By Benny Ricardo
So you’re Juan Manuel Marquez, you just beat Juan Diaz again in rematch, but your right eye is swollen so big you can put “Good Year” on it and you want to fight a rematch with the man who has had the most incredible rise in weight and success in boxing history, Manny Pacquiao? Does the World want to see this again? Absolutely not. The world wants to see Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. and will pay dearly to view it. So what is the problem?
Follow me on this, Manny is with Bob Arum, who is not Golden with Golden Boy who is the promoter of the moment for Floyd Mayweather Jr, who’s uncle/trainer might be going to jail, while Congressman Pacquiao who has to pay for his election will gladly submit to drug testing as Pretty Boy Floyd wanted, who himself has to pay some back taxes to pay, so the entire US Congress can spend it. So why won’t the bell ring for this fight?
The only people leaving more money on the table are BP and their one time leaky well in the bottom of the Gulf. You can’t recover oil in water anymore than you can recover your youth. It’s time for Michael Buffer to do his rumble thing or Jimmy Lennon to do his “It’s Showtime” or referee Mills Lane to say “Let’s get it on.” Ah, there you have it Mills Lane is no longer refereeing, Pacquiao is now 31 and Mayweather is 33 and whereas neither fighter has ever been hurt in the ring, age is creeping up on them.
Now this is where MMA and the UFC really gave fans a new alternative. The UFC shows depend on pay per view buys so they are going to match up the fighters that people will pay to see. After seeing Juan Manuel Marquez get his own urine he drank knocked out of him by Mayweather, why would you want to see Pacquiao fight Marquez again?
Why would you want to see Pacquiao fight another Top Rank cast member, Antonio Margarito? Cast, is right, Margarito was going to fight a Golden Boy fighter, Shane Mosley with wraps that were going to turn his hands into casts and thus got suspended and is still suspended in the USA. Bob Arum who promotes both Pacquiao and Margarito is going to make this fight a reality and offer it to you on pay per view.
The UFC was a beautiful concept as all the top fighters fought each other and the great leader of the UFC, Dana White did not really care who won, he cared instead about pay per view buys. Names like Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, Tim Sylvia, Wanderlei Silva, Brock Lesnar etc, became stars. Meanwhile from the Eastern Part of the world came a Sambo Master named The Emperor Fedor Emelianenko who beat the world and had Russian Premier Vladimir Putin as his buddy.
Ok so that’s where the UFC failed in pitting the best against the best in the world for the pay per view crowd to see. Fedor had his own promotional company and UFC is not in the business of co promoting. So, yes, one time UFC Heavyweight Champions Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski did fight Fedor, but only after both had left the UFC.
The world wanted to see Lesnar and Fedor but no co- promotions, so no fight. Fedor has since been beaten by Brazilian Jiu Jitsu expert Fabricio Werdum, but the world still wants to see Fedor and Brock, so why won’t the bell ring for this fight?
Along come two guys from San Diego who have been in the fight business for some time, one a Grand Master in Karate, the other a boxing and MMA trainer. The Karate guy is Brian Manna and the boxing and MMA trainer is Tony Martinez. They enlist the help of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu master, Joe Moreira, bring in some boxing hall of fame guys named Carlos Palomino and Rodolfo “Gato” Gonzalez, while adding a due diligence guy named Burdett Streeter who’s words can add more submission holds on a contract than a Brazilian can create.
This group decides to call themselves, Powerhouse World Promotions and they want to bring in the best fighters in the world, be it MMA or Boxing and let them fight each other.
So they are made aware of and contact Doug Jacobs at Integrated Sports and talk their way into having an industry leader in the pay per view business as its partner.
The event is on and Brian Manna decides to call their first event “War on the Mainland”. Faster than you can spell Schwarzenegger, Brian gets his promoter’s license and Tony Martinez gets a matchmaker’s license in the state of California. Just like that you have a Mega fighting event on August 14th on pay per view television in the US and streamed on the internet to the rest of the world from the Bren Events Center in Irvine, California.
Brian and Tony get two guys who should of fought before, Tim Sylvia and Paul Buentello, to fight in the main event, they get legendary MMA fighter Jens Pulver on the card as well as Jason Lambert and Allan Goes to fight each other. Thales Leite and a guy known as the Fighting Hippy, Matt Horwich fight each other and all of them are fighting for a Powerhouse World Promotions title. The undercard of the War on the Planet is stacked deeper than the New York Jet’s Super Bowl expectations.
Now get this, Powerhouse World Promotions does not care who wins their titles, all they know is that their next event will again be on pay per view television and on the internet and they are going to have the world do the matchmaking. Yes, the world picks the fighters they want to see fight each other, Tony Martinez has to go get them, Brian Manna has to decide what to pay them, Joe Moreira serves as counselor and interpreter and Burdett draws up the arm bar submission worded contracts to be signed and it welcomes co promoters.
No more ESPN Friday night fights where you know the red corner is going to win as they can’t afford a loss for the fighter who is owned by the promoters of the fight.
Not these Powerhouse World Promotion guys, they don’t want to own fighters anymore than they want to own Paula Abdul’s contract and have Paula Abdul go Paula Abdul on them.
Can you imagine seeing videos of a guy in Siberia knocking holes in ice blocks with his fists, while a guy in Liberia is knocking over palm trees with left and right combinations? You want to see them fight? Tell Powerhouse World Promotions and they will get the fighters to fight while the only guarantee they offer the fighter is a payday and a roundtrip ticket back to Siberia or Liberia. Pay per view, you’re paying so you pick ‘em.
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