LOU DIBELLA
The charismatic New York promoter has earned his stripes in the sport and, as Kenneth Bouhairie discovers, isn’t shy about speaking his mind. Here he talks frankly about the state of boxing in the USA, responds to accusations it is falling behind the UK a
The American promoter has some choice words for Eddie Hearn and ‘AJ’
LOU DIBELLA is as New York as a Peter Luger porterhouse. The boxing promoter is equally comfortable fraternizing with fellow Harvard Law alums as he is with those from the bleakest parts of Brooklyn. Dibella doesn’t edit his words or his emotions. He is, at turns, volcanic, thoughtful, bombastic, erudite, furious, and considerate. An F-bomb might follow a quote from Kerouac. Watching him hold court at a press conference is like observing a heavyweight-sized mood ring change shades quicker than a New York minute.
This candor is off-putting to some, but it’s a cityspecific trait. Dibella was born and raised in Brooklyn in the 1960s. Race riots and anti-war demonstrations had overtaken the country. New York’s economic downturn hit Brooklyn particularly hard. Single family
homes were transformed into eight apartment units. Streets once filled with local Italian and Irish kids playing stickball were now overrun with crime. Dibella was raised by both his parents and Italian immigrant grandparents. The family bonded over baseball and boxing, passions that ultimately guided his career path. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he worked as a Wall Street attorney for four years. He then joined HBO and became their boxing czar, creating the Boxing After Dark series and presiding over the sports division during their golden age. Dibella’s relationship with boxing is fraught. He’s been threatening to leave ever since Roy Jones cut off his shag. While he’s the managing partner of two minor league baseball teams, boxing is still central to his life. In 2000, he left HBO and formed Dibella Entertainment. Under his advisement, Bernard Hopkins went from unheralded malcontent to pound-for-pound king. That same year,
he debuted Broadway Boxing, monthly shows in New York featuring top local talent.
The Broadway Boxing series was essentially the only brick and mortar club show in town. Madison Square Garden is still considered the Mecca of boxing, but Brooklyn’s Barclays Center is holding the Big Apple down. The man who grew up a couple subway stops away is at the centre of it all, replete with his trademark blazer, designer jeans, kicks and small diamond stud.
On fight nights, Lou works the crowd like Bill Clinton at a Baptist church in the deep south. Dibella’s swag isn’t a front. This is a man simply comfortable in his habitat. Boxing News caught up with the 57-yearold promoter as he prepares for the Errol Spence Jnrlamont Peterson show on January 20 at (where else?) the Barclays Center.
Before his injury and opponents’ failed drug tests, Deontay Wilder was one of the most active elite fighters in boxing. Is Luis Ortiz, given he failed a test last year, the right opponent at this stage? I think the [Bermane] Stiverne fight was a tremendous step up for Deontay’s image because ➤
JOSHUA-WILDER WILL GENERATE MORE MONEY IN LAS VEGAS THAN ANYWHERE ELSE”
of how he did it [won in the first round]. Destructive, exciting, entertaining, with panache, with charisma. He was a scary man that night. He was supposed to beat Stiverne, but he demolished him in style. And that’s what people want to see.
Deontay wants to be an active champion so I think, in a perfect world, he fights three times in 2018, starting with Luis Ortiz on March 3 at the Barclays Center. Ortiz has a good résumé and is a good fighter. But he’s also got a lot of red flags around him. It’s a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. It’s slim pickings in terms of world class, fan-friendly opponents in the heavyweight division. I think that will change as more guys develop and win big fights, but it’s feast or famine right now. How close are we to a potential Deontay Wilderanthony Joshua fight?
Deontay would love to fight Anthony Joshua any time that fight can be made. In my mind, Eddie Hearn clearly is in no rush to do that fight. From a business standpoint, and Eddie’s a businessman, that’s what he really is, Joshua can get a huge live audience fighting pretty much anyone he wants. He generates a lot of revenue in the UK. He’s an Olympic gold medalist and boxing is one of the three main sports there. They’re trying to fill their pockets as much as possible before taking on the kind of the risk that will derail him for a while. Deontay would derail him. I understand their mentality, I get it. I just think people should be more honest about it, instead of going out there and trying to negotiate through social media to make people believe you’re trying to make a fight when you’re not. So, there isn’t and haven’t been any serious negotiations taking place with Hearn? Is it just gamesmanship from the other side?
There have been no negotiations and it is gamesmanship. Look, the Joseph Parker fight is next for AJ. I think Parker is a good fighter, but I don’t think he can beat either AJ or Deontay. There are other heavyweights like Tony Bellew, David Haye, Tyson Fury’s comeback is inevitable, so there are huge fights out there for AJ. I don’t expect him to run too quickly to Deontay. I’d like to see Deontay and Joshua fight in 2018. It could happen – maybe toward the end of the year. A lot of times you wait for the big fight and you never get there. Or you get there, and you waited so long, the fight’s not what it would’ve been. But I’m confident that it’ll eventually happen. You made headlines with comments about Eddie Hearn that took some by surprise. Are there any issues between the two of you and where does it stem from?
