No more Mr. Nice Promoter.
Finally, Oscar de la Hoya has taken off the kid gloves and put on his brass knuckles.
In a freewheeling interview with reporter Ben Grossman of TV trade publication, Broadcasting & Cable, the Golden Boy lays bare his plan for total domination of the sport/business by only one company, his.
The Golden Boy’s vision is all encompassing.
One sport, one promoter, one super TV channel, one governing body, everything under the ever expanding Golden Boy Promotions umbrella.
Oscar and his CEO/sidekick, the former Swiss banker Richard Schaefer have both previously mocked Bob Arum and Don, promotional giants verging on being octogenarians, as “dinosaurs” soon to be extinct according to the mortality tables.
Now it’s clear that the GBP behemoth plans to bulldoze the smaller operators, Lou DiBella, Big Gary Shaw and any other person or entity that gets in their promotional way.
Dana White and the monolithic UFC, that’s the orginizational role model for Oscar and associates.
Herewith some of the juicier tidbits from Oskie and a link to the entire piece:
“How is business?
“The business of boxing is going great considering the economy. People are not spending many dollars these days, whether it’s in the movie business or on television or in sports. But boxing seems to always survive. Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck, you seem to find a way to gather up friends and buy a pay-per-view fight. But our business in real estate development has been put on hold. It’s too hard to be in the positive these days.
“Isn’t boxing’s biggest problem its lack of one organization? Doesn’t the sport need one commissioner and organizing body?
“The Don Kings and Bob Arums have had a chokehold on this sport for the last 40 years. They’ve been able to put great fights on, they’ve been able to promote the sport, yes, but I believe the days are long past of the way they promote. Now, we have to think outside the box; we have to think like the NBA and MLB and have one commission and one major promoter in the sport.
“That’s one of the reasons I commend UFC for what they have done in such a short period of time; they are the only real player in their category, the mixed martial arts world. They have been able to organize themselves, have all the TV dates, a pay-per-view every month; that’s why they are valued at more than $1 billion. They are doing the right thing, and it’s time for boxing to do the right thing, as long as we don’t have those obstacles named Don King and Bob Arum.
“How does that actually happen? You want Golden Boy to replace them?
“Absolutely. We need to sign all the talent and get all the TV dates; then you can have your own agenda and have a schedule for the fans and the sport. You can do a monthly PPV, a bi-weekly HBO fight, you can have the best fighters fight each other. When you have five or six promoters, it’s very difficult.”
“So, is your plan to take over boxing?
“My plan is not to take over boxing, but really do what no other promoter was able to do, and that is have unified rules and one commissioner and make sure the fighter is taken care of and is not cheated out of anything. That’s one of the reasons boxing hasn’t really taken itself to the next level, because we cannot make those big fights and a lot of times promoters are the ones in the way. We are very transparent with whatever we do with our fighters, and in a way, yes, we do want to take over. Well, we don’t want to take control of boxing, but we want to do the right thing for the sport. Have one [entity] running it like UFC. It’s very confusing with all these championship belts-my idea would be to have one champion in each division. There should be one heavyweight champion, not 20 like we have now. Too much confusion. We have to weed out the bad and bring in the good.”
