BoxRec

We hear that promoters and managers read this forum, so our ideas must count right? So, if you have an idea which you think would make a good promotional gimmick that promoters can use, this is the thread to put them down. So, I will start off with my brilliant idea.

Advertise in job centres up and down the country for heavyweights (eight or 16) minimum requirements, they have to be 6 ft and over and over 15 stone, no boxing experience but be in shape and pass the BBB of C medical, and train them for 12 weeks (it will take that long for them to learn the basics) they will be on a decent wage and at the end of 12 weeks, put them in a prizefighter style torunament - not during an evening but one that stretches out over a month and at the end of it, you will have a 4-0 unbeaten heavyweight - think of all the publicity and media around a story like that? Call it the 'Economic Crisis heavyweight championship'.

As Apollo Creed once said about the public and that they are sentimental and they love nothing better than a good underdog stroy, well times that by 10 with the British public - that is what Simon Cowell relies on with his silly pop shows - he knows that the British public will get behind an underdog, and if they can do that for a soppy pop singer - they will do it for an aspiring boxer.

Now that is a good idea, and if any promoter fancies carrying the ball with this one, well, no need to thank me.

Birthday Special : Row A ticket, free bar, a personalised interview video with iFilm plus a framed, signed oil portrait of Fast Car.

You should patent that idea... Brilliant!!!!!

PokerRob wrote:You should patent that idea... Brilliant!!!!!

Obviously we can tweek it for each promoter.

Coldwell is obviously the most handsome and groomed of them, he could do a lifestyle session, tailored suit fitting and workout.

Frank could offer to send a personalised birthday fax from his vintage 1984 Epsom.

Mick could could do a cookery session, followed personalised tour of the Fury gypsy camp with a commemorative black eye from a real Fury.

GBP could do a lingerie shoot where the birthday boy dons a pair of lacey stockings and some boxing gloves. Then they could arrange fake paparazzi to chase you down the street with the final pictures.

Saulerland could do a sausage eating tour of Berlin, then on fight night they can get the Skorpions to play "Gorky Park" as you walk to your special row A birthday seat.

Realise that it's the boxers that take the risks and put there life's on the line, don't deny them the opportunities they have to make a cracking living, by letting the
promoters ego's take over.

It can be a short career as many have found out and even after its over, there can be numerous problems, that retired/injured fighters have to deal with.

When a fight is ready to be made, make it, give a boxer the chance and opportunities that his talent warrants and allow him to make the money he needs to secure his
future and that of his family.

Many have left our game, the poorer for being denied big fights, especially on the domestic scene, purely because of the ego's of the men who manage them, its time it stopped.

Simplistic I know but you did ask.

GlobalBox wrote:Realise that it's the boxers that take the risks and put there life's on the line, don't deny them the opportunities they have to make a cracking living, by letting the
promoters ego's take over.

It can be a short career as many have found out and even after its over, there can be numerous problems, that retired/injured fighters have to deal with.

When a fight is ready to be made, make it, give a boxer the chance and opportunities that his talent warrants and allow him to make the money he needs to secure his
future and that of his family.

Many have left our game, the poorer for being denied big fights, especially on the domestic scene, purely because of the ego's of the men who manage them, its time it stopped.

Simplistic I know but you did ask.

I don't know if it is directed at my or Gomez's wonderful idea but all I can say is that I agree with everything you say.

However, men have fought when richer men with funds have put up a 'purse' and that goes back to Jem Mace when the kings of England were participating in the sport as benefactors.

Since then, boxing has become one of the most capitalistic of sports, everyone is in it to make money, there isn't much altruism going on in professional boxing.

Wouldn't it be nice if every boxer got a fair shot, but we know there are lads out there being sacrificed as journeymen on the backs of 'flying machines' (as Nobby Nobbs used to call them) so there are boxers benefiting from the status quo now - who is that fair on? Not the mug punter. Johnny Greaves said in his excellent documentary about his life if he starts winning, the phone stops ringing - is that fair on him?

However, my idea, isn't a new one, back in the day, there were lots of heavyweight tournaments to find a new 'star' and this country is full of big fellas who are over 6ft and 15 stone plus who fancy themselves - it is about time we got back to the basics but boxing has always been about boxers, managers and promoters. Without one of the holy trinity, boxing - professional boxing anyway - is coming to shuddering halt.

Fat Git wrote:

GlobalBox wrote:Realise that it's the boxers that take the risks and put there life's on the line, don't deny them the opportunities they have to make a cracking living, by letting the
promoters ego's take over.

It can be a short career as many have found out and even after its over, there can be numerous problems, that retired/injured fighters have to deal with.

