“Fighting Words” – Mayweather vs Marquez: The Hard Sell

Saturate the market. Get names in newspapers, segments on screen. Remember that all publicity is good publicity.

The Sept. 19 pay-per-view featuring Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez is not a hard sell. But with less than three weeks to go, it is being sold hard.

The sweet science largely takes a hiatus in the summer months. The desert of Las Vegas is too hot. Television viewership drops. And network executives tighten their purse strings, saving up so as to end the year with a bang.

Since June, HBO has aired just three boxing broadcasts, as many as it put on in May alone. In the past three months, Showtime, too, footed the license fee for a trio of shows, along with picking up domestic rights to rebroadcast a fight staged overseas.

Attention turns, then, to the fall and winter slates. First up to the plate: Mayweather-Marquez.

Mayweather-Marquez was once set for July 18. But Mayweather injured a rib in training camp, postponing their bout. Conspiracy theorists suggested another reason: low ticket sales due in part to the economic downturn, in part to poor scheduling.

The new date takes advantage of Mexico’s Independence Day, which falls just three days prior. Major pay-per-views featuring Mexican fighters have become a regular occurrence in recent years.

And this year, that $50 purchase is a lot easier to make than in years before.

The first eight months of 2008 saw HBO put on five pay-per-views. It would finish the year with four more. The first eight months of 2007 also saw five pay-per-views broadcast or distributed by HBO. Another three would come.

This year, HBO has broadcast just one pay-per-view and distributed one other. Some promoters have put on smaller, independent pay-per-views, most notably last month’s bout between Roy Jones Jr. and Jeff Lacy. HBO only has two pay-per-view shows slated for the remainder of the year: Mayweather-Marquez and Miguel Cotto-Manny Pacquiao.

For those salivating for big-time boxing, Mayweather-Marquez is not a hard sell. It pits Mayweather, the former top boxer, pound-for-pound, against Marquez, whose accomplishments have long landed him high on the same list.

Mayweather should be the heavy favorite. The bout will be contested at a catch-weight of 144 pounds. Mayweather, a welterweight, will need to cut a few extra pounds from a body that is always in shape. Marquez, most recently a lightweight, will need to add the right combination of heft and muscle.

Marquez has been hittable, be it against second-tier opponents such as Jimrex Jaca and Terdsak Jandaeng or against former world titlists such as Juan Diaz. That Marquez has won anyway is a testament to his ability to adjust mid-fight, landing the right punches at the right time.

Mayweather, already bigger and stronger, will be faster, too, an advantage widened even more by Marquez slowing due to weight gain. Juan Diaz was able to press the fight against Marquez. Mayweather, criticized by some in the past for opting to box instead of trade, should be more than able to mimic Diaz’s early success.

It is a seeming mismatch, but it is an event featuring two of the sport’s top craftsmen. And that is why those charged with marketing the match are kicking their efforts into high gear.

Until just recently, there was little buzz for Mayweather-Marquez, and more conversation instead about Cotto-Pacquiao.

That has changed.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. began last week with an opportunity plush for plugs – as guest host on the Aug. 24 episode of World Wrestling Entertainment’s “Monday Night Raw.” For storyline purposes, the show has seen celebrities serve as “general manager” for a night, giving WWE and the celebrities the same dynamic seen with “Saturday Night Live.” The show can work storylines around the celebrities, and the celebrities can get publicity for their new movies. Or, in this case, an upcoming fight.

Mayweather didn’t appear on “Raw” until nearly an hour into the episode, perhaps because he was dealing with drama outside of either the boxing or wrestling ring. A vehicle of his had been seen at a Las Vegas roller skating rink where a shooting had occurred. Though Mayweather was not a suspect, police had searched his home.

Last year, Mayweather was part of a hot angle in WWE programming that culminated in his taking part in a match at WrestleMania 25. Last week, Mayweather did confront the same wrestler he met in 2008, The Big Show, and he interfered in a tag match. But he only took part in one other segment. For much of the first hour, WWE broadcasters insisted Mayweather would arrive shortly, which suggests that he was running late. He was not able to use his spot on “Raw” to its full potential.

