Thinking back to Oscar / PBF...
Posted: 22 Sep 2007, 08:29
wasn't there a slight conflict of interest for Oscar in this fight?
If GBP already knew they were building a megafight (in boxing & Money terms) in Hatton/Mayweather, isn't there a conflict of interest when the GBP chief fights Floyd, knowing a Floyd loss ruins the planned megafight?
Ok so you could say Oscar would have wanted to win anyway and he just takes Floyds place in an equally money-spinning matchup, but why should he? Oscar's a businessman first now, why go through the pain of training and then fighting a young buck like Hatton to make millions of dollars, when you could just take your foot off the gas for the last few rounds against PBF and make sure you don't accidentally win the fight and have to do it all again against Hatton.
Say Don King was 50 years younger, and had plans to promote Lewis/Holyfield, but was fighting Lewis first, would you trust Don to give 110% effort to win that fight knowing he could jeopardise the huge payday for DKP on the horizon?
"Ray Hatton today told talkSPORT, the UK’s only national commercial speech radio station, that the ‘super-fight’ between son Ricky and welterweight champion “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather, has been on the cards for 18 months.
Speaking to Alan Brazil and Graham Beecroft on the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast Show, Hatton said: “We’ve been talking to people from Mayweather’s camp for 18 months. We’ve had dialogue going back as far as that. We’ve had conversations, ‘let’s be careful who the lads fight, try and keep them unbeaten, let’s try and make it over 80 fights’ which is a bit of a record for two unbeaten fighters to get in the ring. But it isn’t that easy in boxing.
“As it was coming up to the Castillo fight and the Oscar De La Hoya fight the conversations did take on a new turn because it was a matter of if Floyd could beat a living legend in Oscar and if Ricky could ‘do’ Castillo, then the fight got even closer.” "
If GBP already knew they were building a megafight (in boxing & Money terms) in Hatton/Mayweather, isn't there a conflict of interest when the GBP chief fights Floyd, knowing a Floyd loss ruins the planned megafight?
Ok so you could say Oscar would have wanted to win anyway and he just takes Floyds place in an equally money-spinning matchup, but why should he? Oscar's a businessman first now, why go through the pain of training and then fighting a young buck like Hatton to make millions of dollars, when you could just take your foot off the gas for the last few rounds against PBF and make sure you don't accidentally win the fight and have to do it all again against Hatton.
Say Don King was 50 years younger, and had plans to promote Lewis/Holyfield, but was fighting Lewis first, would you trust Don to give 110% effort to win that fight knowing he could jeopardise the huge payday for DKP on the horizon?
"Ray Hatton today told talkSPORT, the UK’s only national commercial speech radio station, that the ‘super-fight’ between son Ricky and welterweight champion “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather, has been on the cards for 18 months.
Speaking to Alan Brazil and Graham Beecroft on the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast Show, Hatton said: “We’ve been talking to people from Mayweather’s camp for 18 months. We’ve had dialogue going back as far as that. We’ve had conversations, ‘let’s be careful who the lads fight, try and keep them unbeaten, let’s try and make it over 80 fights’ which is a bit of a record for two unbeaten fighters to get in the ring. But it isn’t that easy in boxing.
“As it was coming up to the Castillo fight and the Oscar De La Hoya fight the conversations did take on a new turn because it was a matter of if Floyd could beat a living legend in Oscar and if Ricky could ‘do’ Castillo, then the fight got even closer.” "