When a fight is ready to be made, make it, give a boxer the chance and opportunities that his talent warrants and allow him to make the money he needs to secure his
future and that of his family.

Many have left our game, the poorer for being denied big fights, especially on the domestic scene, purely because of the ego's of the men who manage them, its time it stopped.

Simplistic I know but you did ask.

I don't know if it is directed at my or Gomez's wonderful idea but all I can say is that I agree with everything you say.

However, men have fought when richer men with funds have put up a 'purse' and that goes back to Jem Mace when the kings of England were participating in the sport as benefactors.

Since then, boxing has become one of the most capitalistic of sports, everyone is in it to make money, there isn't much altruism going on in professional boxing.

Wouldn't it be nice if every boxer got a fair shot, but we know there are lads out there being sacrificed as journeymen on the backs of 'flying machines' (as Nobby Nobbs used to call them) so there are boxers benefiting from the status quo now - who is that fair on? Not the mug punter. Johnny Greaves said in his excellent documentary about his life if he starts winning, the phone stops ringing - is that fair on him?

However, my idea, isn't a new one, back in the day, there were lots of heavyweight tournaments to find a new 'star' and this country is full of big fellas who are over 6ft and 15 stone plus who fancy themselves - it is about time we got back to the basics but boxing has always been about boxers, managers and promoters. Without one of the holy trinity, boxing - professional boxing anyway - is coming to shuddering halt.

Cheers mate and for what its worth I like your idea, plenty of fighters come into the game late particularly big men and it would be an interesting scenario, you would have thought one of the channels could pick something like that up, christ we have x factor and all sorts why not a sport reality show.

Make ticket prices for kids

There is a flaw with the job centre approach.
How would you persuade the Promoters to pay the lads more than they get on benefit ?

More tournaments like the Hennessy Maxinutrition one. It gives fights some added context which is normally non-existent given the number of titles flying around. Keep it a proper knockout competition rather than the awful Super Six format. Include overseas boxers if well known and exciting enough.

Parson Cross wrote:There is a flaw with the job centre approach.
How would you persuade the Promoters to pay the lads more than they get on benefit ?

Should be ok mate... They can still claim if their on under 16 hours a week :)

Fight of the night, KO of the night and other performance of the night type bonuses should be offered on the big promoters 'mega shows' - they work brilliantly in the UFC and could give fighters lower down the card a genuine reason to press for the KO when comfortably ahead on the cards or give a fighter who is losing a competitive tear up a greater incentivisation to bite down on their mouth piece and battle all the way to the final bell.

I appreciate that small hall show economics could not support such an initiative but 10 - 15 bout mega shows would greatly benefit from this sort of approach in my eyes.

A modern nod to boxing's tradition of nobbins..

Monkey tennis?

I would love to see a bigger scale prizefighter as Kugan mentioned with the likes of Briggs and Kimbo Slice.

Nearly all of the ideas have already been tried. A guy from Leicester, I forget his name, used to advertise in Boxing News regularly in the early 90's for potential heavyweights, Channel 5 did a "Boxing X Factor" and allegedly were giving out £2,000 a show for 'Fight of the Night'(don't know what happened to it).

TerribleTerry wrote:Fight of the night, KO of the night and other performance of the night type bonuses should be offered on the big promoters 'mega shows' - they work brilliantly in the UFC and could give fighters lower down the card a genuine reason to press for the KO when comfortably ahead on the cards or give a fighter who is losing a competitive tear up a greater incentivisation to bite down on their mouth piece and battle all the way to the final bell.

I appreciate that small hall show economics could not support such an initiative but 10 - 15 bout mega shows would greatly benefit from this sort of approach in my eyes.

A modern nod to boxing's tradition of nobbins..

Earlier this year a Japanese promoter had a number of what they dubbed "KO challenge bouts". Think there was 3 or 4 of them, all 8 rounders. The concept was that if the winner scored a KO in rounds 1 or 2 they were given a bonus of X (lets say 15,000 yen but I can't remember what is actually was), if a KO was scored in rounds 3 or 4 a smaller payment (say 10,000 yen), round 5 and 6 came with a smaller payment (say 6,000 yen) and a KO in the final 2 rounds came with another smaller bonus (say 4,000 yen). That seemed a pretty neat idea.

Unfortunately I don't think a single bonus was paid with all of the bouts going the distance v_v

Fat Git wrote:We hear that promoters and managers read this forum, so our ideas must count right? So, if you have an idea which you think would make a good promotional gimmick that promoters can use, this is the thread to put them down. So, I will start off with my brilliant idea.