Mayweather went on to answer questions Friday on an ESPN.com live chat, part of the round of media appearances. And on Saturday, the first episode of the “Mayweather-Marquez 24/7” miniseries aired on HBO. As usual, it set the stage effectively, casting Mayweather as one part brash villain obsessed with his riches, one part misunderstood man who gives back to his community.

Marquez, more known for what he has done in the ring than who he is outside of it, got to speak about his background, about where and how he was raised. He is the working-class hero portrayed not just as Mayweather’s opposition, but somewhat as his opposite.

There are three more episodes to come. And the sales pitch is far from over.

More than two years ago, Oscar De La Hoya’s mainstream appeal carried the promotion but combined with Mayweather’s pedigree and personality to set revenue records. De La Hoya not only was facing a better boxer than him, but one so cocky and antagonizing that customers wanted to pay to see Mayweather lose. Mayweather followed the same strategy for his bout with Ricky Hatton, a fight that drew thousands of Hatton’s supporters to Vegas from overseas.

Marquez is not a box-office draw on par with De La Hoya or Hatton. It is Mayweather who now carries much of the burden in promoting the fight. But there is a promotional machine behind him.

His name has been and will be in newspapers. He’s being featured in segments on screen. Even the legal drama – the shooting at the skating rink, the unrelated arrest of his uncle and trainer, Roger Mayweather, for assault – helps. Any publicity that gets people talking is good publicity.

As long as people buy what he’s selling.

The 10 Count

1. Nate Campbell’s technical-knockout loss Aug. 1 to Timothy Bradley has been overturned, changed to a “No decision” after a hearing last week in front of the California State Athletic Commission.

Bradley and Campbell clashed heads early in the third round of their fight. Campbell suffered a gash over his left eye that referee David Mendoza wrongly ruled was the result of a punch. That was the visible injury. Campbell was also seeing spots in his left eye, the result of bleeding within or behind the eye.

Campbell survived the round and returned to his corner, saying he could not see. A ringside physician called the bout off.

The blemish has been taken off of Campbell’s record, but the damage still lingers – he is a 37-year-old who can still contend for a title, but Bradley, who holds a junior-welterweight belt, will probably not give Campbell a rematch.

The question is whether any of the other beltholders at 140 feels there is enough reward in facing Campbell to compensate for the risk.

2. Bradley has a mandatory defense due against Lamont Peterson. That said, a near-brawl between Bradley and Campbell following last week’s athletic commission hearing shows that a wise promoter could capitalize on some legitimate bad blood and put on a rematch.

Outside, after the hearing, Bradley reportedly told Campbell, “You got away with quitting. You got away with quitting,” according to what multiple sources told BoxingScene’s own Rick Reeno.

They exchanged words, Reeno wrote, and Campbell took off his jacket and walked up to Bradley.

“You’re going to see me again,” Campbell is reported as saying. “You might see me in the ring, or you might see me on the sidewalk like this, but you will see.”

Great stuff. Where were the cameras?

3. The 118-110 scorecard Texas boxing judge Gale Van Hoy turned in for the Aug. 22 bout between Juan Diaz and Paulie Maligning (in which he favored Diaz, 10 rounds to 2) was already indefensible. And then Van Hoy tried to defend it.

“Maybe, in retrospect, I was wide in my score. Maybe I was off by a round or two,” Van Hoy was quoted as saying to Michael Marley of Boxing Confidential. “Paulie’s got a good jab, but it kept hitting Juan’s gloves. There was not enough power in those jabs.”

Except Diaz has to do something in return. I gave Malignaggi more than two rounds alone just in the latter half of the fight, when more often than not he made Diaz miss and did more damage, even with his supposedly soft jabs.

HBO commentator Max Kellerman has described aptly in the past how rounds should be scored: One determines which fighter one would rather have been in each round.

4. All that said, Diaz-Malignaggi was not a robbery despite the scores, 118-110, 116-112 and 115-113 in Diaz’s favor.

I scored the bout 115-113 Malignaggi but noted a couple of close rounds that could have swung the score to a 114-114 draw or a 115-113 Diaz victory.

Would there have been any uproar had all three scorecards read 115-113 for Diaz?

The issue is not that David Sutherland and Gale Van Hoy had Diaz winning, but how many rounds they gave him.

