As Golden Boy Promotions’ Mt. Rushmore of partners and significant others have taken significant hits in the past few months (like Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton) or have stagnated on the sideline despite career-defining victories (Shane Mosley and Bernard Hopkins) they find themselves looking ahead to the future. As noted football coach George Allen once famously uttered, “the future is now.”
And to Golden Boy, the future is Victor Ortiz. As the bulk of this company?s marquee names heads into the twilight of their Hall-of-Fame careers, they look ahead to the next generation that will carry them and the business. Front and center is Ortiz, who headlines this week?s edition of HBO’s ‘Boxing After Dark’ versus Marcos Maidana on Saturday night from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
“Absolutely, I don’t even have to think about it,” said Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer on Thursday afternoon at the Congo Room at LA Live, where the final press conference was held for this event. “You know what it is? When you see him, when you talk to him, just his presence. You guys from the media, fight fans, us as promoters – even other promoters – talk highly about this guy. There are all these signs and you can just sense this guy is special. This guy is different. It’s not just his skills in the ring because there are a lot of fighters who are very skilled. But his presence, his charisma, his looks, the way he talks. He’s different.”
There is a certain intangible about this guy. The Swiss Banker is right, plenty of guys can fight a bit, but not many come with his instinctual ability to know when to smile and to say the right things at the right time. Some would say he’s polished and polite to the point of being contrived. Of course, the same accusations were said about one Oscar De La Hoya, boxing’s last (and perhaps, last ever) crossover star.
?I think I made the mistake of saying he’s the next Oscar De La Hoya,” said ‘the Golden Boy’ himself. “He’s not the next Oscar De La Hoya, he’s the first Victor Ortiz, who I believe is ahead of the ballgame. He’s fighting for his first world title, 8-9,000 people there and he has the potential to be even bigger of a pay-per-view attraction because of the modern era we live in now, today with Tecate doing all the activation and all the publicity we’re receiving. It’s much easier to put the face out there and for the public to know him. So he can fight and ultimately that’s what matters.”
As he began his promotional career after migrating from Garden City, Kansas to Oxnard, California, where he trained at the famed La Colonia Gym – like you-know-who – and with his aggressive and fiery style, early comparisons were made to the most accomplished native of the 805, Fernando Vargas. It seems pretty clear that now that a concerted effort is being made to position him more as a ‘Golden Boy’ than anything really ‘Ferocious’.
But there is one clear similarity, Loretta Lucero and Rolando Arellano, two key figures in the career of Vargas, who now work to brand Ortiz on a daily basis.
?Actually, I see that Victor is sort of the sweet spot between Oscar and Fernando, the next generation that has a very young appeal to his fight fans and has the same connection Fernando has, where it’s one-on-one, he’s very good one-on-one, there’s something very special there when he’s with his fans that makes them feel really special,” said Lucero, who runs Touch Point Marketing. She works as a marketing consultant and secures sponsorships for Ortiz.
Back when Vargas was a burgeoning star in the late 90’s, Lucero was the Western Region Marketing Manager for the Miller Brewing Co. and she was was instrumental in Vargas becoming an endorser for Miller Lite. Soon Vargas was a ubiquitous figure as cardboard cutouts of him could be seen all across the country where this beer was sold and there were soon television commercials that aired nationally.
?It was very effective for Fernando. We signed him at 21 and he had just become a world champion, one of the youngest world champions at that time ever, in that division. And it shot him up very quickly because Miller Brewing Company put him on so many of the point-of-sales. Initially, they took him for a small, local property in Southern California to a nationwide campaign. At the end of a six-year period, he had been on billboards, radio, TV, print. He had had a full 360-degree marketing campaign.”
As for the effect it had on Vargas’ visibility, Lucero believes, “I think with Fernando, specifically, it definitely helped him sell pay-per-views and make a lot more money over his boxing career. But at the same time, people still remember him, who he is. Where his career was relatively short versus other fighters. Several of his pay-per-views, with the marketing power of a major company, he was able to push the pay-per-view between 700,000 and a million buys, such as Trinidad and Oscar.”
Of course it can be speculated that the presence of Trinidad and De La Hoya was/is the best marketing campaign that any promotion could ask for. But what can’t be denied- and perhaps it’s hard to quantify the effect of any marketing push on an individual performer- is the fact that Vargas consistently put up strong ratings on HBO and was always a robust ticket seller.
