Frank Warren Statement

Strangely enough I do ! Big punching Wallace was very exciting, bit like a British flyweight version of Little Red.

 

Not as sad as Eddie reporting Frank and Bill Ives to the Taxman in order to shutdown BoxNation.

 

Frank never had Sky did he. He was sharing it with four other promoters.

 

I remember when that happened eddie is a low down grassy little rat

 

It’s gone under the radar a bit but FW has been making noises that Joyce v Dubois is very close to being postponed again, if not cancelled. With social distancing restrictions, the O2 will only allow 1000 of its 20000 seats to be used for the fight. For every seat occupied, the seats next to them, in front of and behind cannot be used. This is also not taking into account any second spike nearer the time.

 

in 1995 old red eyes signed an rxclusive deal with bskyb
this was common knowledge ffs
hearn was probably in school fat mickis fat mick and Kelley well
old red eyes had it locked off a refused to hive the fsns the fights we wanted
unlike now seems okd red eyes had an epiphany and now understands the job of promoting
its about the fans and in turn the fighters get paid off of the back of said fans
instead he chased said fans away

 

Are you really going to go back 25 years and dismiss all the quality stuff he did in that time. The quoted post reference fights from 10-13 years ago. A time when dates and budgets were slim.

 

Ultimately Frank had just about everyone in British boxing, was putting fights on terrestrial and Sky Box Office, and is now reduced to the press release equivalent of a begging letter because nearly all the talent has either left him, sued him, or never gone near him.

 

he had the platform eddie had a served us dross
telling us we didnt matter
fights need to marinate etc etc
you said he never had the sky platform backing
he did thought he was big bollocks and took the paying public for granted
im sure khan and wicky would glive up for him to help pull him out the hole after everything he did for them lol
nope thats right
they shat on him like he shat on us

bet he wished hed been the dana whyte 15 years back and gave the fans the fights they wanted
hes prepared to do it now
whats changed
cash and ratings lol

 

Ultimately Frank has suffered because he didn’t give the fans what they wanted. He allowed Hatton and Calzaghe to name two to spend the majority of their careers fighting sub-par opposition year after year after year.

I don’t know if the recent trend in some people backing Frank is just down to the fact that he’s now such an obvious underdog himself. When he was talking about Joe fighting Hopkins/Johnson and delivering non-stop rubbish everyone hated him.

 

Personally do not understand the finances to this one. I get a gate would be great, but surely neither guy is making more than £250k for this. If its a PPV the revenue surely is there unless it doesnt sell. 125k PPV buys at £20 is £1.6m once BT take a cut. granted you need an undercard and testing etc. But if he had other names in (turns neck sideways) '50/50 fights' then it shouldnt be hard to hit that number of PPV buys.

 

This thread gets more and more pathetic everytime I look at it. What is wrong with some of you?

 

Easy to sniff at people interested in the psychodrama of British boxing, but I confess I'm a big fan of Frank and Eddie as individuals. I find them both very interesting to listen to.

But... I can see Eddie's point on this. I'm not familiar with the figures, but I imagine Matchroom finances to be much more stable than those of Queensbury because I don't think Hearn would say this were he not absolutely sure of that. Not too many people who have worked at any kind of level in business will tell you it's an excellent policy to cheerfully give a leg up to competitors - especially those who try to take you to court on a regular basis!

 

We all want the fights, but you'd have to be extremely gullible given Frank's record to think he's suddenly changed the habit of a lifetime.

As Hearn has said, some of these suggestions cannot work. Frank says 'let's make Whyte v Dubois.' Hearn says 'hang on, Dubois has a fight signed up for the end of August, another later this year against Joyce, and Whyte is fighting Povetkin and if he wins that the winner is mandatory for Fury.' So why is Frank suggesting that fight now?

For some of the others, they've either been or almost certainly will be ordered anyway, and at least one (Allen v Gorman) can be arranged by Frank anyway. The slightest glance at the statement suggests it's full of holes and pretty desperate by Frank to portray others as the reason good fights can't happen.

 

No idea what the respective purses are but my guess is that the gate is a bigger percentage of the fight value for Frank than it is for Eddie. Sky's reach is bigger and they've got onward distribution through DAZN and affiliated networks. Matchroom also have much better cashflow and other revenue streams to help out. So although both will be hurting from the lockdown, the bigger fish is in a better position to survive the lean times on broadcast revenue alone.

So whilst Eddie Hearn can jig things around and maybe get to break even or better, Frank is between a rock and a hard place. He needs to get fights on to keep BT Sport supplied, but the bigger fights are costing more than the broadcast fees alone can possible generate. BT Sport has a lower subscriber base to target for PPV also.

In DDD, Frank could have the next big thing in British Boxing. He needs to steer the right course between building and educating him and keeping him on track for the co-operative people at WBO to push him into mandatory position. I think he saw Joyce as the perfect opponent and I would imagine Joyce in turn demanded a decent payday to get in the ring with a younger, faster and presumably home favoured fighter. So I don't think Frank had much wriggle room even before the lockdown.

I hope we don't lose Frank, Queensberry and BT Sport from boxing. For all the banter either way, British Boxing would be a smaller and more boring environment without them.