All new hits for 50 Cent
Curtis Jackson III (aka 50 Cent) is looking to get some bang for his bucks and not from a Glock. So, too, are his customers.
50 Cent has been shot nine times, become one of the highest selling rap musicians in the world and seen his 2003 album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’ ” go eight times
BOXING NOTES Ron Borges
platinum. On March 1, he’ll arrive at the MGM Theatre at Foxwoods but not to perform. His employees there will be rapping in a different manner, fighting for their pay for boxing’s newest promoter.
50 Cent originally intended to partner with his former BBF, Floyd Mayweather Jr., an effort that taught him his first lesson about boxing promotion: In boxing you have no BBF. If you are lucky you may have a TBF (temporary best friend) but that’s about the “best you can hope for.”
So in partnership with former HBO Sports executive turned BTP (big-time promoter) Lou DiBella, 50 Cent is finally in business and will make his first soup-to-nuts leap into the Byzantine and bewildering world of boxing promotion when he brings IBF featherweight champion Billy Dib to the Connecticut woods to face challenger Luis Franco on ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights.”
Technically, 50 kicked off this chapter of what has been a lifelong promotional career Dec. 8 when he put Cuban star Yuriorkis Gamboa on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez fight in Las Vegas, but as he was the first to admit last week, he was more along for the ride with Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, than promoting the show.
This time it’s different for SMS Promotions. This time the lessons, and the risks, have begun in earnest for a guy whose rapping has left him worth a lot more than 50 cents.
“This is my very first chance to bring the festivities,” 50 Cent told the Herald. “This is my very first event co-promoting from the ground up. Yes, I had Yuriorkis Gamboa fighting on the Pacquiao undercard, but this is the first time that SMS is involved with the entire production and going through the entire process. This is exciting for me to put my actual energy into marketing this project.”
If it works it will also be exciting for boxing, a sport that has for too long been locked into an aging demographic. Those who know the sport understand its rich history and potential to thrill and entertain, but 50’s audience has grown up with mixed martial arts as its combat sport of choice. Boxing, to them, is too pacifistic.
If 50’s presence in boxing can change that, DiBella believes, he won’t be a rival so much as a godsend.
“One thing about 50 is he’s been a promoter his whole career,” DiBella said. “Boxing is not easy to navigate. I’m helping him acclimate to the different players, but I can learn as much from 50 as I can teach him.
“50 delivers a whole different demographic, particularly the young (urban) demographic that boxing needs. I think he can be as big as he wants to be in the business. No promoter in boxing has the Twitter following or the pop culture awareness 50 has . . . but boxing is a difficult marketplace. It’s not always receptive (to innovation or new faces). It’s really a matter of how much time and effort he wants to put into it.”
Thus far Curtis Jackson III is not trying to invest 50 cents on the dollar. He has signed Dib, Gamboa and Andre Dirrell and swears he will do what others have not: keep them active. He also claims he intends to expand his roster of fighters, a necessity if he is to make a mark on the sport.
Until he does though at least one thing is assured: he’ll make some noise. 50 Cent, you see, will be leading Dib into the ring at Foxwoods as he did Gamboa in Vegas, rapping all the way.
The Don is back
Nobody knows how old he is, but everybody knows he’s young at heart. That was re-established last week when a guy who once promoted Sugar Ray Robinson, not to mention a card headlined by two winless heavyweights, another with three fighters from Peru and an attempted one at a Nevada brothel called “Sherry’s Ranch,” announced at Gleason’s Gym that he’s back in business.
Irrepressible Don Elbaum never gives up. He’s been down in boxing more times than Floyd Patterson against Ingemar Johansson, but he’s up again, launching what he calls “The $500,000 Great America Heavyweight Box-Off” at a Brooklyn press conference last week.
As with many such projects, Elbaum isn’t the money behind the event. That belongs to Greg Sorrentino. Elbaum supplies the energy, the enthusiasm and, when necessary, the fibbing.
Although he doesn’t yet have a site, dates or a TV deal, Elbaum does have a lineup of second-tier heavyweights that includes Rhode Island 2004 Olympian Jason Estrada, Devan Vargas, Alonzo “Big Zo” Butler, a guy from Coon Rapids, Minn., named Joey “Minnesota Ice” Abell, Emmanuel Nwodo and Daniel Martz, a towering young kid from West Virginia.
While this is not a lineup of heavyweight boxing’s brightest lights or most promising prospects, it’s a typical Elbaum affair. Long on color and perhaps short on cash.
