For many boxing managers, it’s all fun and games until a pandemic hits. Then, it’s not about ringside seats and taking a cut of the paycheck, but actually making sure your fighters are able to navigate waters no one has seen since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918.
Luckily for the young men under the Sheer Sports umbrella, the folks in charge of the management company have been subliminally preparing for such a moment, so as the COVID-19 situation shakes up the world in and out of the ring, guys like Lyle Green have adjusted and acted accordingly for their 14-fighter roster.
“When everything is rolling and our guys are fighting, that's what they're concentrating on,” said Green, the Vice President of Sheer Sports. “They're concentrating on training, concentrating on their next fight, they want to know who their opponent is, they want to know how much they're making, they want to know all those things, which are very important. But during this time, we have an opportunity to spend more time with them, even by the phone.”
That means making sure their fighters have food on the table, the electric is on, and that each of them is staying in some semblance of shape for when the phone rings and boxing begins again.
“All our guys are in maintenance mode,” said Green. “We know that no one's out there not doing anything and that's what our expectation is, that they are in maintenance mode and they're taking care of themselves because we don't know what happens next. We had guys fighting in March, April and May, and we don't know where they're going to land once the fights start up again, so it's going to be interesting.”
Interesting may be an understatement, but that’s also a word that can be applied to the management style of Green and the CEO of Sheer Sports, Ken Sheer, as the two have spent the last seven years not just building successful prizefighters, but building relationships.
“Our business is people, really,” said Green. “It's not just boxing, but it's our fighters. We've been told since the day we got into boxing that you can't fall in love with your fighters, and we've taken the exact opposite approach. We spend a lot of time getting to know our fighters even before we sign them, because we require that our fighters are high character individuals that can also fight.”
The order that Green puts those traits in is key, because while the company could make runs at blue chip prospects with high price tags attached or established contenders that could equally strain their budget, they’ve chosen to go with their gut first. Yeah, Jason Quigley, Victor Morales Jr., the McKenna brothers, Adam Lopez and Ronald Akeem Ellis can all fight, but they first had to make an impression with Green and Sheer, along with head scout and former heavyweight contender Courage Tshabalala that has nothing to do with what they can do between the ropes.
“I boxed as an amateur for 20 years, Ken's grandfather was a boxing manager and trainer, and I don't think either of us know it any other way,” said Green. “Ken's grandfather was very close with his fighters. When I was fighting, I was very close with the people that I fought with. And the way that we thought we would be able to do this, which has really proven to be true, is that we only sign high character individuals. It's very important that our guys can fight, but it's more important to us that we're not going to be getting calls at three o'clock in the morning that one of our guys got shot or they were in a drug deal, or something along those lines.”
It's a sad commentary on professional sports these days, but it’s a valid point. Some are willing to take that chance and roll the dice on an athlete whose potential for big financial returns outweigh the negatives. Green and Sheer took another route, and while they want to make money and win championships just like everybody else – they’re not walking around California with halos over their heads – they prefer to do it with athletes who can be role models and / or ambassadors for the sport. Or at the very least, solid citizens who make weight, show up to fight, put on a show and pick up their paycheck. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
“We are very aware that there are managers out there that will sign anybody who's very talented and that's the most important thing,” Green said. “From our perspective, it's not and we believe that our fighters could have very successful careers. Some will be champs, some will not, but they will have very successful careers where they can make money in the ring and be prepared to make money after their career is over.”
As a case in point, Green refers to David Mijares, an unbeaten junior welterweight prospect who had to retire due to Wilson’s disease, a rare affliction requires a liver transplant.
“It has not changed our relationship with him or his family at all,” said Green. “We're in touch, I meet with him every couple weeks, though not recently, (publicist) Rachel (Charles) is constantly in touch with his family and nothing's really changed. Now he's not fighting and we're not making fights for him, but nothing's really changed. He's part of the Sheer Sports family and he always will be.”
That family atmosphere has been important as the Sheer Sports fighters wait for their next assignment.
“Our fighters are our family, so we've been staying in touch with them, talking about things outside of boxing that are very important to them,” Green said. “It's not great. I'm not gonna sit here and bulls--t you and say this is the best time we've ever had to be in the boxing business, but the reality is that if done properly, it actually has made our relationships closer, if that's possible.”
Business is business, though, and COVID-19 has been bad for business across the board in boxing. It’s one of those times when every manager and promoter is probably wondering why they’re even still here, and that has to go double for the families involved, as well. But Green, who admits that Sheer Sports isn’t exactly in the red yet, is confident that what they’ve built thus far is not just a solid foundation, but one that is about to reap rewards once the bell rings again.
“We believe in our model and how we had to get into the business, frankly,” he said. “We weren't going out there and just dropping tons of money on fighters to begin with just to sign somebody with some experience. We were pretty diligent with looking into who we wanted to work with and really the only way to establish a relationship. Look, the fighters who have been into the business and have been successful likely have been burnt one or two times and we're trying to stop fighters from feeling that way. If we had started off where we were going to sign a big name and put a lot of money in, that wouldn't mean success. We needed to be able to start in the business where we felt like the people that were signing with us were willing to be managed and not just a guy who was almost at the world championship level who thinks that they know it all. That's really where things go south.
“And we are getting to the point where our guys are getting to the world championship level,” Green continues. “We haven't made a dime, and we've lost quite a bit of money, but it's all an investment. Jason Quigley's getting close, Akeem Ronald Ellis is getting close, Adam Lopez is knocking on the door now, so we feel like we have the individuals where this year would have been a great year for us had the coronavirus not hit, and we're still very encouraged that in the next 18 months, we're gonna be in a position where all the work that we've put in will pay off financially.”
As for the family question…
“We systematically went about getting into the business where we could assist and truly manage fighters, rather than just going for a money grab. And our families knew,” laughed the married father of four, who admits that the true payoff has nothing to do with the finances.
For this retired boxer, who was trained by one of Aaron Pryor’s former coaches, Jackie Shropshire, in Ohio, seeing his fighters perform in the ring is a feeling that’s hard to put into words.
“The only way I can describe it is that I feel like I'm getting into the ring with him every fight,” he said. “It's the anticipation, it's everything. I always said that every time I got in the ring before a fight, I was scared. And my coach, Jackie Shropshire, said if I wasn't scared, there's a problem. Preparing and being in the proper physical shape and proper mental shape makes sense and being scared is a part of that. So, every time our guys step into the ring, I feel like I'm getting in the ring. It's nerves, anticipation, it's a whole set of emotions that are there well before the fight and well after the fight.”