Gary Russell Jr vs Joseph Diaz in negotiations

Good.

Massive step up for Diaz and would probably be Russells biggest career win

 

He has too many fighters and there are not enough TV dates to go around.

 

He shouldn't have tried to take over boxing lol his meant to be a business man anything to get his cuts

 

Not enough tv dates nor money.
They blew trough their insane budget in the first couple of seasons.

 

Given Haymon's payment structure, this strategy should've been no surprise. His own capital isn't on the line.

Had he owned PBC, he'd have been incentivized to run a rational business for the long term. What actually happened is that shareholders were paying him a double cut of every single in house fight as a manager of the fighters.

That in and of itself isn't unethical, but what set them up for shareholder lawsuits is that Haymon also had authority to matchmake and determine purses as head of PBC, making for a severe conflict of interest. It never would be allowed in normal circumstances, but Haymon actually hired the point man at W&R to work for him after he approved the deal.

In essence, he could write his own checks. A byproduct of that is he could offer absurd money to fighters early, which made recruiting easy.

What's happening now is a natural byproduct. A lot of guys who got a taste of bigger money in that honeymoon phase are now on the sidelines.

 

at 29, GRjr needs to step on the gas and do some work. he's much too talented to be in this situation. His fight w/ Jojo isn't bad. But he needs to get in the ring with Selby, Santa Cruz, Frampton, or Rigo if he decides to move up.

 

I don’t think he or anyone else can ever take over boxing. That said, he could’ve set a new standard for the sport by using the $400M and TV dates a lot more wisely.

In his shoes I would’ve done the following:

1. tournaments in every division I control fighters in. If some of the fighters have to fight off-tv due to time constraints, so be it. In a tournament format, the “cream” would rise to the top and fighters who may have initially been overlooked could knockoff a few favorites and earn their way into televised fights.

2. Transparency with the purses. By this I mean x amount for win in the first round, x amount for a win in the second round of the tournament and so on.

3. Fight of the night bonuses.

4. 40/40 purses. Winner gets 15 of the remaining 20% for a decision and the entire 20% for a T/KO.

Stars emerge through their ring exploits and personality. As long as the best fight the best, nobody cares about a loss here or there, as styles make fights.

I believe all of this would make the other promoters follow suit in order to keep up with PBC.

My 2 cents.

 

He had the fighters to do it but instead he put the top guys in with lower level guys and he had the likes of Danny Garcia and a few others in the spotlight all the time who really weren't that good

 

I don’t have a problem with him having Garcia in the spotlight. My issue is the fighters (Salka, Vargas, Herrera) who shared the spotlight with Garcia.

 

Has anyone found Gary Russell? He has been missing for a long, long time................

 

I predict JoJo stops him or wins by UD.

 

This guy cannot touch Gary. He took 4-5 rounds off Lomo then wanted a rematch but Lomo moved up.

 

You'd think Haymon would have realized this before he signed so many fighters, and cleaned GB almost out of talent. Now there is not only enough dates for everyone even stars to fight 2-3 times a year, but not enough money either. Which is why fighters like GJR, Thurman, Garcia only fight usually once a year. Their price tags are too high, and Showtime is the only Network that can or will pay the money. I don't think they thought the PBC through before going ahead with this project.

 

Great response. I agree with you about the price tags being too high.

The only thing I can say is how much do you need to think it through when you have $400M and a boatload of TV slots. Al overpaid the fighters because he chose to...hard to feel sorry for him and PBC over his decision. Fighters fight and would’ve been more than happy with reasonable purses, provided Al didn’t take an unreasonable cut of the purse as the manager/advisor, who knows what he really is. We’re talking about fighters from modest backgrounds who would be happy with 6 figure purses, not soccer/NBA/MLB superstars who make (command) more than $20M per year.

Al’s a shrewd dude. I’m sure he pocketed quite a bit of the money and only pilfered the top talent to make investors believe he would create a legitimate star to make money for everyone. Al likely never intended to do any such thing and was all too happy to overpay the fighters, so long as he got his cut.