Why the Hell do we watch Floyd? One person knows the answer

As some people here know, I often work in boxing circles, so I frequently run into trainers, promoters and other people in-the-know. I'm not a journalist, but when I like to have conversations with people and when something interesting comes up, I talk about it here.

I had an interesting conversation with a promoter (who shall remain nameless on condition of publishing the comments) yesterday and the topic of Floyd came up. I asked what the formula was for Floyd, given that on paper, he shouldn't be as popular as he is. Boxing isn't as popular as it used to be, Floyd doesn't have an exciting style, he doesn't have a strong ethnic following (african-americans aren't known for being avid boxing fans anymore), and he's lacks the charm, wit, or intimidating mystique that other popular boxers have had in the past. And yet he has broken multiple PPV records and continues to draw near-record numbers even in boxing diminished state. Why is it he's been able to do that while boxers of similar attributes like Roy Jones Jr, Bernard Hopkins, and James Toney struggled to achieve any modicum of fame or widespread appeal?

I was expecting the promoter to say something about his undefeated record, or his embracing the role of the brash villain everybody pays to see fail. He did mention those two, but it's the third thing that really got me thinking:

"With Floyd, some of it is the record and the villain role. A lot of it is targeting and getting fights against people who have a strong following, like Oscar, Hatton, and Gatti and getting noticed by the world. But mainly it's about the storyline. He's done a fantastic job of creating a storyline and selling it. He would fight people boxing insiders know have no chance against him, but he sold it in a way that the public ate it up."

"Think about some of his PPV fights. How the hell do you sell Baldomir? 'Pretty Risky'. He sold it as him finally taking a risk, and going up against a huge opponent, a middleweight champion who isn't really a middleweight and is only a partial champion. But people didn't know that. They were intrigued. Could this little kid go up in weight against a giant and win? He played up the 'risk' factor to the public, and they wanted to see if he could do it. Baldomir! A risk!"

"Judah always had a built-in following, but Floyd billed that as some type of mirror match against his "bigger version", even though Judah isn't really any bigger than Floyd. Again, people wanted to watch if Floyd could overcome someone he billed as his mirror image, except bigger. Anyone involved in boxing knew that Judah was in no way his equal and not even any bigger. But the public didn't realize that and bought it."

"I could go on and on about each of his fights, but all you have to do is look at it and you'll see the storylines he created for it. Even Ortiz with the 'young hungry lion' thing. He sold it to the public like he was some kind of old fighter in for the fight of his life against a huge, prime bear of an opponent. Ortiz mentioned wanting to fight Floyd when he was 9, and Floyd ran with it. People actually believed that Floyd might enter the ring a shot old man and wanted to be there when it happened."

"Compare that to some of the guys you mentioned. What storylines did Toney ever create? The potential was there for great storylines, but he never grabbed them and sold them to the general public. Even with Holyfield, it wasn't Toney's story, it was Holyfield's story. Toney needed to make it his."

"What storylines did Roy create? Until he went for the heavyweight title, he never created one. And by then, it was too late; he was as popular as he would ever become at that point. Ditto with Hopkins. He was always 'the other guy' in his fights and never created his own storylines until recently. But now that he learned how, he took a page out of Floyd's book, and look at the results now. People are overlooking what this PPV will sell, but I think it's going to be a surprising hit. My team estimates about 700,000 buys, which would be a major victory for Hopkins and would prove my point beautifully. Hopkins is selling the story beautifully"

"Having a national following or ethnic following helps, don't get me wrong. But the key to selling fights more than being Mexican or British or Filipino or whatever, is building the storyline. Let's look at Pacquiao for a second. He has an ethnic following, the media loves him, he gets to meet the President, lots of exposure everywhere. And yet he can never get over the hump and outsell Mayweather. Why not? Because he's never really sold us the storyline well. There was a storyline with Oscar, the David vs. Goliath angle, and that played really well. But what was the storyline with Hatton? The public doesn't care about 'going for another belt in a weight class' in this case because the public doesn't know what the hell 'junior welterweight' is. It's not a storyline that worked. He sold it entirely on the strength of the national followings. It did huge numbers but if he sold it like Floyd it would have been even bigger"

"What was the story for Cotto? For Clottey? For Margarito? They were all good opponents, and I think they're underestimated because they're seen as being far past their best or ineffective. But we saw them that way because there was no storyline to feed us to make us think different, like what Floyd did with Baldomir".

I point out to the promoter that Baldomir-Mayweather only did 700k buys, but he retorts, "It was a completely different situation. Floyd himself was still working his way to superstar status. There was no 24/7, no Face-Off, no Time Magazine covers or CNN segments like him and Pacquiao get now. The Floyd of today would have probably done a little over 1.1 million against Baldomir. It would have outsold Pacquiao-Clottey. I have no doubt about that"

"Nobody creates a storyline and sells it better than Floyd, and that's why Floyd manages to outsell Pacquiao even though Pacquiao is more popular than Floyd. If you wanna know how to make your boxer a superstar, and I hope Martinez and Gamboa and Ward are listening to this, Pacquiao isn't the blueprint, Floyd is".

 

That's a good point, but I think even in that case, they're buying into the storyline first, and the ethnic part second. that's why those same people don't go out and buy Judah, Hopkins, Toney, or Jones fights.

There's ultimately always some racial/ethnic/national component to any boxer who becomes popular. It's sorta like how Pavlik, had he been more successful in his performances, would have drawn a large "white ethnic" audience, probably straight out of MMA.

 

I forgot to mention that on our way out, he said that Floyd's greatest storyline (and he also gives credit to Oscar for this) is Mayweather-De La Hoya. I'm paraphrasing here, but he basically said, "The storyline was brilliant. 'The World Awaits'. They sold it to us as it being the fight we've always wanted to see. It wasn't; nobody was calling for it beforehand. But they kept saying the world was awaiting the fight until the public believed that it really was the fight they were waiting for their entire lives, between two prime P4P equals".

He also implied that perhaps part of the cat and mouse games with Pacquiao was to build a storyline that Floyd is afraid for when the fight eventually happens. Don't think I agree with that part of it, but I wouldn't put it past Floyd, either.