The Boxing Truth - Don Chargin Speaks On Golden Boy Promotions, The Pay-Per-View Dilemna, And Boxing As A Whole

Don Chargin Speaks on Golden Boy Promotions, the Pay-Per-View Dilemna, and Boxing as a Whole
by John Chavez

Jul 15, 2010 -

This past week, The Boxing Truth was able to conduct an in-depth interview with a man considered to be one of the best boxing match-makers of all-time, Don "War-a-Week" Chargin. Having promoted boxing events for over 50 years, his perspective on the sport is quite unique being that he's experienced the ups and downs of not only his own career but boxing in totality.

Here's the interview transcript with Mr. Chargin:

So Don, I know that you were recently announced as once again joining the Golden Boy Promotions family, we'll get to that in a second but what is your opinion on the current state of boxing here in the United States of America?

I think we're on a little bit of a downside right now but the way this sport works, one match could turn things around. If a fight like Pacquiao-Mayweather gets made, the imagination of the public can be captured in a way that creates a alot of discussion as it pertains to boxing. It's the type of event that non-boxing people are very, very interested in it. I get so many inquiries about that fight from so many people everywhere I go. If it ends up being a good fight, assuming it gets made it can really do alot for the sport. What boxing really needs to do is to take advantage of a big fight like this is surround it with barn-burners that will really show how entertaining this sport can be.

With all the egos in boxing today, how would the sport be able to work cohesively together to create the type of match-ups deemed as barn-burners?

I think it's going to take a player with deep pockets such as HBO to take a stand and put their foot down saying... I want to see fighter "A" vs. fighter "B", we don't care about which promoter has which fighter and so on. They need to quit all this nonsense and say, "let's think about the fans." I truly think that it's going to take HBO to alter their business model or else we'll never find a way to get together. It's not impossible being that I've seen real enemies in boxing find a way to work together. I remember when Don King and Bob Arum weren't even speaking to one another but somehow still found a way to get a big fight made.

In the past, it seemed as though Mexico was one of the world's most boxing rich markets in terms of up-coming talent, do you think it'll ever return to that or will it just continue to trickle in from a global market?

I think it's probably going to continue to come in from all over the world not just Mexico. However, you must take note of a guy like Saul Alvarez. Even though alot of people feel as though Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has all the notoriety based on his name, this kid Alvarez is only 19 years old and is actually the biggest Mexican star right now having drawn 12,000 people for his most recent bout in which they actually had to turn people away due to capacity issues. That kid Salvador Sanchez was being hyped up as the next Mexican ticket seller and got exposed by Tomas Villa.

The thing about the past talent influx from Mexico was this... the gyms, especially in Mexico City were like factories. They had some gyms that would be 3 floors with the top floor for kids 7-12 years old with lines and lines of heavy bags, the second floor with teenagers, and the first floor with the grown men. Right now it seems as though Mexico seems to be getting back to that type of setting. The punch they all learned to perfection was the left hook to the liver as kids. If you visited a Mexican boxing gym in decades past, you'd look at them and think they were like little robots just praciticing their signature punches over and over again. They were really turning out some great, great fighters using this training system.

One thing that happened, and you can't blame them is the fact that alot of the Mexican boxers wanted to come to the United States earlier on in their career due to the elevated paydays compared to what they'd receive in Mexico. They didn't want to learn their craft like they did in previous eras. Before you had some of the world's best managers in Mexico and they knew the proper time to bring them to the states once they had polished up their style. You can't blame them now for rushing to get a payday but I believe that it contributed to a down-turn in the amount of Mexican champions produced in recent times.

Switching gears... what are your thoughts on HBO passing on Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko? Any background info on this?

Not knowing the whole situation whether the Klistchko's were too tough to deal with based on the U.S. ratings they generated and the amount of revenue they generate overseas, it might have made more financial sense for HBO to pass on the two talented brothers. However, If I was HBO, I think I might have put it in a different light and merely stated that we'd look to buy a fight with either a guy as long as it was a worthy challenge that the fight fans would appreciate.

What are your thoughts on the Super-Six tournament... the trend, the style of the tourney, and why things like this so difficult to make?