But when Elbaum is involved who cares? This is a guy who once presented Robinson in heartfelt fashion the original gloves he’d worn in his professional debut. Nearing the end of his days inside the ring, Robinson was deeply touched until he noticed it was two left gloves.
“I need to find those gloves or at least two that look like ’em,” Elbaum said when asked what happened.
Elbaum calls his latest brainchild a “patriotic venture” designed to do the highly unlikely — bring American heavyweights into the spotlight they once commanded. The idea, if it comes to fruition, is that the eight fighters will square off in April with the winners advancing. The final two will fight for a $250,000 first prize with the loser receiving $50,000. There is a catch however. Isn’t there always in boxing?
The winner must agree to donate at least $25,000 to what Elbaun calls “a legitimate charity.” That does not include, he added, the Don Elbaum Foundation.
What this seems most likely to be about is the 6-foot-7 Martz, an untested kid rawer than rawhide. He’s 7-0 with six knockouts, but to say he’s an apple that needs polishing would be incorrect. He’s an apple who needs a core.
Most of the other fighters are, to be honest, guys who haven’t won much lately with Estrada being the biggest name. If you’ve followed his career you’d understand what that says about this entire event. If you ever heard Elbaum call Estrada, “a 250-pound Willie Pep” you’d know he’s a promoter all right, but not always right.
Of course, for there to be an event first there has to be a location. Elbaum claims China is interested as well as Madison Square Garden, Atlantic City and Las Vegas. When asked how a patriotic American venture might play in China he concedes it’s a long shot.
Short jabs
Bernard Hopkins is more relentless than Elbaum. He recently celebrated his 48th birthday during a press conference at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, announcing a March 9 return to the ring to challenge IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (24-0, 19 KOs). For Hopkins (52-6-2, 32 KOs), it will mark his 21st appearance on HBO.
“I am defending my legacy,” the title-less Hopkins said. “Cloud is defending his title and trying to build his own legacy. He is going to try to end my career on March 9 and I want to extend it. I’m pushing near 50. Is that an embarrassment to the sport? What does it say about the sport that I can still do this at my age? Or am I just a unique guy?” How about both? . . .
This will be Hopkins’ 33rd world title fight. At 46, he is the oldest boxer in history to win a recognized world title. . . .
While highly rated Worcester super middleweight Edwin Rodriguez bides his time, his old sparring partner, Carl Froch, announced last week he will face shop-worn WBA champ Mikkel Kessler in the spring in what will be a unification fight if the IBF allows it. It has ordered Froch to fight a mandatory defense vs. Adonis Stevenson, but may allow the unification fight. . . .
The WBC heavyweight elimination fight between Chris Arreola (35-2, 30 KOs) and Bermane Stiverne (221-1, 20 KOs) has found a home on HBO’s CloudHopkins telecast. . . .
Daniel Jacobs is a fighter worth rooting for. Jacobs (24-1, 21 KOs) was knocked out of boxing for more than a year while he fought cancer, but has not only returned to the ring but started his own foundation, Get in the Ring, offering support for cancer victims and to fight obesity and bullying, all difficulties he once faced himself.
“I started the Get in the Ring foundation because I personally saw the hardships people go through when I was first diagnosed with cancer,” Jacobs said. “I didn’t have health insurance and it was very difficult financially. I decided then that if I ever made it, I would help people who are less fortunate, especially kids. Now that I’m in a position where I can help, I feel that it’s my duty.”
He fights Feb. 9 on Showtime Extreme at 7 p.m. vs. Billy Lyell. To donate online, go to getinthering.net. . . .
Arum’s promotional company, Top Rank, has performed another first, signing two-time Olympic gold medalist Zou Shiming to a contract. The 31-year-old Shiming won gold at light flyweight in both 2008 and 2012. He also won the bronze at the 2004 Games in Athens, making him China’s first Olympic medalist in boxing.
Local bleatings
If you’re looking for an entertaining and revealing 13 minutes of how most boxers end up, go to the video sharing site Vimeo or to IBeatMikeTyson.com and watch “I Beat Mike Tyson,” a short documentary on the present-day life of Kevin McBride.
McBride, known as the Clones Colossus when he was fighting, upset a wellshot Tyson in 2005. Little flowed from that, but the then- Dorchester- based boxer tried to fight on before fading into obscurity. This short film by Joshua Weinstein shows McBride’s life since, raising his children and hoping for one last chance at boxing glory. It’s worth a look.