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MAGNO'S BULGING MAIL SACK: PIRATING AS PROTEST, GYPSY KING OR CLOWN PRINCE, AND MUCH MORE

By Paul Magno | August 16, 2018
MAGNO'S BULGING MAIL SACK: PIRATING AS PROTEST, GYPSY KING OR CLOWN PRINCE, AND MUCH MORE

It’s Thursday and the musky scent of my bulbous, bulging mail sack is in the air. So, let’s just whip it out and see what we see. This week we have questions and/or comments on Tyson Fury, Al Haymon, and the rise of boxing as streaming content.

Pirating as Protest?

Hey Magno, I was reading your recent article on DAZN and how all in all it may be worth the $10 a month for the boxing content it provides. But my question is how will the success of DAZN (and espn+ for that matter) effect the overall profile and prospect of growth for boxing? I can't help but feel that as a die hard it's almost our duty to pirate that shit and ensure these paywall providers fail.

It kills me that we as boxing fans are the only sport fans that put up with this ridiculousness. It's not like the Yankees and Dodgers don't play each other because ones AL and ones NL and they have different contracts with TV providers (I know the comparison doesn't exactly have parity but you get the point). My concern is that overall these allegiances are going to continue to undermine the quality of bouts with each elite level fighter staying in their own corner feeding off their inferior stable mates.

Only boxing fans would tolerate the boxing cold war for a decade (which i suppose we were rewarded for with the $100 geriatric square dance known as May v Pac) only to move into the era of the paywall purge. I hate to advocate anything that would potentially take money away from these athletes that actually put their life on the line to give to the fans. However, I see all of these paywalls as cash grabs by the promoters not to the benefit of the boxers. 

All in all I am asking is there something we could do as boxing heads to stop this trend in the wrong direction? If the NFL, MLB, and NBA can all provide free games in a very lucrative manner,  can't boxing manage something? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks Magno.

-- Ernie E

Hey Ernie. Like I wrote in that DAZN piece, their actual product may be worth the 10 bucks, but if these streaming services become successful enough to continue (and inspire others), this could officially be the end of boxing ever building towards a healthy, productive future as a unified “real” sport. 

This push towards streaming services may offer some technological benefits over the old school platforms, but it’s nothing different than what we’ve seen before. Boxing suffered a slow strangulation in the US for almost 40 years as premium cable networks HBO and Showtime gobbled up the high-end talent and stuck them all behind paywalls. Now, we’re at a point where ratings are down to a fifth of what they were just 20 years ago and even pay-per-view is dead because, frankly, there just aren’t enough fans for promoters to try and sell to. 

And if boxing suffered behind paywalls, with its talent divvied up into the two forever-separate camps, just imagine what will happen now, with a smaller fan base from which to draw, and the talent divvied up into four, stuck behind four distinct paywalls. We may end up getting more fights and having greater access to those fights, but making GOOD fights will become harder and harder. 

As for what we can do as consumers—well, we’re kind of stuck for a good answer there. If we boycott and refuse to pay subscription fees, boxing as a streaming product fails and there’ll be a big question mark as to where these fighters will land. If we go ahead and just blindly consume, however, we’re putting nails into boxing’s coffin by supporting a business model guaranteed to hurt the long-term health of the sport. 

It would be wonderful If boxing businessmen would actually LISTEN to fans and consumers to help work towards a mutually beneficial solution, but these guys are too busy finding duffel bags in which to stuff the easy cash their getting from upstart streaming services. 

In a perfect world, the boxing big shots would get together and run with this streaming idea, but only with full cooperation from multiple promoters and a pledge to work together. I still wouldn’t like the idea of a paywall, but at least fans would be getting the big fights they want and deserve, rather than showcase in-house squashes that will only lead to other showcase in-house squashes.

I’d suggest that a reform-minded fan is almost bound to NOT paying for this stuff, but it’s also very important to make the sport’s powerbrokers know WHY you aren’t paying.

Tyson Fury: Gypsy King or Clown Prince?

Hey Magno.

Tyson Fury comes back this weekend against a tougher opponent than he fought in his first fight back. Supposedly Deontay Wilder is next. Can Fury get his groove back and, even if he can, can he beat Wilder and then Joshua down the line? 

-- Nigel Roth

Hey Nigel. Honestly, I’ve never been high on Fury or his abilities. I think he slopped his way to a win over Wladimir Klitschko, not so much because of his own prowess, but because he had the size and backward-minded game plan to perfectly exploit an always-cautious Klitschko. Wlad simply froze, mentally, at having to push himself, extend himself to risk counters by pursuing Fury, so he got pecked to a loss. 

IMO, Fury has always been more provocateur than elite-level fighter. He’s alright, and his size and length make him a tough stylistic challenge, but he’s not a great boxer by any stretch of the imagination. 

I think Wilder and Joshua, two big, strong, bangers, beat him pretty decisively. 

Haymon Hate

Hi Paul. 

This is my first time ever writing into one of these mailbag articles mostly because I never felt that a real man of the people was going to answer. I’ve followed your work for awhile and I think out of all the boxing writers out there, you are the most likely to give a straight answer to a tough question, so here it goes. Why the animosity for Al Haymon from day one, even when he was just working with Vernon Forrest? He’s probably a sleazy character like most big businessmen, but boxing has always been full of sleazy characters. I saw a few years back that Steve Kim of Maxboxing, a guy who gets a lot of work in the boxing media, said on a video something like “It’s always a good day when an Al Haymon fighter loses.” Really? The level of animosity is overboard and it just doesn’t add up. So, why the aggressive hate in singling out this one man who is like everyone else in boxing, trying to make a few bucks?

-- T. Damon

Hey T. 

There’s a lot to this, so I’ll try and be brief.

Haymon has never been the typical boxing manager/adviser. He came into the business as an outsider and has remained an outsider for the most part. The boxing world is a very small world, very suspicious of outsiders and Haymon pissed a lot of these old guard guys off by not doing “business as usual.” From what I’ve seen and heard, as a former entertainment industry manager, he works negotiations and handles fighters as entertainers would be handled. That means that there’s not a lot of the “two old guys give-and-take” business relationship promoters have adopted as standard procedure. 

More important, though, the old guard guys clearly see a guy in Haymon who wants to turn the business model upside down, shifting more power to networks and the fighters, themselves, and away from the promoters. This is seen as a direct attack to promoters’ livelihoods. 

And, as for the media, well, much of them are deep in the pockets of the promoter bossmen and will doggedly fight in favor of the status quo. These media creeps, who get whined and dined, loaded with swag, given bartered access to fighters, and are, often, directly paid by the promoters are not going to like someone like Haymon who has, traditionally, not lavished the media with much and won’t even speak to them. 

There’s also, IMO, a racial/class aspect to all of this animosity. Boxing has very much adopted an indentured servitude business model, with old white men calling the shots, having “their” guys do battle under their promotional banner. The poor people and the people of color are to do the fighting and the wealthy white men are to handle the business. Many fans and members of the media have been conditioned to have a knee-jerk dislike and dismissal of fighters executing a greater degree of career self-determination. Haymon’s mere existence flies in the face of that indentured servitude dynamic and his focus on handing more power to the fighters is seen as a dangerous precedent by those who are benefiting most from business as usual (this also explains the rabid Floyd Mayweather hate).

There’s a lot to this hating Haymon stuff and it’s not just about business practices because, as you alluded to, boxing is full of rascals of all sorts and sizes.

Got a question (or hate mail) for Magno’s Bulging Mail Sack? The best of the best gets included in the weekly mailbag segment right here at FightHype. Send your stuff here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com.

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