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Paulie Malignaggi thinks Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ new promoters at Matchroom should have invested in him by coming up with the extra $500,000 that WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. wanted for him to agree to a unification fight on November 9th in Boots’ hometown at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Boot’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, didn’t want to budge from the $1.7 million offer to raise it $500K to $2.2 million to make the clash with Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs). The fact that Hearn didn’t want to let loose a paltry $500K is telling.
Hearn’s Shortsightedness: The Cost of $500K
If American business magnate John D. Rockefeller had approached business the way Hearn does, only thinking in the short term, he would have never acquired the pipelines and terminals and purchased the competing refineries to become a billionaire in the 1930s. Hearn’s focus on not wanting to let go of a small sum blew a fight that would have helped Boots’ career.
If Boots had Rockefeller as his promoter, the fight with Norman Jr. would have gotten made because the American businessman was a genius.
Hearn should have invested the $500,000 in Boots Ennis because he would have helped his career if he’d captured the WBO title and become undisputed champion sat welterweight.
Yeah, it would have cost Hearn money to get the three champions to agree to fight Boots, but his popularity would have increased if he won those belts, and the investment could have worked well in the British promoter’s favor.
Hearn’s refusal to budge on his $1.7 million offer without sweetening it to $500K to get the Norman Jr. fight made suggests that he’s focused only on the short term and unable to grasp the money he would have earned in the long run.
Hearn’s Short-Term Focus: A Double Whammy for Ennis
Hearn also lost the purse bid for Ennis’ IBF mandatory Karen Chukhadzhian, which some suggest suggests he’s unwilling to invest in his fighter Boots. That was a double whammy for Ennis.
With the failed negotiations with Norman Jr. and the lost purse bid for the mandatory defense against Karen, Ennis must travel to Europe to defend his IBF title in Germany or Ukraine.
If Boots vacates his IBF title and moves up to 154, there’s no guarantee that he will enjoy the same success in that weight class that he had enjoyed against the low-level competition that he’s feasted on. Despite the hype around Boots, he never beat anyone high-level. Ennis’ best was against these fighters:
– David Avanesyan
– Custio Clayton
– Sergey Lipinets
– Roiman Villa
– Chris Van Heerden
– Thomas Dulorme
Those are very average fighters and nowhere near as talented as the dangerous punchers that await Boots Ennis if he drops his IBF welterweight title and moves up to 154 to try and reinvent himself in a new weight class.
Malignaggi’s Call for Investment in Ennis
“I think a promoter has to make an investment. I think sometimes, when promoters sign champions, they think that’s not an investment anymore. ‘I’m going to sign him and assure him that I’m going to get him the best fights possible. I shouldn’t have to pay into this anymore because it’s not a prospect,” said pundit Paulie Malignaggi to the Probox TV YouTube channel, reacting to promoter Eddie Hearn failing to negotiate a unification fight for his fighter, IBF welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis and WBO champ Brian Norman Jr. after choosing not to pay the extra $500K that Team Norman wanted to get the clash made.
Hearn should invest in Boots Ennis because he’s not well known enough to the casual boxing fans in the U.S. for him to lose out on important fights like the Norman Jr. clash.
Ennis’ Lack of Recognition
I don’t know if Hearn is keeping up with things, but Ennis doesn’t have a social media presence, and his interviewing skills are beyond horrible. He had nothing to say and repeated himself in every interview.
“Well, in this situation, Boots could have maybe used a little bit of a sort of financial injection from Matchroom,” said Malignaggi. “Maybe Matchroom could make a fight where they wouldn’t make as much money or would take a loss just to get the notoriety of Boots going. Otherwise, what else are you going to do?”
All it would have taken from Hearn was $500K. It’s not like Norman Jr. was asking for the crown jewels or anything. He just wanted an extra amount to make up for the fact that he would be fighting Ennis in his hometown and giving up a sizeable chunk of his purse to his promoters. The money that Norman Jr. was asking for shouldn’t have caused Hearn to dig in his heels and refuse to pay.
“You’re [Matchroom] not doing for Boots that anyone else couldn’t do already. So, there’s not really a change in the Boots Ennis business right now,” said Malignaggi.
Hearn was supposed to be improving Boots’ career by signing him, but it’s not looking good right now after one fight with Matchiroom against Avanesyan. These great fights that Hearn had been banging on about have failed to materialize, and some fans believe he’s taking the same promotional approach with Ennis as with Demetrius Andrade and Danny Jacobs.
“Norman is 23. Why go fight against Boots? He knows he’s going to lose that fight. You go to Philly. You got to the scorecards; he knows he’s going to lose that fight,” said Tim Bradley about Brian Norman Jr. “He wanted a certain amount of money that he didn’t get. Devin Haney went overseas and took short money [against George Kambosos] to get those belts.”
Ennis should have stepped up and given up the $500K purse to make the Norman fight or volunteered money to win the purse bid with Karen once he saw that Hearn wouldn’t do it. It shouldn’t have gotten to that point, but if Hearn wasn’t going to do it, Boots should have invested in himself.
Ennis Needed to Step Up
“So if Boots wanted this fight, it wasn’t Eddie Hearn that had to give the extra money,” said Bradley. “It should have been Boots that said, ‘Alright, you want the extra $500,000? I want that title. Here you go. Take a little bit of my cut. I’ll take a gamble because I believe I’m going to knock you out and beat you, and the fight is going to get made.’”
If Boots was confident of beating Norman, he should have given up some of his purse, rumored to be $5 million for that match. With that kind of money, Boots had more than enough to give Norman the $500K that he wanted to close the deal.
“All it was [that prevented the fight] was $500,000. Now, you look at this purse bid that Eddie Hearn just lost [for the Karen Chukhadzhian fight]. Eddie Hearn isn’t in the business to lose money. He’s in the business to make money,” said Bradley.
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