Advertise in job centres up and down the country for heavyweights (eight or 16) minimum requirements, they have to be 6 ft and over and over 15 stone, no boxing experience but be in shape and pass the BBB of C medical, and train them for 12 weeks (it will take that long for them to learn the basics) they will be on a decent wage and at the end of 12 weeks, put them in a prizefighter style torunament - not during an evening but one that stretches out over a month and at the end of it, you will have a 4-0 unbeaten heavyweight - think of all the publicity and media around a story like that? Call it the 'Economic Crisis heavyweight championship'.

As Apollo Creed once said about the public and that they are sentimental and they love nothing better than a good underdog stroy, well times that by 10 with the British public - that is what Simon Cowell relies on with his silly pop shows - he knows that the British public will get behind an underdog, and if they can do that for a soppy pop singer - they will do it for an aspiring boxer.

Now that is a good idea, and if any promoter fancies carrying the ball with this one, well, no need to thank me.

While your idea is great in theory, there a number of flaws that would prevent a reputable promoter trying such a thing.

Firstly the economics are not as great as you believe they are. You've got a minimum of eight blokes training for 12 weeks. You say "they'll be on a decent wage", but from who?

If you conservatively estimate that a decent wage is £300 to £400 per week. That's £2,400 to £3,200 per week in costs. Over 12 weeks training that equates to £28,800 to £38,400.

Then you've got to consider licensing and medicals. The first question is if the board will licence eight big lumps with no amateur experience. I'd imagine the answer is no, so before you start you'll probably have to get them some amateur bouts. That adds extra time, extra headaches and extra costs.

Medicals and licensing costs are in excess of £800 per boxer. These guys are on the dole so the promoter will also have to pay these costs, which will come to more than £6,400.

Add onto that the cost of advertising, poster design, PR work, venue hire, board taxes and costs, ring hire etc and before you've even put on your first show you're going to be more than £60,000 in the hole.

Also, what happens if a couple of these novices drop out midway through the training period? Are you going to bring other inexperienced big lumps in and only give them the few weeks left until your show? You can't put your show back because it would be too expensive. On top of that, which self-respecting trainers are going to risk their reputations and the potentially waste their time training big lumps that probably can't fight to save their lives because they have absolutely no amateur pedigree?

The only way it has the slimmest chance of working is if a TV company is involved from day one and is willing to bankroll the entire operation. Given that TV companies are very reluctant to spend money on shows involving actual genuine boxers, it is very unlikely that they would get behind such a venture. This is the pain game, it isn't wannabes singing a song for no pay. You cannot compare boxing to a talent show because of the preparation needed and the risks involved.

These guys are novices and, let's be honest, they are being used. If one of them gets seriously hurt then the promoter will get absolutely crucified by the press. The financial reality and the huge risks to the health of those involved means the idea is just not viable.

I think with the prizefighter format being a tad bit dated it could be time for UK contender like programme or alternatively a fight league. You get 10 up and coming welterweights and every 2-3 weeks they box one of the other 9. 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw. Bonus point for knock out win. Minus 3 points for dq loss. All the unbeaten records would likely go but it could create some money rematches and would show records are for dj's. Have them all live in the same house too to add drama.

Stealing ideas from abroad. How about a "Rookie of the Year" style competition? Fighters from the different regional areas compete for a national Rookie title. It'd get us 50-50 bouts, fights would be cheap to make, there would be context to each bout and we could follow it from start to end with each fighter perhaps 3, 4 or 5 times over the year in 4 rounders with a final being 5 rounds

I'll be honest, I like tournaments. The ESPN Boxeo thing was great, the Maxi-Nutritional thing is great, the Rookie of the year is huge in Japan, Cinturon De Oro seems to get a lot of interest in Mexico.

Free streams of smaller cards (Eddie's fight pass is interesting but is it going to be worth the money?) and lower ticket prices

Men fighting gorillas or kangaroos with gloves on?

forcefraser wrote:Men fighting gorillas or kangaroos with gloves on?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdwc4sGMUwg?

kamicazze wrote:I think with the prizefighter format being a tad bit dated it could be time for UK contender like programme or alternatively a fight league. You get 10 up and coming welterweights and every 2-3 weeks they box one of the other 9. 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw. Bonus point for knock out win. Minus 3 points for dq loss. All the unbeaten records would likely go but it could create some money rematches and would show records are for dj's. Have them all live in the same house too to add drama.

I do think there is a place for another contender series - the public seem to love all sorts of reality type programmes anyway so surely would work especially on channel 5 or whatever who could tie it in with their boxing output.

The idea about kids tickets is a good one too - I am really surprised they don't have this already, as I know if I had a kid having to pay full whack for them would put me off.