I definitely like the tournament it's just so difficult to make these types of events with the different promoters handling different fighters who end up fighting about location, the money, and every other little thing but that's just the way boxing goes. The tourney is a good idea, it's something that I'd like to see more of in virtually all of the divisions. The most important thing about tournaments is that you have to make good fights between exciting fighters. Take a guy like Arthur Abraham. While he might a little limited in certain aspects of boxing, he's always exciting and looks to give people, the paying fans an action affair.

What about fighter activity these days... do you believe that guy should be more active not only to stay sharp but stay in the public lime-light fighting rather than in the press?

Definitely! Fighters, especially younger guys need to stay alot more active. Do you realize that, because i'm an old guy... Ray Robinson and Jake Lamotta the one fight Jake won, they fought a rematch 2 to 3 weeks later. In those times if a fighter lost, the most important thing was to get right back into the ring. The whole time they were learning.

Do you feel that alot of these young champions today get paid so much money that it contributes them to only fighting twice a year?

Oh sure. These kids take a fight, receive a generous payday, and you know you're not going to see him for 5 or 6 months. It's simply the amount of money around today. A guy like Andre Berto, while he's a good little fighter, he's a very young champion that's more along the lines of a contender that should be keeping busy, he should be learning.

An example of a guy in this era who really learned his craft and developed into a very good fighter even though he started later in life is Sergio Martinez. He's a guy who developed himself into a real, real good boxer before coming to the states and becoming and undisputed champion.

The other thing is that alot of promoters these days wait around for television dates and will just refuse to do off-tv shows to continue the development of their fighters. Me and my wife Lorraine had such a good run in Sacramento years ago, we had 4 world champions at one-time in Bobby Chacon, Willie Jorin, Loretto Garza, and Tony Lopez. We were selling out ARCO arena never looking for TV until TV came after us. We were doing well there after having put in the work to do so. I remember television calling us like crazy back then trying to get us to go to Atlantic City and other casino-based locations but we refused. We saw absolutely no reason to take a guaranteed payday to go to some casino where only a few hundred people would attend the bout when we were drawing 17,000 people on a regular basis in Sacramento. Our business model was predicated on the fact that we knew that we were going to make money at the live gate but if anything came in from television money, it was an extra profit. Our focus was putting on great, entertaining shows for the live fans in attendance... everything else was extra.

I know we've spoken in the past about the differences in training methods of today and in eras past. You've stated that guys today spend too many days in the gym taking too many tough sparring sessions while in the past they'd spend more time working on the subtle nuances of the sport. What do you think about that?

I've never been an advocate of too many tough gym workouts taking unnecessary punishment in the process. You need to practice perfecting the punch delivery on the jab, left hook... you dont need to get hit everyday in the gym, it's there to learn.

What about your recent venture with Golden Boy Promotions and your role in this agreement?

I think it worked before when I was there a couple years ago. I had a wonderful time working with them. I'm really glad because before when my wife was in the hospital, she wanted me to scale back but she said that the only way that she wanted me to be involved is if I was working with Richard Schaefer. I also have alot of respect for oscar and we got along very well. They have a bunch of good young people there and I just hope to add some good guidance to the mix.

What are your thoughts on building up talent and whether GBP has hit a bad stroke of luck with guys such as Victor Ortiz, Jorge Linares, James Kirkland?

The thing is that one round knockouts can happen at anytime. Everyone was so high on a guy like Jorge Linares at one point and after he got knocked out in one round the tune has changed. We're liable to never see that happen to him ever again in his career, the same thing with Amir Khan.

Another example would be that Puerto Rican kid... Juan Manuel Lopez. He had a real tough fight with a tough guy I respect, Rogers Mtgawa. Lopez was basically out on his feet in that final round but he reacted well to being in deep water. Once you see how these guys will react once they're in tough, then you have a better idea of whether you might have a complete fighter or not.

At one point, Victor Ortiz looked sensational but he had never been in deep water. You always have to see a talented fighter in a certain level of turmoil before you tout them as the next big anything.

One guy I feel has done an excellent job with his talent is Russell Peltz. I say this not because he's a personal friend of mine but he's done a great job with Mike Jones. He refuses to be dictated to by anybody in regards to the match-ups for Jones. Television has offered to put him in certain fights that Russell didn't feel were proper for him at this point in his career and he continues to move him as best as he can in order to develop Mike as a fighter. Do I think that he'll be a future world champion? I don't know because we haven't seem him deal with a high-level of adversity yet and maybe if he gets hit on the chin it'll all be over but thus far, he looks like he might be the real deal.

