by Charles Jay
“The fact is that yesterday he was lying, today he’s lying, and tomorrow, he will still be lying. Once a liar, always a liar.”
That was Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, describing Bob Arum of Top Rank in yesterday’s story from Golden Boy’s house publication, Ring Magazine.
Apparently he is pissed off that Arum was talking to some investors, including one in Singapore, about a fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and Arum made it perfectly clear that neither Schaefer nor Golden Boy needed to be involved in the negotiations.
The same story reads like this, in one of its passages: “Mayweather, who is handled by Golden Boy Promotions…..”
OK, stop right there.
Whoever fed that information to the writer of that story is the true liar.
The fact is, Mayweather ISN’T “handled” by Golden Boy. Golden Boy obviously doesn’t manage Mayweather. There is no promotional contract between Mayweather and Golden Boy. Negotiations for fights involving Mayweather do not have to include Golden Boy, either by legal or moral obligation.
In fact, any involvement Golden Boy would have in negotiations or promotions concerning fights for Floyd Mayweather would only be at the invitation of Mayweather himself and/or Al Heyman, who is his “advisor.”
Ultimately, Mayweather steers his own ship, which sometimes encounters rocky seas, from a business standpoint, but is his ship nonetheless. And so he and others that he designates customarily talk to outside parties about putting up money to stage fights. I know, because I have seen it. What may happen after that, upon the culmination of a deal, is their choice, and they may choose to hire Golden Boy to promote the fight, or they may not.
Take the fight against Victor Ortiz, for example.
Mayweather, who sometimes shuffles people in and out of his circle, had been going around, trying to find a huge guarantee for a fight to come back with. After some unsuccessful meetings, he was able to convince a group that included rappers Jay-Z and 50 Cent to put up a guarantee of $42 million for a fight with Ortiz. The deal was that the group was to get back the first $47 million, aside from the percentages that HBO and the cable carriers were taking out of the pay-per-view.
However, that guarantee was made on the basis of some assurances about the prospects for foreign revenue that didn’t turn out to be valid, so the rappers dropped out.
That left Mayweather himself to be, in effect, his own promoter. Golden Boy was hired to do some of the legwork, and they were also paid a fee for the promotional rights to Ortiz. Altogether, they got roughly $2 million or maybe a little more than that, but they were in no position of risk, nor were they the people in control of anything but their own venue at the Staples Center for the Canelo Alvarez-Alfonso Gomez fight that was part of the HBO pay-per-view telecast.
Mayweather was guaranteed the first $25 million from pay-per-view, and then things went from there. There was a good article from Greg Bishop of the New York Times about the financial involvement of Mayweather Promotions,
But the bottom line is that it really wasn’t Golden Boy’s show, and any prospective Mayweather-Pacquiao show that is being negotiated isn’t theirs either, unless Mayweather, for example, wants to make them a part of it.
But why would he? You see what I’m saying? He wouldn’t need Golden Boy to promote anything at that point, and that is what gets a guy like Schaefer steamed.
Whether anything comes of these “negotiations” is obviously another question. I was reading internet reports that indicated that there were just a few things to iron out, but I also hear that Mayweather is stuck on $100 million, and let’s face it, there is a point at which the fight becomes financially unfeasible, regardles of how many people might buy it.
My guess is that it is all a ruse. Arum wants to get Juan Manuel Marquez down on his demand of $20-$25 million for yet another fight with Pacquiao, which is what Arum would like to do, while from what I hear, Mayweather is talking about May 5, but against, on the lighter side, Erik Morales, or on the heavier side, Canelo Alvarez.
Ok, at THAT point Golden Boy could be involved, but only because they have the other side of that fight.
Of course, this is pro boxing, so it’s very much a cloudy picture right now.
In some ways, that makes it more interesting.