Spend $20 At Modell's, Get 2 Free Martinez-Barker Tickets

[primetime23]

the deal is only for the times square modells. damn, im too far away to make the trip...I would have went too.

[crillz]

Now that's a helluva deal

Martinez vs Barker: Ticket Sales Dead in the Water for Saturday Fight

I'm not putting this up simply to be adversarial or point and laugh or whatever, but this is really bad. Middleweight champ Sergio Martinez did an in-store appearance at a Modell's in New York City today, and there was an offer for a free pair of tickets with $20 spent on Everlast products.

A free pair of tickets, for $20 spent at Modell's.

This, combined with several discounts and an offer of 30% off for those who had bought a ticket to the now-rescheduled October 29 fight between Andre Ward and Carl Froch, really points out the extreme difficulty promoters are having moving tickets to this fight.



So why is this one so bad?

Is it the fact that nobody knows Darren Barker? He's never fought on U.S. TV and hasn't exactly had a U.K. career that made waves worldwide. He's a domestic-level British fighter, basically. In today's crap middleweight division that puts him around top ten status (we have him No. 9), and it's not meant as an insult, because he's a fine, talented fighter. But he has no name value here.

Some of this has to lie with Sergio Martinez, though, and with this going on, and Sergio not exactly filling Atlantic City for recent fights, it's a lot easier to understand Miguel Cotto almost snickering at the idea that he could make $5 million to fight Sergio Martinez, as he did at a presser for the Margarito fight last week.

How much of it is location? Atlantic City has had trouble drawing for fights since Arturo Gatti retired, with the exception of Kelly Pavlik and his traveling Youngstown audience. How much of it is simply Martinez being an Argentinean fighter with no big fanbase, and Barker not being a traveling star from overseas even on the level of, say, Carl Froch? How much of it is a promotional problem?

I hate to see it happen to a guy like Sergio Martinez who is a legit champion, a charismatic guy, a top-tier fighter, and fights in an exciting style, but yes, look, boxing is hurting in the United States. Crowds just aren't coming out for fights in big numbers save for a Mayweather or Pacquiao fight, or someone with a legit regional draw, and those guys don't usually charge ticket prices like this fight has.

http://www.badlefthook.com/2011/9/27...saturday-fight

is this still going on? if so, for how long will it last? I didn't read the whole article by the way so if it says it in the article my bad but can someone just tell me?

[-Kev-]

Here's the problem.

Hardcore fans don't even know who Barker is. Hell, when HBO is promoting the fight with commercials, they show clips of Martinez getting some KO's, then show "Darren Barker" and show him with his hands up for the crowd. That's it, that's all they show of him. Like really, HBO can't show a few clips of the guy knocking some one down at least?

So hardcore fans in general don't know who Darren Barker is, casual fans generally do not know who Sergio Martinez is...what you think is gonna happen? It's gonna bomb.


At least if you put two fighters that hardcore fans both know, it would get decent revenue. For example Martinez vs Williams, or Pavlik vs Martinez. Let's face it, Pavlik ain't got no causal fanbase either. And even better, if you put a big boxing star in with a fighter who hardcore fans know, then that too would do good numbers. Barker/Pirog/Dzinzuruk vs Martinez are all calling to bomb. Martinez will never make a name fighting those type of guys, and people are crying to see him against Pirog, when he either has a good fanbase. So what if he chose Barker, there's no difference. Both European hype jobs. For me, personally, he already beat the best European fighter he could beat from 154-160 and that's Dzinzuruk. Pirog is trash, Barker is trash, Sturm couldn't even get passed Macklin in Germany without controversy. Dzinzuruk is the best European fighter there, he's the toughest and he got dominated by Martinez. Knocked down 5 times before getting stopped.

[jreckoning]

Any card costing 20 plus some brew is worth seeing.

I'd go in a heartbeat.


There's at least two decent fights on there.

[mushahadeen]

let's be real. nobody in real life knows who the hell Steroidgio Martinez is.

giving away tickets to his fights sounds about right.