I think he gets far too hard a time on these boards and i'll go as far to say I think he's an extremely good promoter. Secures the big fights and looks after his fighters financially. Some people may say he takes too long to get the big fights made but is that all his fault or should his boxers also share the blame.
hes a great promoter for his fighters and for himself and will earn him and his fighters a lot of money, for true boxing fans tho big world class fights where it is a 50/50 are few and far between. hes all about the money which is why i dont like him ( but in his shoes i may be doing the same)
Brilliant at what he does. Seems a decent guy. Great at making maximum reward from his fighters, not so great at securing legacies.
If there was a choice something between the first two then I'd vote for that. He does make good money for fighters who realistically wouldn't make much if it weren't for the wbu circuit and what have you. On the other hand he always looks for weak opposition which doesn't make for a great scene or for great records for those of his fighters who have the talent to go somewhere.
He's a great promoter and marketing man to the casual general public, but not so much the real boxing fans. He's a genius at building up certain fighters and getting them over with the public, and as a result can sell them any old tat featuring the said boxer and the public come out in their droves for it. For example, you can't tell me that all the crowds at Hatton/Calzaghe/Khan fights are/were all die-hard boxing fans? I dare say around 70%, if not more, of those people at those shows are just the casual sports fans, the football crowd, etc who other than their man's fights (insert name of boxer), had never been to another boxing show in their life, have no interest in the undercard and only come to watch the main event, and wouldn't know the difference between Sugar Ray Robinson and Heath Robinson. What Frank does is latch onto a fighter and markets him primarily with their local fans to build up a following, and it just expands from there. In fact, the more casual the fan and the less knowledgeable they are the better, that's when his little tricks and hype jobs to draw them in work better - e.g Boxer x is undefeated (translation: never fought anyone of quality, or in their prime at least). The opponent's never been stopped (translation: though he is naturally two divisions smaller and lost about 6 times against nobody of note). This fight is for the World Championship (translation: WBU or an interim WBO title which nobody else in the sport knows or cares about). My examples are extreme and harsh I know, but it's just to emphasize the point. These little marketing ploys bring them in their thousands as when Sports Network put the spin on it, it makes it all sound really special to those who don't know anything about the sport. People go to Warren's shows simply because they are events. For example, Calzaghe-Manfredo was the first home Calzaghe fight I never went to, simply because I knew the card was **** and the main event was atrocious and the ticket prices for such tripe were extortionate. However, I knew loads of people who had never been to a boxing show before who went to that simply because it was the "legendary", great undefeated Joe Calzaghe fighting some guy off the telly. Must be a great fight! Frank sells to the public, not the boxing fans. Warren understandably makes bigger money selling to the masses rather than the niche market that true boxing fans are becoming. I guess that's fair enough, but it's a great shame really. It's a shame because I do think he's a very good promoter, just applies his skills and savvy more so to making the most possible money rather than caring about the state of the sport in this country and our boxers legacies. I think his shows are generally pretty poor. Even if there's a decent main event, the rest of the undercard is filled with blow outs and showcases of "house" fighters plowing through some over matched, unknown foreign imports in uncompetitive fights. However, that's the negatives out of the way - but here's the reason I didn't vote. I didn't vote because although I hate the way he goes about things and doesn't seem to care a toss for the true fans, he does get his boxers good pay days and earns them good money. I'm all for that where fighters are concerned - they deserve every penny they can get. Also, he has done very commendable charity work, and he also gave very significant and generous help towards Michael Watson during Michael's darkest times. So, there was no happy medium in the voting options that I felt appropriate to my feelings regarding Frank Warren. He's a great promoter - just not for us boxing fans, which I understand though despise - and although he can be a petty twat at times, there is a very decent side to him as well. I just wish he would devote more of his talent and ability into boxing and it's health, rather than just the almighty dollar. To me he's kind of like British boxing's evil genius.
name a big fight Warren has made in the last 5 years and I will tell you how he was forced to make the fight not go out of his way to make it.
Arthur v Gomez,bearing in mind it was gomez who pulled out also Clinton woods v Glen Johnson , and lastly Enzo Macranellie v David haye,
He staged Woods-Johnson as he expected Johnson to win and he wanted to match him with Calzaghe. Woods wasn't with Warren but Warren won the purse bid for that fight I think. He put it on ITV to make a future Calzaghe-Johnson fight bigger. Haye-Macca was made because Warren (and a lot of other people) though Haye was struggling with the weight. Straight after the Mormeck fight Haye said he was moving up to HW as he couldn't make CW any more so Warren made him a big offer thinking Enzo would easily pick up the belts. We all know what happened then....