think of states like California and New York, but Texas is overlooked by many observers. There’s more than just football going on in the ‘Lone Star’ state. According to Greg Alvarez of the Texas Combative Sports Department, their state has averaged well over 50 boxing cards the past three years. And it comes with a storied past in the ‘sweet science’.
“It had a good boxing history back in the day with Joe Brown and ‘Big Cat’ Cleveland Williams and stuff like that,” said Willie Savannah, Diaz? manager, who set down his roots in Houston in 1966 and has for years run the Savannah Boxing Club. “Muhammad Ali came to Houston and got himself a house here and this is where he refused to take that step to go into the military. He changed his residence to here for awhile and he boxed here twice against Williams and Ernie Terrell.”
Houston is also where George Foreman hails from. Foreman had a series of fights in H-town during the early portion of his career after winning the gold medal in 1968 in Mexico City.
When Savannah and Diaz left Don King, they signed with Golden Boy with the hopes that the promotional firm would build them into a local attraction. The company wasted no time by making their first fight under their banner in Houston – but at a venue they believed was a bit too spacious, even for them. Instead, they played to a packed house as they took on Michael Katsidis.
“Shocked the s**t out of me,” admitted Savannah, who was afraid that crowd might look an awful like a Houston Rockets game versus the Memphis Grizzlies in February. “Because when Golden Boy told me they were putting it at the Toyota Center, I’m saying to myself, ‘Toyota Center? Oh my God.’ I didn’t say a word. I’m hoping that they would put it at the Reliant Arena, which holds about 7,000 people. Now, that’s what I was hoping for because I didn’t want to look around and see a half-empty building. So I didn’t say anything because I don’t like to tell the promoter what building or what state to promote in and then if it don’t turn out, then they’re going to say, ‘Willie, it’s your fault.’
?But I was shocked at the attention that Juan got, especially coming off that loss in Cancun.”
Savannah then fought long and hard for Diaz-Marquez to take place in Houston after the success of ‘the Baby Bull’ in September versus Katsidis in the same venue that saw over 14,000 patrons come through the turnstiles. Savannah has always believed that Houston and the rest of the state has a lot of parallels to another strong boxing market.
?I?ve always said that if we got the right Hispanic in Houston, that it would be like what Los Angeles was back when they had Pipino Cuevas, when they had ‘Gato’ Gonzalez and stuff like that. I’ve always said that, but you’ve got to have the Hispanic population,” said Savannah, who attended not only both Ali fights at the Astrodome, but he also was there in 1981 when Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns fought on a doubleheader before they met each other in their classic encounter.
But Savannah is correct; there are parallels between Texas and California – a large population (24.3 million, according to the census in 2008), and because of its location, a large contingent of Latinos. The city of Houston has approximately 2.7 million inhabitants, over a third of which are of Latino descent. But the appeal of ‘the Baby Bull’, whose parents were Mexican immigrants, isn’t just confined to that particular demographic.
?Now what has surprised me is the fact that all kinds of people came to see Juan. It’s not just Hispanics, blacks or whites,” says Savannah.” Everybody from working class people to rich people came to see Juan. I think it’s just because he’s got a story. I remember when my wife was at work, she retired from the State of Texas Health Dept. and the secretaries at her job, when Juan was fighting here with Rocky, and all those guys, they would buy ringside tickets. I said, ‘These ladies are buying ringside tickets?’ And ever since then, they would always email my wife and say, ‘Hey, we got our tickets, already.’ You’ve got black people, you got white people. Everybody comes to see Juan.”
Diaz, in addition to having a crowd-pleasing style, is a friendly and affable personality. Within time he will be graduating from the University of Houston and he has plans on serving the community long after he retires from the sport. Juarez has had a solid career and captured a silver medal for the U.S. in the 2000 Olympic Games. This is a city that certainly supports their own.
But the level of support has opened the eyes of Diaz.
“Oh, yeah, I’m very surprised that the city of Houston has shown such great interest in me and support because the city of Houston for many years hasn’t been a boxing city, per se,” said Diaz, who defeated Katsidis last September, bouncing back from his first professional defeat at the hands of Nate Cambpell in March. “For me to fill up the Toyota Center, it’s just an amazing feeling to know that the city of Houston supports me that much.”
As he attends classes, he feels the buzz his fight is generating.