It wasn’t a robbery. It was questionable scoring that fuels ammunition for those who believe Malignaggi had the deck stacked against him in Diaz’s hometown.

5. Boxers Behaving Badly, part one: Davey Hilton Jr. can’t seem to stay out of trouble, it seems. The former super-middleweight titlist appeared in court last week on charges stemming from – you guessed it – another incident involving his longtime girlfriend.

Hilton, 45, had been ordered not to have any contact with the woman. In May, he allegedly got in an argument with her before grabbing her and threatening her with a knife. That case is going to trial in October.

There have been at least two other alleged assaults. In January, Hilton was acquitted on charges of assault and sexual assault after the woman said she no longer wanted to press charges; a judge then found there to be no evidence in the case.

Hilton claims this latest incident saw the woman threaten suicide unless he got back together with her, according to The Canadian Press. Police say a night of drinking saw the woman end up with a swollen lip.

Hilton has been charged with assault and uttering threats. He is being held without bail.

Hilton, convicted in 2001 of sexually abusing two teenage girls, was freed earlier this year after serving close to eight years in prison. He was nearly arrested again while in jail for refusing to sign a document agreeing to stay away from youths under 16 for the next year. He ultimately signed.

Hilton’s victims, his daughters, had been abused between 1995 and 1998. After their father was incarcerated, they revealed their identities.

Hilton was released on parole in 2006 and served out much of the rest of his sentence in a halfway house. His last bout before then had come in 2000, the title-winning split-decision over Dingaan Thobela. But Hilton, who had turned pro in 1981, returned to the ring in 2007 and went 10 rounds in a victory over some dude named Adam Green. That raised his record to 41-2-2 (26 knockouts).

6. With four months left, it looks like Hilton could end up giving Johnny Tapia some competition as this year’s “Boxer Behaving Most Badly.”

Too bad Scott Harrison won’t be out of prison in time to see his dubious torch get passed.

7. Vernon Forrest case update: The three men charged in the murder of Vernon Forrest were indicted last week, and the prosecutor in the case said he will seek the death penalty if the men are convicted, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

An indictment is a determination by a grand jury that prosecutors have amassed enough evidence against a suspect to warrant a trial. It is not an indication of guilt.

Damario Ware allegedly approached the former welterweight champion and 154-pound titlist outside of an Atlanta convenience store, seeking to rob him as he was putting air in one of his tires. Jquante Crews is allegedly the driver of the getaway car.

Forrest, who had a gun on him, shot at Ware and chased after him before turning around and walking back to his car. On the way back, he exchanged words with Charman Sinkfield, police told the newspaper. Forrest realized he had confronted the wrong person and turned away to leave. Sinkfield, who allegedly was working alongside Ware and Crews, then shot Forrest in the back.

8. Arturo Gatti case update: Amanda Rodrigues, the widow of Arturo Gatti, plans to sue Brazilian police for “wrongfully accusing her of murder” in the July death of Gatti, Rodrigues’ lawyer told The Montreal Gazette.

Rodrigues was held behind bars for 18 days after Gatti was found dead. Police originally ruled the death a homicide before deciding it was a suicide, that Gatti hanged himself from a stairway with a purse strap. Rodrigues was then released from jail. A second autopsy conducted in Gatti’s native Canada has apparently revealed injuries not found by Brazilian authorities.

I’m sure there will be more to come…

9. Three truths:

MMA fighter Chuck Liddell will be on this season of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” partnered with Anna Trebunskaya, who is from Russia.

Retired boxer Joe Calzaghe will be on this season of BBC’s “Strictly Come Dancing,” partnered with Kristina Rihanoff, who is from Russia.

And neither will be anywhere near as entertaining to watch as Zab Judah doing “the Brooklyn Shuffle” against Kostya Tszyu, who, yes, is from Russia.

10. Saw the report from British tabloid The Daily Mirror about the domestic dispute between Ricky Hatton and his girlfriend. Both had been drinking heavily, police said, but the altercation never got past yelling.

Neither were charged, and apparently there’s no truth to the rumors that his girlfriend ended the argument by rendering Hatton unconscious with a picture-perfect left hook.

Source: boxingscene.com