All promoters seem like bad people

[edgarg]

That's the nature of the beast. The promoters are usually crap but the managers are usually good people. Martinez's manager is a really cool guy, very caring about his fighters and a smart guy too. They get little recognition though but Duva and DiBella are a few of the better promoters out there....Arum and Schaefer are the scum of the earth....and King too but he is not a big-leager anymore.

There was a time when those two positions were reversed-sort of. Managers used to take a huge slice of the purse about 33.3%. Al Weill, Rocky Marciano's manager (a "connected" guy) used to get 50% of the purse. Marciano eventually, supposedly is reported to have retired because he didn't want Weill getting any more of his money. It's true that he he hated him. There is a persistent rumour that Marciano fought 2-3 times in Mexico AFTER he retired under an alias so that he could keep all the money. Marciano is well known to have been crazy about money, and buried it all somewhere on his property -rolls of bills in glass Jars.. Hole-diggers still go out there and try to find it-reputed to be around $4 mill.

Marciano presumably retired because 1) he had a bad back...2) His wife wanted him to....3) Floyd Patterson was coming along like a house on fire, lightning fast, with a KO punch in either hand.

Those who say that Patterson wasn't ready, usually shut up when it's pointed out that 4-5 months after Marciano retired, Patterson KO'd Archie Moore for the title....... Another nice little tid-bit...I have a 1956 Ring Magazine in which crack reporter and analyst Nat Loubet (later Fleischer's successor as publisher-I think he was his son-in-law) interviewed Marciano in which Marciano said he was still learning, and intended to fight for a number of years yet.

A week or so later, he announced his retirement........ This was just after Patterson had badly beaten up another contender.

So who knows.....?

[edgarg]

The only promoter I'd trust would be Iron Mike. If I was an upcoming fighter, I'd probably try to sign with Mike first, then GBP. Under no circumstances would I sign with Arum.

Your comment only shows how ****** "upcoming" fighters can be. Arum and Top Rank are #1 Top Of The Class by a good margin, when it comes to building up a fighter, getting him better than average purses, and making sure he gets every chance to win a title.

Golden Balls is well known (although many on this site haven't noticed it yet) for pitting their good, unbeaten prospects against one another so as to make a good undercard. The good undercard is soon forgotten, whilst one of the prospects may never become either a conternder or a champion. This has been the subject of comment from analysts in the past, I've heard them myself, talking about it on video.

[Trayhezy]

I just get that vibe from all promoters. I feel like they get rich off of fighters, and they take advantage of fighters. Promoters always have this big smile on their face like they don't have a care in the world. They seem greedy. Any thoughts on this. I feel like smart people will take advantage of not so smart people, especially with money. Promoters seem like ****.

That vibe you get is the vibe of a pimp, which in essence all a promoter is. He is trying to get people to buy his product and looks to make his product as appealing to the buyer as possible.

They will lie if the need to, cheat if they have to, and take all the money if they can.

In the same way a street pimp has girls on the street doin the work and making the money, a boxing promoter has the fighters working. The lure is that you can make more money being promoted by him than anyone else, same as a pimp telling his girl she would make more with him.

This is the reason why the best promoters are slick talkers, and great salesman.
The boxing promoter and street pimp are the same jobs in different career fields.

[Weebler I]

Kathy Duva seems okay.

[Clegg]

None of them are angels, but there's a difference between a promoter who cares for his fighter and acts in his best interests, and a promoter who doesn't give a fuck about anything other than himself and his wallet.

I disagree with Lou DiBella a fair bit, but I think he genuinely gives a shit about the guys he promotes, and I wouldn't say the same thing about GBP and TR. Anyone is an improvement over Don King though

[Mike D]

I wouldn't say the same thing about GBP and TR.

GBP and TR are the boxing equivalent of big banks. They don't give a f**k about ya. Only thing is the bottom line. You're just cattle to them. The lesser promotional companies are like small, privately owned banks. They care about you more. You're less of a number to them and they can actually treat you like a human being.