Speaking of the next big thing in boxing. What are your thoughts on touting these young guys as being the next "Oscar De la Hoya" or the next "Manny Pacquiao"? Does it inflate their egos too much too soon affecting their dedication to the craft?

It does inflate their egos too much and they do tend to lose focus. The next thing the prospect starts doing is turning down fights and griping about getting high-level paydays during their development stages. There's nothing wrong with fighters making paydays but when they're in the early stages of their career, they should be focusing on the developing as true prize-fighters while their team focuses on getting them the right fights at the right time in order to build complete champions. You gotta be able to sit down with the young fighter and talk to them. He has to be able to understand the message you're attempting to convey to them.

What about the boxing fans complaint about Golden Boy's lack of fan-pleasing fights at times with bouts such as Hopkins-Jones II? What are your thoughts on that?

It's hard to be critical... I didnt like that fight when it was made and it ended up playing out like I thought it would end up. Every once in a while as a promoter, there are fights that you have to make that you don't want to based on your obligation to the fighters. Like on that same card, you have to give them something to the fans in terms of a "Fight of the Year" candidate to make up for the lack-luster main event.

We knew going into that there wouldn't be alot of action so you need to put something together to bring the house down.

Richard Schaefer seems like a smart business man but sometimes he can come off a little brash in referring to boxing fans, does this effect the way the media covers GBP especially incomparison to how they view rival Top Rank?

I think so. We have to understand that the media has changed and alot of times now, boxing writers and fans are one in the same. The thing is that alot of the writers... they don't know Richard. I know he's too busy for something like this but I think that if everyone in the boxing media had a one-on-one interview with him, everything would come out different. Lorraine was a tough person to please and she loved to sit-down and talk with him about everything from politics, to finance, to life. She always had a high-level of respect for how he carried himself.

What can the fans expect from your involvement with GBP?

In the next few weeks, Golden Boy is going to have me sit-down with Golden Boy's two match-makers. I think they might need a break. Eric Gomez does a good job but what people don't know is that his hands have been tied. When you get promotional contracts with fighters and the managers are there, it's tough to make a good fight because they're going to veto it. You have to be strong enough to say this way or the highway.

I've never been an advocate of having too many promotional contracts because it ties your hands. You cant make the type of fights you wanna make.

Believe me John... everything we're discussing, Richard Schaefer and I have both gone over together. He's very much aware and that's why were doing this. We want to get everyhing going in the right direction.

We've discussed that in the past the promoter/manger relationship being akin to a tight-rope act. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

Oh most definitely. I was so fortunate that in my 20 years at the Olympic Auditorium, I worked closely with child-hood friend and boxing manager, Jackie McCoy. Jackie was around and we were friends from the time I was 16 years old. He had 5 world-champs that he had managed and trained from scratch. It was great dealing with him and we never had a written promotional contract with any of his guys... it was all a handshake deal based on good faith. Jackie just knew the value of a match and we didn't have to waste hours going over non-descript details. He knew... like me when a fight was considered "hot" and that it would do great numbers at the gate. He used to get calls from Bob Arum and Don King all the time when they wanted to use his fighters but Jackie knew that his Los Angeles fighters would be best served fighting at the Olympic where all the top fights were taking place at the time in front of huge crowds.

What are your thoughs on the Pay-Per-View boxing business and it's effect on the sport?

You hit the nail on the head in your recent column that I read. It's a fighters ego thinking that they are all huge drawing cards and that a million pay-per-view buys is within grasp. Pay-Per-View should be used for it's original purpose and simply be relegated for fights too big for regular television such as Ray Leonard vs. Tommy Hearns or Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. Anything other than that and you're asking too much from the boxing fan as we're all in a tough time economically and $50 can go a long way in putting food on the table.

Like you wrote, the promoters are going to continue losing money on these independent Pay-Per-Views and the fighters will be forced to adjust their financial demands or they will sit on the shelf making nothing in the process.

Well Don, I'd like to say thanks for your time and the boxing fans are definitely looking forward to the impact you can help make at one of the top boxing promotional firms in the world.

Thank you and I look forward to giving them a hand and hopefully doing everything that I can to make a positive impact to Golden Boy.

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