By Radio Rahim
Richard Schaefer is shaking his head at some of recent stories that are criticizing the sport of boxing - in particular a recently published article where Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya called 2016 "maybe the worst" year in boxing history.
2016 has not been pretty, but there are a few big fights on the horizon to close out the year. HBO, Showtime and Premier Boxing Champions cut back their televised coverage and several big fights fell through for one reason or another.
“I think 2016 should go down as one of the worst years in boxing history, maybe the worst,” De La Hoya said to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports.
De La Hoya further explained that in boxing's current market the sport is severely lacking household names.
“That is a concern,” De La Hoya said. “Our job as promoters is to get these guys the exposure they need. I’ll be honest, you don’t see fighters being promoted like we’d gotten used to seeing."
“When [Top Rank’s] Bob Arum promotes someone, you know it. When I promote Canelo, you know it. There is talent out there, but promoters need to step up to the plate and promote their fighters. We need to go to the highest mountain and shout about all these guys and what they bring to [the table].”
“I think there is a lot of talent out there, but the fights the fans want to see are not being made. I strongly feel that when we do make Canelo-Golovkin in 2017, it’s going to give boxing the boost that we’ve been waiting for. That will get people talking boxing and writing about boxing and it will be ‘Boxing, boxing, boxing,’ everywhere.”
Schaefer was the former CEO of Golden Boy and spent 14 years with the company. He resigned from his position in June of 2014 and recently returned to the sport with his new promotional company, Ringstar Sports.
In the opinion of Schaefer, when top promoters make negative statements about boxing - like the kind that were made by De La Hoya - it does nothing but damage the sport.
"When I see what I saw in the last few weeks... negative articles and negative stories about the sport... 'the worst year ever' and stuff like that. And it comes from us and we are stakeholders in the sport. How stupid is that? Let's talk about the positives. Let's look at the glass half full and not half empty. This last quarter, these are some of the best possible matchups that are going to happen in the next three to four weeks, in the next few months or whatever - let's talk about that," Schaefer said.
"Let's not go and tell the whole world what a horrible year it was. Let's tell them what a great year it's going to be and what's on the horizon with the shows that [Showtime Sports head] Stephen Espinoza announced and everything else. We need to be positive and not negative. And that's what hurts the sport and it hurts you guys from the media as well. Look at how many newspapers are not covering the sport. Look at how many sports writers and boxing writers who have lost their jobs. If you keep telling everybody how sh*tty of a sport it is and how horrible it is.. then guess what - we're all going to be unemployed."