Small Hall struggles.

£30k in tickets at £30-£70 a pop? That's basically selling out half of York Hall (capacity ~1,200) for a 4-round preliminary bout. Absolute criminal if true. If the kid somehow shifts anywhere near that, he should instantly sack his manager & promoter, keep the contacts and start running his own shows.

Always amazes me boxers never properly unionised against this ticket-selling racket – it's exploitation dressed up as 'paying your dues'.

 

I’m guessing the £30k is a bad recollection or understanding of what’s been said.

 

I'm not saying all of them are the same, but I've seen similar in music - promoters think that someone else should take the risk while they take the profits. As one of the best I've ever known put it, if you can't accept that some days you'll make a loss, you shouldn't be in the business.

 

My bad lads, I caught up with the boy today, he was indeed asked to sell £30k worth of tickets but it was for an O2 show and not the York Hall. He’s since been asked to shift fewer tickets but the venues have been Copperbox, Wembley Arena and a few at York Hall etc so it’s been relative to venue size. Sad truth is, lads can make a better living going on the road and being the ‘opponent’. An agreed purse, no ticket sales, no opposition fees and if they follow the script, they’re back in action a couple of weeks later.

 

Yes that’s how business works. Sales is king.
If you can’t hit sales targets, you need to change roles.

Prospects are like commission based salesmen selling their product, there’s potential to climb the ladder massively.
Opponents are like the staff in the warehouse getting standard wages, no headaches and you ensure the product is prepped and delivered correctly.

 

I get that POV but I just don't find it a convincing enough argument anymore. Especially so when you get jobs like Khan, Whittaker, Josh Kelly, even AJ/Fury outshining and outblasting opps, i.e., the skill disparity is too noticeable and too wide for the "A-sider". And these matches continue well beyond several matches and take over 4 years to amount. Just too slow.

It also builds false belief in the fighter. Fighter then thinks it's raining when they're being whizzed on, and then they have some kinda breakdown when they lose.

 

For modern fighters there has never been a better chance to get TV exposure. If you have an exciting style with potential to go to title level, you will get a chance along the line, everyone loves a winner, but fans and TV people want exciting fighters.

Whole cards are live now, back in the day was main events and if over early or a highlight reel ko on the undercard you got to see that terrestrial TV but even when the satellite era arrived maybe the top three fights on the bill TV exposure.

The protecting of fighters to untested 12-20 unbeaten fights without any real step up's is wasting a career, kid turning over in teens I get it more but I've seen guys ex Olympians turning over mid to late 20's and it makes no sense.

Top promoters won't sign 25 yo without stellar amateur pedigrees ,12-0 with best wins against Rigo Mortis the Scandinavian area champion and Tito Taxi Driver the 40 yo Mexican cab driver.

Fighters are guided, but many now totally overly protected you are wasting time and building towards becoming something, lot of fans now can see through this unbeaten padded record BS.

MMA not for everyone here but defeats don't stop exciting fighters actually progressing careers, boxing needs to move with the times.

 

I don’t buy the “learning fights” argument anymore. The reality is financial, not developmental.

Promoters invest serious money in top amateurs who turn over – six-figure signings, guaranteed purses, and future cards built around them. There’s no chance they’re risking that asset early just to “learn”. If an Olympian gets chinned, the investment collapses, and the promoter is left running bigger loss-making shows unless they’ve got ticket sellers to prop the card up. The 8–10 rollovers aren’t about learning; they’re about risk control and building a fan base.

Look at Mick Hennessy and Ben Shalom. Both carried huge sunk costs developing fighters, only to lose their biggest names just as they reached the profitable stage. Years ago this was prevented by manager/promoter contracts that rolled over with titles, which is how the old cartel got rich while fighters often didn’t. Today, cash flow is king. TV deals give stability, ticket sellers keep shows alive, and “development” is mostly capital protection.

 

This is also true. The coach wants the early development fights but the manager (or if you’re lucky to have a promoter) will often want to do their job to MANAGE the business (the fighter) and do their best to promote it.

the individual fighter is the commodity of his individual business, where he is basically selling his entertainment services to the promotors of the shows.

they do need to protect their business and use it to its fullest.

I understand it’s not fully sporting, but it is a business first and foremost whether we like it or not.

 

That matches my experience too. I spent a lot of time around professional coaches, and they consistently said the real development wasn’t the first 8–10 fights, it was the jump from 4 and 6 rounds to 8, 10 and ultimately 12. That’s where pacing, decision-making and durability are actually learned.

Talent-wise, many already had it in abundance before turning over. I remember being told Pernell Whitaker could’ve won a world title on his pro debut if he’d had the engine to go the distance; that was the only missing piece. Years later, Vasiliy Lomachenko pretty much proved that wasn’t a myth.

But business-wise, considering how much the Duvas invested in the ’84 Olympians, no one was rushing Whitaker. The focus was on rounds, conditioning, and getting his hometown behind him. That’s always been the balance: sporting progression shaped by business reality, not the other way around.

You can see exactly that approach in his pro debut below.

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good post