But bottom line, getting this type of push, certainly can’t hurt. A similar path is being mapped out for Ortiz.
“He has Coca-Cola with ‘Full Throttle’, DeWalt Tools, that are either interested in him doing things with him or have signed up on various fights since I’ve been working with him,” explained Lucero, who is a constant figure when Ortiz makes public appearances.” Before that, he had worked with Affliction. But since I worked with him we’ve been able to get DeWalt, Southwest Airlines, and ‘Full Throttle’ and he’s been doing a lot of promotional work for Tecate.”
But don’t expect to see any life-size facsimiles of Ortiz staring back at you at your liquor store for at least a couple of years.
?The problem is that he’s not 25, yet, and from a general rule in alcohol, to put a fighter or any current athlete on point-of-sale they have to be over 25 years old,” she explained. “Before that, you’ll see some other companies that are interested in him, as well. Such as DeWalt Tools, who is also putting together a program where he would be the face of their in-store programming to Hispanic programmers.”
Who knows, maybe some guy in Hoboken who buys a De Walt monkey wrench will be compelled in the future to check out this kid?s fight as he sees his image on the display case.
There was a time when boxers like Sugar Ray Leonard (7-Up) and Mike Tyson (Diet Pepsi) could land huge, national endorsement deals. But as boxing has become more and more of a niche sport, boxing in general has become a tough sell to Madison Avenue and corporate America. But Lucero points out, “It depends on the company strategy. Boxing, in general, I think is a little bit easier to sell boxing versus a specific fighter. Just because it’s not like a team where there’s a group of people winning but specifically if one person loses, it’s a crucial fight that could affect the fighters career with the company, the sponsor. ?But, I do think there are particularly special fighters that companies look for that we’ve seen in the past that have had great track records with different major corporations.”
It helps to be Latin, and can converse in both English and Spanish, which Ortiz can do. ?It definitely helps,” agreed Lucero. “I think when you’re looking at boxing in general, the core consumer is Hispanic. That continues to follow boxing and it definitely helps if a fighters bilingual and specifically, Mexican or Puerto Rican, it doesn’t hurt.”
Arellano, who like with Vargas, co-manages Ortiz with Shelly Finkel, says that Ortiz enjoys one key advantage in the 21st century- technology, specifically the world wide web.
?Things have changed, marketing has evolved,” he explained. “In the past when Fernando was coming, we were able to utilize his character, his talent and stuff and sell it through different assets. Basically the print, the television, the radio and that was basically it, then you had your typical website. Now, we’re utilizing what you call ‘viral marketing’, most of our interviews are on the internet. The internet is how you get that global expansion. I’ll give you an example, HBO has just linked to Victor’s Facebook page. And on his Facebook they’re using all their resources, all their marketing campaigns, all their images and video. We can actually interact with the HBO community.”
Arellano says that through this technology Ortiz can send mass textings and video emails to his fans, who then spread the message themselves.
But there is still some old-fashioned banging of the drums. On Thursday De La Hoya accompanied Ortiz to several radio stations. “This morning we were with ‘Big Boy’ on Power 106 and then we moved over to ‘Piolin’, who’s THE radio name in Spanish. So his marketability crosses over and people want to talk to him – both English and Spanish,” said Oscar.
But it’s clear to those involved, that having these corporate tie-in’s does aid the cause in promoting a fighter.
“Much easier and it helps obviously that they spread the word,” said Schaefer. “They make point-of-sale activations, they’re tying in with the product. Right now, MTV has a film crew here, they’re filming behind the scenes. They’re talking about doing a reality show with Victor. So you see all of these things, you can just sense it’s different and it helps to make the guy bigger. This week in the USA Today, front page of the sports page, a full page article about Victor Ortiz. When you have we seen that about a fighter not named De La Hoya? A full page in the USA Today.”
Of course, with all this talk of viral marketing, marketability, in-store activations, reality shows and promotional pushes, you gotta have a guy who can fight. That’s still kinda important, when it’s all said and done. Fighting ability, eventually, will be paramount in the building of any career. We know Ortiz can look impressive against a certain level of opposition, but what still needs to be found out is how well he really catches on the chin and deals with adversity at the world-class level.
He stumbles and falls versus the gritty Maidana, and the Ortiz is that run-of-the-mill boy band who peaks shortly after puberty. But show some staying power and consistency, he could be New Edition.
