Battle of the promoters, who will win?

By John Woolford: Since Frank Warren has taken the clever route of starting his Box Nation channel he’s done something no other promoter has achieved which is cutting out the TV Networks.

Let’s face it, boxing promoters hate being controlled as much as a cat hates being told to sit like a dog.

Now both the UK and US are now in similar circumstance’s regarding promotional politics within boxing.

TMT Promotions which is 50 Cent’s latest business venture is hot off the press while Golden Boy and Top Rank look on at this latest development in somewhat despair. 50 Cent’s name may look broke but he’s certainly not short of cash from all his highly successful business ventures. As for Don King he’s not really that interested in competing in the way he was in the past.

Over in the UK though we now have Frank Warren’s Box Nation channel competing against Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom sport (affiliated with Sky Sports) while Mick Hennessy rides with Channel 5 and Hatton Promotions (which has been off to a flying start) is now in need of a new TV deal after getting dumped by Sky Sports.

Any loose ends such as David Haye’s Haymaker Promotions including Lennox Lewis’ old promoter Frank Maloney has surprisingly signed up with Frank Warren on Box Nation.

Now this is where it gets interesting. Never before in boxing history have we had so many strong dominant and financially powerful promoters with so many decent fighter on their books. Boxing has never been short of decent fighters, the only problem was raising the financial clout to direct them all towards their needed title shots.

As for decent up and coming show’s we’re becoming spoiled for choice leaving the next two years to be interesting to say the least.

But what many boxing pundits are waiting for is which members of the British Olympic boxing team will sign with which promoter upon deciding the professional route.

Surprisingly Amir Khan has already approached British Flyweight gold medalist Nicola Adams confessing of his recent success in obtaining his promotional license.

All in all the next two years really will prove to be the battle of the promoters, let’s just let them spoil us for choice.