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AUGUST 2000
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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WANTED - MARKETING GENIUS
Make no mistake, boxing is in trouble. The young audience refuses to be won over. Can the sport learn anything from the phenomenal success of the World Wrestling Federation? STEVE FARHOOD examines an increasingly worrying set of circumstances |
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GAUNT GATTI: even as a super feather weight, he would come down from 11 stone (154lbs)
- Get Big Pic A handful of figure-four leglocks ago, and too many step-over toe holds past to remember, I penned a column for a wrestling magazine produced by my long-time employer, London Publishing. It was titled On Assignment, and my travels spanned the globe
- from the comfort of my imagination. One month, I "flew" to Minneapolis to spend a weekend with superstar villain Ric Flair. Turns out one of Flair's boyhood buddies died hours after I arrived. I told Flair that under the circumstances, I was planning to return home. But he insisted I stay, and over the course of the next two days, I saw the human side of the wrestler as he mourned his friend. At London, I stopped writing wrestling in the early
'80s, devoting my full efforts to boxing. But that column on Flair stays with me to this day. That's because it drew more response in the form of letters to the editor than any boxing story I've ever written. Dozens and dozens. Some readers even admitted to sobbing. That's what a good storyline can do for you. If you know not to believe everything you read, you probably also know not to believe everything you see. The illusion of professional wrestling was forever shattered in February 1989, when World Wrestling Federation (WWF) promoter Vince McMahon, in an effort to eliminate costly licensing fees and drug-testing by athletic commissions, acknowledged that his product was not sporting contest, but strictly entertainment. To the surprise of many, nobody cared. In the mid-'80s, the WWF, historically cyclical in its appeal, enjoyed an unprecedented boom. In 1987, the pay-per-view-televised Wrestlemania III, which featured Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, drew 90,173 fans to the Pontiac Silverdome (outside of Detroit). In comparison, 1987's Fight of the Year, junior middleweight Matthew Hilton's title-winning decision over Buster Drayton, drew 9,000 fans to the Montreal Forum. Wrestling slumped in the early
'90s, but fierce Arum-King-like competition between McMahon and media mogul Ted Turner, who owns the rival World Championship Wrestling (WCW), has resulted in fantastic growth. The WWF is now a multimedia empire; earlier this year, the parent company, World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc., went public, and in late June, a judge approved a deal between the WWF and media giant Viacom, which owns, among other entities, CBS, Showtime, and MTV. McMahon has roots in boxing. His grandfather Jess made matches for Tex Rickard at Madison Square Garden in the
'20s, and in 1988, McMahon handled the PPV for the Sugar Ray Leonard-Don Lalonde title fight. But it's professional wrestling that has made him a billionaire. Consider some of the wrestling numbers, which are astounding, and from boxing's perspective, perhaps also disturbing:
* There are approximately 30 pay-per-view wrestling shows annually in the U.S., including one per month from both WWF and WCW. There are generally less than 10 PPV boxing shows annually. In early April, Wrestlemania, the WWF's biggest promotion of the year, drew 800,000 PPV buys. Four weeks later, the heavyweight title fight between Lennox Lewis and Michael Grant drew 350,000 buys. What does a boxing fan do between his early-bird dinner and the PPV main event? Pop some Sanatogen, soak his dentures, and take a nap in the recliner. The numbers don't lie: Professional wrestling, particularly of the WWF variety, is a phenomenon. For the uninitiated, the show is shocking. While the bulging biceps and pure nerve of the risk-taking wrestlers remains impressive, the sexual content has grown increasingly explicit, the body language obscene, and the storylines decidedly off-colour. There's gay-bashing, ethnic and racial stereotyping (nothing new there) references to fellatio, violence against women and the elderly, and (virtual?) nudity. In other words, good clean fun for the kiddies. "The violence, the sex, the racial overtones would have been unimaginable 10 years ago," said Tom Umstead, a columnist for the trade publication Multichannel News. "But the rules have changed and the wrestling industry has taken advantage." McMahon keeps pushing the envelope, which pushes the ratings higher and higher. Reluctant advertisers? Not when the ratings are hitting the roof. The attraction? Something about aiming for the lowest common denominator. After all, it's virtually impossible to underestimate the American public. It can be argued that as wrestling has moved forward to capture the almighty entertainment dollar, boxing continues to walk in place. Then again, if mock-castrations and pressing stained underwear against an opponent's nose represents progress, bring back the simpler times of Bruno Sammartino and Antonino
