By Larry Goldberg
I have to be honest. This is not easy. Friday night at the Tropicana we put on our last club boxing show of the year, and the last one in Atlantic City for a bit. Seven fights, streamed free on BoxingInsider.com and our YouTube page. If you had any idea what it takes to get there, you would understand why only a handful of people in the country still do this. The people who used to run these rooms had big staffs. I have me and a few stringers. So let me pull back the curtain.
The fighters are arriving today, and there are always hiccups. I am arranging Ubers. I am meeting fighters at the hotel to make sure they get their meals. One of them flew in from Italy. New Jersey does not accept foreign medicals, so he had to come in days early and do his labs, his physical, his eye exam, the whole list, before he can be approved to fight. That is one fighter. Multiply it by fourteen.
It is a privilege to do fights in New Jersey and to work with the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board. They put us under the microscope, and it is not a fun feeling. But it is what has to happen. Tomorrow is the weigh-in, and everything has to be by the book.
Then we fight. I do not own any of these fighters. I have never signed anyone to a promotional contract. The boxers on my cards are connected to all kinds of managers and promoters, and it does not matter. Everyone is a free agent, and every one of them is looking to make moves in 2027. I have been told by powerful regulators that we do the right thing, and that we are spinning our wheels because we do not own these fighters. They are probably right. We are doing it anyway.
I am not promoting one event. I am promoting 14 stories. Justin Figueroa and Luis Caraballo Ramos run it back after their March fight ended the way it did, and everybody in the building knows that is unfinished business. JJ Alvarez against Larry Fryers, a current and a former trainer at Mendez Boxing in New York, is a real club fight. Two guys with nothing to lose who love to fight. You do not get fights like that in 2026. Iman Lee and George Arias are on their way to the next level, and John Leonardo is a staple of our shows. There are going to be upsets. There is going to be bad blood. I am probably going to get called a name or two before the night is over.
We have a whole new broadcast crew. Josh Hennig from 97.3 ESPN is on play by play alongside one of my best friends in the world, former professional fighter Curtis Jones. Matchmaker Eric Bottjer is on the call. Sarah Cunningham, who is amazing, is doing the interviews. Every one of us is there for the love of boxing. This is not corporate sanitized boxing. This is not a bunch of influencers.
Here is the truth about the money. We are not on the big networks. We are not on Paramount. We are not on DAZN. I do not have Turki Alalshikh or Dana White or DAZN money propping us up. I am a crazy boxing person with a website, and this is done through ticket sales, period. I am hustling to sell a couple hundred more in the next two days so we do not lose our shirts.
The big companies pretend we do not exist. We do exist. Boxing could have a thriving minor league system in every state, with three or four guys like me working every market. That is what a healthy boxing scene used to look like. But it is hard to get support for lower level boxing when nobody is interested in higher level boxing. We just had a Canelo fight, and nobody cared. If people care about the top fights, they will care about the little fights. Without shows like this, you run out of boxers.
We are at the Tropicana once again, the same building where Don Elbaum ran Tuesday night fights nearly two hundred times in a six year stretch. Friday is my ninth show in this room since 2024 and my 22nd pro show overall.
Dana White said boxing is having a going out of business sale. Maybe he is right. But let me tell you how we handled ours this week. I drove up to the Atlantic City Police Athletic League and handed the kids a stack of tickets. We pulled up to the Atlantic City Boys and Girls Club with another stack. We went to the mayor’s office and a couple of church groups. It does not sound like much, but watching those kids’ eyes light up, and seeing them carry that excitement and focus into the rest of their lives, has been a beautiful thing.
I also wrote the check this week. Boxing Insider Promotions is sponsoring the Atlantic City PAL amateur show on December 5, the belts, the banquet, all of it. This is my third year with the PAL, and honestly, the amateur side has been more fun and more rewarding than the pro side.
So here I am, walking into my 22nd pro show, and God only knows what trouble is coming in the next 48 hours. I am nervous about the state of the game. But on Friday night there will be kids from this city sitting ringside, watching a kid from this city settle his unfinished business. That is why we do it.
Come out Friday. Tickets are on Ticketmaster. First bell is 7 p.m. If you cannot make it, watch it free on BoxingInsider.com.