To be honest with you, he started taking shots long before I did. And I shot back. I’m not a shrinking violet, so if Eddie thought he was going to take shots at me, and I was going to ignore him, that wasn’t going to happen. Look, I’ve known Eddie since he was literally a kid. I’ve known his dad for years, since I first started at HBO, which was about 28 years ago. There is no real animosity or hatred or anything like that. Do I think Eddie’s starting to get a little too big for his britches [trousers]? Yeah. But guys like me can help slap him down to where he belongs. Specifically, you mentioned Hearn not willing to make fights and win purse bids. Has this been your
experience?
I don’t want to continue the back and forth with Eddie. Eddie has been big on talking about my lack of juice or my insignificance. I’ll
IN THE 21st CENTURY WE HAVE OFFICIALS USING A PAPER AND PENCIL, FORGETTING WHAT CORNER A FIGHTER IS IN”
just leave people with one thought: If I’m insignificant, why does he keep talking about me? [laughs]. Eddie and I have done business in the past, we’ll do business in the future. Nobody hates anybody and some of this is just really promotion. Last year in the UK, we witnessed 90,000 and 78,000 respectively attend Joshua’s bouts. Close to 30,000 attended Brook-spence. What are they doing over there that isn’t being done here?
It’s got nothing to do with what they’re doing. They have a much more active, passionate boxing fan base there. Now, they don’t charge as much for their payper-views or tickets, but that’s how you get 80,000 in an arena. And frankly, when you get that number, you don’t have to charge as much. But there’s no question, boxing has more mainstream popularity in the UK.
The problem here in the US, that Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) and Top Rank tried to tackle, is making fights more accessible to more eyeballs. The PBC and Showtime cards have earlier start times so that they are available to more people. We need the younger demographic. It’s an imperial fact that the demographics for MMA are younger than the demographics for boxing. Even if we’re able to attract the same number of eyeballs, we’re not attracting the eyeballs that are as desirable to sponsors or advertisers.
I really do believe that boxing in the UK and boxing in the US are apples and oranges. That said, there are some things we can do differently here to make it better. I think they’re more into the spectacle, the ring entrances, pyrotechnics. By the way, MMA is a lot more into that. Boxing still has three guys sitting around the ring, scoring fights with a pencil and a paper. Here in the 21st century, we have officials putting things in the wrong column, or forgetting what corner a fighter is in. You make an interesting point regarding the financials. When you’re negotiating something like a Joshua-wilder, how do you reconcile these numbers? For instance, is a packed house at the MGM Grand generating more gate than 78,000 in Cardiff?
I think Eddie knows the truth. You’ll generate more money potentially in Las Vegas than any place else. You’ll have a tremendous number of Brits, who love Vegas and support their fighters. Brits have always come out for the big fights in Vegas. They’ll buy the tickets and if they can’t, they’ll party all week, buy the merchandise and watch it on giant closed-circuit screens. I believe there’s more money in that fight from a venue in Las Vegas than from the UK. I think ultimately that’s why the fight is more likely to occur in Vegas. If there is some earth-shattering deal to make the fight in the UK, Deontay Wilder has never been afraid to go anywhere. You’ve shown a willingness to cross the aisle. You’ve worked with both HBO and Showtime and a variety of promoters. Yet there seems to be some sort of media backlash because of your affiliation with Showtime and PBC. Why do you think that is? You know what? I’m sick of the backlash. I’m sick of the hating, and I’m sick of media in the United States that won’t cover certain people and their fighters yet gives incredible coverage to others. When I first got into this business, the media had a very different way of handling things. I’m also a bit of a dinosaur, so it was all print media then, and there were giants of the industry who were covering boxing. You would see guys like Norman Mailer and Pete Hamill attending boxing matches. It’s a different world now. The UK is slightly different. I know Eddie has a deal with Sky, so I’ve noticed a bit of different coverage from Sky on boxers who aren’t one of Eddie’s fighters. So, I don’t think it’s only reserved for the United States. But I think it’s even more skewered than boxing writing in the UK. Honestly, people who don’t like the fact that I work a lot with Showtime, PBC or Al Haymon, can kiss my ass. I don’t care. At this point in my career, f**k off. I make no excuses for my relationship with Showtime and with PBC. But, I’m trying to grow my relationship with HBO. I’ll do business with anyone. I want to do business with ESPN and Bob Arum as well. If we can make big fights, let’s make them, I don’t care. But coverage should be equal and fair across the board. Many considered 2017 as one of the best years for boxing in recent history. Do you think that has any bearing on how the sport grows? What’s your outlook?
There were good fights in 2017. But before we say that we had a good year, we must move boxing from the “Other Sports” category. We need to move up that echelon of demographic and general sports fan popularity. Here’s the reality: 2016 was a terrible year. So, we need a better year in 2018 than in 2017.
Boxing has a lot of issues, but the biggest ones involve the fighters themselves. That’s health and safety. There should be uniform health and safety standards in every state in the US. There should be uniform requirements, and nuclear imaging after fighters are knocked out. In some states all you need is an eye test and an AIDS test to fight, even if you’ve been stopped 17 times in a row. Before a fighter is licensed, the licensing process should involve a baseline nuclear imaging test; a baseline MRI. That way, there is something to compare a fighter’s brain on an MRI pre- and post-fight. And they can monitor a fighter’s brain over the course of his career and see if there have been effects that may or may not deter them from okaying a fight.
So, you ask my outlook? We need to do better. We need to move to the sport into the 21st century in terms of how it is televised, how it’s marketed, how it’s judged, how it’s promoted and most important, our health and safety measures.