And unlike Vargas, who was the very definition of a shooting star, Ortiz, who is just 22, could have more staying power. By the time Vargas had his last bout in November of 2007 (a decision loss to Ricardo Mayorga, at the same venue Ortiz will headline this weekend) he was just weeks short of his 30 birthday, with only 31 bouts on his resume. ?Victor is just 22 years old, he’s just barely getting to the world championship level. He didn’t have to face the monsters at 22, he was in the ring with Ike Quartey at 21. 21, he was in there with Yory Boy Campas,” Arellano recalled. “But Victor has basically molded himself and gradually moved him to the tougher fights. We’re two years away, maybe, from the Pacquiao fight, a Hatton fight or a Mayweather fight. He’s going up there a lot slower.”
Boxing needs bona-fide gate attractions more than ever. It was just two months ago that an emotional De La Hoya announced his retirement from the sport he basically carried for the better part of a decade in this country. With that, a huge vacuum, was created. It’s not clear if there will ever be a star that will shine quite as brightly as De La Hoya did.
Can Ortiz at least partially fill that cavity?
“I think the goal is to find that next fighter and I think that Victor is that one, the next fighter, the next generation of fighter that you need to market to the fans because you need to know these fans individually, Hispanic or just fight fans in general,” says Lucero.” It’s a passion sport, they need to connect with that particular fighter and when there’s a connection there between that fan and that fighter, such as Fernando had with so many of his fans. And I don’t know if it was the time frame, he was popular but he was seen as that bad-ass fighter versus Oscar, that had a clean-cut image. I think the timing was good, too, to put that whole campaign together. Fernando, had his own fan-base, it was more of a ‘Raider Nation’ fan-base.
?Where I see Victor is a little but more crossover. But I also see Victor with extreme sports, from the midwest, like country music, he has a lot of other interests that I think might be able to appeal to that multi-cultural fan-base.”
STAR STAPLE
Schaefer believed that Ortiz’s star was big enough that he could headline at the Staples Center and he would be supplemented by the Indonesian community who would be there to support Chris John, in his rematch with Rocky Juarez. Well, as John had to pull out with a blood ailment that caused fatigue, the live gate has taken a hit.
“They’re selling OK, we had yesterday, a huge day,” Schaefer told Maxboxing. “Obviously, with Chris John off the card we had a little bit of a setback because Chris John sold thousands of tickets. So that was a bummer. But I was convinced that Victor is going to attract a great audience here at Staples Center. And today, with two days to go, I’m still as convinced as when we started the show.”
SEPT 19TH
So what’s happening with that date?
“Hopefully in the next few days I have news. Actually I’m working on it now, as we speak,” said Schaefer. “I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to come here. Everything is looking good. I’m convinced that Mayweather-Marquez will happen and we’re literally in the final hours of hopefully putting it together for September 19th. But as of yet, I don’t have any confirmation on that. I really don’t want to speculate.
?The sponsors are thrilled by the prospect of September 19th. It’s a totally different ball game with activation and so on. So I hope we’ll be able to pull it off.”
THE ITCH?
So how?s retirement treating Oscar?
?It?s great, it’s wonderful,” he says.
So he never gets the itch to box, ever again?
?No, people keep asking me about that itch. The only itch I have is when I’m scratching my back. But there’s no itch, whatsoever. I’m happy as can be and I’m actually very satisfied.”
FRIDAY FLURRIES
Doors open at the Staples Center at 3:30 on Saturday and first bell is at 4….In addition to Ortiz-Maidana, middleweight prospect Craig McEwan takes on the always tough trial horse, Darnell Boone. This could be a pretty good scrap….Tickets range from $200 to $25 bucks for this card….Just in case you didn’t know, in addition to this ‘BAD’ and the Latin Fury in Atlantic City, Showtime is airing Arthur Abraham’s latest title defense vs. Mahir Oral that evening…..I guess bad things do come in three with Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and most stunningly of all Michael Jackson…..I feel a piece of my childhood died on Thursday afternoon as I heard the news shortly after the Golden Boy presser at the Conga Room at LA Live. ‘Thriller’ – which is one of the all-time great pieces of work, was an album I got as a birthday gift from my parents…..His performance of ‘Billy Jean’ at the Motown Awards, with him breaking out the ‘moonwalk’ is the stuff of legend. I know all of America was trying to do that move the very next day. But nobody could ‘moonwalk’ like Michael…..I even liked ‘Bad’ and Captain EO….Long live the true, undisputed, King of Pop….
