The boxing world got a bit of a buzz yesterday evening when word got around that 50 Cent (yes, that 50 Cent) tweeted the following to Oscar De La Hoya:
@oscardelahoya I don’t gamble floyd do,but I bet you won’t be promoting Floyd mayweather no more. TMT PROMOTIONS”
I won’t go into the background of what else was tweeted, etc. I think Kevin Iole does a good enough job of that in his Yahoo! article. But let’s just go with what seems to be the inevitable conclusion out of all this: Floyd and 50 have started their own boxing promotion company, and Floyd will promote his own fights now as opposed to having Golden Boy do it for him on an ad hoc basis.
There are 3 questions that readily pop into mind:
1) Will this bring us any closer to Floyd-Pacman?
I don’t know. The Top Rank-Golden Boy dislike for each other is legendary (starting at the top with Arum and his former biggest drawing card De La Hoya not caring much for the other) . But Golden Boy was Floyd’ s promoter in name only. Floyd dictated his own terms, and I don’t know if anything will really change much.
2) Will boxing fans get to see more of the fights they want to see?
I think if anything, this will have the opposite effect. You’ll have 3 Super Power promotions out there now (although without Floyd, Golden Boy won’t be on equal footing as Top Rank and Team Money). You still have the minor guys out there too like Gary Shaw and Don King. These egos get on the negotiating table and are basically looking out for themselves, not believing in the adage “A rising tide lifts all boats”. So no, I think we will continue to see more of each promotion’s fighters fighting each other, with a fight here and there against the smaller promoter’s fighters.
3) Is Golden Boy done?
Not in the least. But this hurts. The only consistent draws in boxing nowadays are Floyd and Pacquiao. After that, you’re talking small potatoes. Amir Khan just got the bejeezus knocked out of him so his short term prospects as a draw is done. Saul Alvarez is Golden Boy’s new “Golden Boy”, but the kid is only 22, has not really been tested yet, and is only a big draw in Mexico and in certain parts of the Hispanic population of the United States. Maybe Oscar will have to come out of retirement or something.
I was just kidding about that last part. But then again, this is boxing. You never know.