“I see a couple of guys walking down the hallway and they ask me, ‘You ready? We’re going to be there.’ Or some guys ask me, ‘You’re not hurt are you? Because we already got our tickets.’ I tell them, ‘I’m good, I’m good.’ So it’s been great because a lot of the University of Houston students have been getting on board by buying tickets and supporting me as well.?
But Diaz isn’t the only ticket seller on the bill. Juarez has tangible evidence that he has sold more than a few tickets himself.
“I didn’t want to really deal with tickets but from the last fight, tickets were $200, front row, which was a helluva price for the card that it was. I sold fifty $200 seats, which comes out to ten-grand,” said Juarez. “I sold those tickets in like two weeks. For this fight, I got a hundred $300 seats. I didn’t want to deal with the tickets in the upper deck, I just dealt with the tickets on the floor and I have all those sold. So I sold a hundred – $30,000 worth.”
As for the rest of the requests, well, they were told by Rocky to contact Ticketmaster or the Toyota Center box office. Right now, he’s got some other things to focus in on.
Boxing veteran, Lester Bedford, who runs the Bedford Agency, has played a part in marketing and promoting just about every big fight that the state has staged the past couple of decades. He says of Texas, “It’s an unused market. Texas has been a great boxing market for many, many years. Many of the biggest successes outside of casinos have been in Texas. Oscar fought at the Sun Bowl. The Alamodome has been home to two or three big fights. Pacquiao’s fought there. Barrera, Chavez-Whitaker, 65,000 people. We’ve had a number of successes with HBO fights and I really don’t know of any event of major significance that hasn’t done well. You put the right fight in Texas, it’s going to produce.”
When De La Hoya fought the non-threatening Patrick Charpentier in 1998 in El Paso at the Sun Bowl, a crowd of over 48,000 showed up. Bedford, a Texan through and through, believes that Texas is a lot like California in its potential.
?Absolutely, a big part of it is the population mix, also the media support for it and plenty of quality venues that are willing to work with you. You got a good commission here that helps the situation out, I believe. And from a Texas standpoint, it’s not too rough on the promoter. So there are a lot of advantages to have it here. There are so many good cities to do fights. Even places like Laredo, Corpus Christi, El Paso, the Rio Grande Valley. It’s not just Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth and San Antonio. You got all these other places that can support HBO-level fights as well.”
A couple years ago Evander Holyfield drew a decent sized crowd as he did a bit of a rebuilding tour by facing rather nondescript opposition at venues in Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and El Paso. Bedford, like most Texans, thinks big, and after convincing Bob Arum to go to the Sun Bowl and Don King to go to the Alamodome, the next mountain he wants to climb is the new billion dollar stadium being built by Jerry Jones for his Dallas Cowboys.
?Every time I drive by anything I’m thinking of putting a boxing event there. And sometimes the smallest little venue, I’ll drive by a grocery store that’s out of business and look at it and think about putting a boxing event there,” says Bedford, who also managed the career of Jesse James Leija. “I actually sat down and had a meeting with the Cowboys. I met with Stephen Jones and I have put the word out that the Cowboys want a major boxing event in that new venue.”
The Cowboys showed strong interest in a De La Hoya event before his loss to Pacquiao in December. But Jones is all about branding and big events. If a particular prizefight is big enough, Bedford believes the lead Cowboy will want it.
?There?s a will by the Cowboys to want to have it there and the seating configuration there can go anywhere from 20,000 up to 100,000. So you can accommodate any kind of event you wanted in there. It’s unbelievable, there’s no stadium anywhere close to it. $1.2 billion, a retractable roof, so you don’t have to worry about rain. It’s state-of-the-art. It’s the rave in Texas right now,” Bedford states. “The building itself will elevate any event and if I can convince a promoter that this is the way to go, I’ve never been wrong on a stadium event and I feel pretty strong about this one.”
That will be down the road. Meanwhile, Golden Boy is going right back to Texas after February 28th, as they are staging their ‘Lightweight Lightning’ pay-per-view card at the Frank Erwin Center, the home of the Texas Longhorns basketball program.
“Yes, we are going back to Texas, we are going to Austin,” confirmed Schaefer, ?Which I think will be a great night as well because Jesus ‘El Matador’ Chavez is from there. It’s a great, great town as well. There’s a great venue there. So we’re excited about Austin.”