Rocca. Bad taste aside, the questions must be asked: Is wrestling drawing potential fans away from boxing? "Wrestling has tapped younger viewers, which boxing has not," said Umstead. "Right now, boxing is waging a losing battle against wrestling. In terms of advertisers, wrestling is choreographed and edited. With boxing, a first-round knockout and you have a problem." To suggest a competition is to classify boxing and wrestling as similar products. And that's debatable. "The audiences have always been different," said Rich Rose, a sports consultant who, during his 10 years as president of Caesars World Sports, promoted both boxing and wrestling. "Wrestling is entertainment with a physical element. These are great athletes. But the internal appeal of boxing will remain. Remember, it's still a sport." "There's no reason to compare boxing and wrestling," said my former long-time colleague, Stu Saks, the publisher of the boxing and wrestling titles at London Publishing. "The only thing they have in common is that they're both in a ring. A legitimate sport should walk all over something scripted, but it's a different world today. People want to be entertained. Hey, people will switch off baseball because it's too slow, and on television, wrestling outdraws ice hockey and, on cable, at least, even the NBA playoffs. The WWF saved
UPN. "When it comes to producing raw excitement, I don't think boxing can compare to wrestling. You're gonna get your Hagler-Hearns, with people still talking about it years later. But the chances of getting that on your TV show are one in 100. Wrestling can both produce and control the excitement." Who better to ask? "Boxing's sort of exciting, but sometimes it's not," Byron told me. "But wrestling's always exciting. It's a thrill. I love the characters and storylines. You know what's gonna happen, but sometimes you don't. Like with King Of The Ring [a WWF PPV event in June]. No one knew who was gonna win, and when The Rock, who is my favourite, pinned Vince McMahon to win [the WWF heavyweight title], I jumped up screaming. I ran outside and told my friends, and we celebrated by wrestling." Teenagers like Byron often outgrow their interest in wrestling. But that doesn't mean they're going to develop an interest in boxing. "That's where the marketing of the sport of boxing needs help," said John Totaro, a sports publicist who has worked on several boxing and wrestling events. "If someone doesn't have an interest in a sport at a young age, he or she isn't likely to become an avid fan as an adult. When boxing has a large pay-per-view event, the PR campaigns and marketing programmes are first-rate. But as a sport, there's not a single governing body, and boxing suffers from centuries of continual black eyes." As chief operating officer of the powerhouse promotional firm Main Events, Gary Shaw's job description includes drawing fans. "Boxing is more of a pure sport, but maybe we need to take lessons from the WWF," Shaw said. "We do need to attract younger fans. I think we need to change with the times. If we don't, time will pass boxing by. "I've thought a lot about drawing younger fans. After all, there are a lot of attractive sports that are all fighting for the same entertainment dollar. For one thing, we have to get back to doing local clubshows, where fathers take their sons to the fights. That's how kids develop interest. Another thing to do is offer $5 tickets to kids. And getting the right role models is important. In boxing, we haven't had them." Earlier this year, HBO, which spends more than $100 million on fight purses annually, added KO Nation to its stable of boxing shows. There's a DJ, hip-hop music, dancers, college campus venues, and a host/ring announcer who mispronounces everybody's names and says things like:
"C'mon, Pittsburgh, let's give it up for Paul Spad-a-foooooo-ra." Oh, yeah, there's boxing, too. "HBO is saying:
'Look what wrestling has done. Maybe if we present boxing in the same way, we can capture some of that audience,'" said Saks.
"They're creating a wave of excitement, but once the bell rings, that's all over. Wrestling is scripted, so the energy can be maintained. "A good boxing match is the best event on TV, but a bad one is the worst event. A bad match brings that fever pitch to a dead-stop, and trying to rev it up again seems very forced. Even with good matchmaking, you can never be sure you're gonna get a great fight." At least HBO is trying to change boxing's demographics before most of the fans die off. That's something the powers-that-be in the fractured sport haven't always done. "I don't know if Vince McMahon is a genius," said Saks. "From 1992 to
'94, when he was creating characters like Doink the Clown and no one was watching, who was accusing him of being a genius? But he does always have the big picture in mind. In boxing, a few people are getting rich on PPV events, and I think that makes them happy enough." As Mosley-De La Hoya reminded us, the Sweet Science is the purest of sports. Has the business of boxing contributed to the sport's decline? Sure. Might boxing learn something from the marketing geniuses at the WWF? No doubt. But boxing ain't wrestling, and it never will be. And - ratings be damned
- that's still a good thing. |
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