Schaefer says that the big picture plan isn’t to just fight Diaz and Juarez in Texas markets, but to build a strong foundation locally and be able to build their profiles to a point where they can extend their reach for selected big events. But as the economy sags (and the casino markets with it) it’s more important than ever to build a local base that can be relied on to support a fighter consistently.
?They?d be crazy to go outside the state of Texas, as long as Texas has got the people,” said Savannah. “Suppose this fight had been in Las Vegas, say at the Mandalay Bay. How many people you think they would’ve drawn? Maybe 5-6,000, people?”
In Houston, they will have no such problems.
?I think Houston can definitely become a hot-bed of boxing,” continued Savannah, who’s never shy to convey his feelings. “And that’s what I told Richard Schaefer, I said, ‘Y’know, regardless of what happens down here, as far as Juan or Marquez, it’s been shown now that if you bring the right fighters to it, Houston will support a good card.'”
WORLD TOUR
Yes folks, I’ll be in Houston this weekend for this card. Then I’ll be in San Jose the week after that to see Robert Guerrero fight in front of his home folks near Gilroy. And I plan on being there in Austin (Hook ’em Horns!!!) on April 4th.
For all I’ve preached about re-establishing local markets and getting away from the casino venues, it would be a tad hypocritical if all I did was go to fights that took place in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. In fact, the only ‘major shows’ that I planned on not attending this year were Winky Wright-Paul Williams and Chad Dawson-Antonio Tarver II, which were both being staged in Las Vegas. I’ll put my money and time where my mouth is. And besides, I love cards that take place in free-standing arenas. They are much livelier and have an incredible atmosphere to them.
The only casino event I know I’m going to be at is on May 2nd, when Manny Pacquiao takes on Ricky Hatton.
WORKMANLIKE
I think Top Rank got what it wanted out of this past weekend, which was to get Kelly Pavlik and Miguel Cotto back on their bearings coming off their first professional losses. It’s hard to tell just how good (or bad) either guy was because quite frankly, they didn’t get much resistance from Marco Antonio Rubio and especially Michael Jennings. But I’m sure it felt good for both men to get back in the win column.
I don’t really know where Cotto goes next, but for Pavlik, I’m hearing names like Sergio Mora and Vernon Forrest for the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland in either late May or early June. As for John Duddy, I’m told his name has been nixed for a variety of reasons. First, he wasn’t exactly scintillating in his ten round decision win over Matt Vanda. And just as importantly, he didn’t sell nearly as many tickets as expected at Madison Square Garden. There’s a belief that his former promoters, Irish Ropes, and their connections to all the local Irish pubs were just as instrumental in Duddy’s ticket selling prowess as the boxer himself. That may have been proven this weekend.
You can debate the merits of this pay-per-view show all you want (to paraphrase Dennis Green, it was exactly what I thought it would be) but here’s the thing – both Pavlik and Cotto got around a million bucks and they totaled around 18,000 in attendance in both Youngstown, Ohio and New York, while HBO is paying around $6.5 million combined for Wright-Williams and Dawson-Tarver II.
My question is two-fold: One, will those two fights even do one-third of the attendance that this weekend?s cards did? And secondly, what does that say about how market value is determined these days? Is it just all about who a network executive happens to like or who the fighter?s advisers/promoters are?
WORTHLESS?
I’ve been reading all this stuff about how Diaz-Marquez is now being sanctioned by these various belts that were left open by the inability of Nate Campbell to make weight last week. But here’s the thing, wasn’t that fight for ‘The Ring’ title? I thought that was the only one that really mattered? And the other alphabet trinkets were really worthless, right? Or maybe they really aren’t. And these actions prove that.
FINAL FLURRIES
Did Matvey Korobov’s opponent have one of the more unusual hairstyles, ever?….Speaking of Texas Longhorns, Kevin Durant is turning into a beast. Right now, he’s a top five NBA baller….Yuri Gamboa and Breidis Prescott make their returns on April 17th on Shobox from Primm, Nevada…..I hear that a super middleweight clash between Allan Green and Carlos De Leon Jr will accompany the fight between Jermain Taylor-Carl Froch sometime in April on Showtime….I can’t lie, I kinda, sorta like ‘High School Reunion’ on TV Land. I can’t help it…..
