LOS ANGELES -- It's been an eventful few days here. I arrived Thursday morning (grrrrr, no upgrade) to cover Saturday night's Vitali Klitschko-Cristobal Arreola heavyweight title fight, having still not really recovered from last week's trip to Las Vegas for the Floyd Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez fight, followed by the trip home to Virginia on Sunday and then the quick turnaround to L.A.
But I'm here and I've been busy.
On Thursday night, I went to the Golden Boy-promoted "Fight Night Club" show that aired on Versus. Club Nokia, which hosts the monthly show in the downtown L.A. Live complex, is right down the street from my hotel. More on the show later, but while I was there I spoke with Golden Boy's Richard Schaefer and Bruce Binkow, who said I should check out the company's office building, which I had never been to before. I liked the idea and planned to visit on Friday.
I was up early Friday morning to do my weekly chat with the Fight Freaks at 9 a.m. PT. Knocked out more than two hours with the Freaks, who were a bit more rambunctious than usual. The return of Mayweather will do that.
Then I met my L.A.-based agent for lunch at a restaurant down the street from my hotel. Afterward, he dropped me off at the Golden Boy building a few blocks away. I am glad I went, as I witnessed a historical scene. More on that in a minute.
Golden Boy owns the entire building. Besides its impressive suite of offices on the third floor, it rents out the rest of the building to various tenants. Schaefer said it's at 98 percent occupancy and that Golden Boy generates substantial revenue from the building, which is blessed to have its own parking garage -- huge for downtown L.A. The offices are palatial and awesome.
There is Oscar De La Hoya memorabilia and posters everywhere. Most impressive is the giant glass case in the front of the office that houses De La Hoya's 1992 Olympic gold medal as well as the assortment of title belts he won during his pro career. Each individual office is also loaded with various promotional items and memorabilia from Golden Boy-promoted fights. The one office with virtually nothing boxing-related in it is the huge one in the corner at the end of the hall. That one belongs to De La Hoya and is decked out in wood-finished bookcases and old fashioned leather couches and a giant desk. Very nice.
OK, now the highlight of the visit. After Schaefer finished a call with HBO's Ross Greenburg, I sat down with Schaefer at a conference table in his office (lots of incredible memorabilia in there) to shoot the bull a little. He looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary.
He said, "I have to show you something but you can't write it yet." I reluctantly agreed and had no idea what he was about to tell me. He got up, walked over to his desk and grabbed a piece of paper and put it down in front of me. It was the signature page of a boxing contract that Bernard Hopkins had signed ratifying an agreement to fight Roy Jones in the first quarter of 2010. Hopkins had signed on Thursday. Schaefer then signed on his signature line right in front of me.
I knew the sides had been discussing the fight, but seeing the actual signature was startling. I told Schaefer I was impressed that he had gotten Hopkins to sign, but that I had been down this road too many times in the past 10 years to believe the fight was happening until both sides had signed.
He immediately got John Wirt, the CEO of Jones' Square Ring, on the phone. He then had his assistant, the lovely Nicole Becerra, fax Wirt their side of the contract. Minutes later, Schaefer's fax started buzzing. Out came the same signature page but this one with signatures from Jones and Wirt. I was a little in shock. Schaefer put down both signature pages in front of me. I jotted down in my notebook, "Friday, 2:58 p.m. PT, Roy Jones signs to fight Hopkins. Jesus."
I told Schaefer this was a big story. He asked me to give him a little bit of the afternoon so he could so he could let Hopkins know it was done, and then he said he'd call me and go on the record about the fact that a deal for a rematch 16 years in the making had been completed.
Still a bit in shock, I left the office and walked the five or six blocks back to my hotel. Even though I couldn't write it yet, I was pretty psyched. I had to tell someone, so I called my wife to tell her what I had just seen.
I had an appointment at 4 p.m. to tape an interview at another hotel for HBO for it's forthcoming countdown show that will preview the Dec. 5 Kelly Pavlik-Paul Williams middleweight title fight. Just as the car picking me up to bring me to the interview arrived at my hotel, Wirt called me to tell me he was opening a 16-year-old bottle of wine to celebrate the deal. While I was talking to Wirt, Schaefer buzzed in to tell me all was clear, that both fighters knew the other had signed and that he would go on the record with the story.
Here's the problem: I was now in a sedan being driven to the HBO interview and couldn't write because I was not with my computer. But I wanted to get it out. So on my way to the interview, I tried to reach my editor, Darius Ortiz. It was late on the East Coast and I couldn't reach him. So I went to Plan B. I called the ESPNEWS desk and spoke with Nancy Cooney, one of the editors. I told her what I had and she agreed it was a big deal. I gave her the basic information and within minutes it was scrolling on the Bottom Line across all the ESPN platforms. I then proceeded to dictate a couple of hundred words of a story to her that she then forwarded to the ESPN.com editors to post on our site within a few minutes.
When I arrived at the HBO interview, I apologized for being a few minutes late but explained the reason: Jones-Hopkins II had just been finalized before my eyes.
After the interview, I was driven back to my hotel and went to work on a more detailed story. I spoke on the record to Schaefer and Wirt and then got in touch with Jones, who was as thrilled as I have ever heard him about a fight. I didn't have any luck reaching Hopkins, who wasn't answering his phone. But I had more than enough to write a quote-filled story as ESPNEWS played on my hotel room television with the breaking news scrolling across the bottom of the screen constantly.
Now, a few more things about my trip to Los Angeles:
• Not long after I checked in to the hotel on Thursday, it was time to go to the weigh-in. Because heavyweights don't have to make a specific weight, it was done a day earlier than usual for the sake of an extra photo opportunity and an extra day of promotion. Considering how the ticket sales have lagged for this fight, the promoters needed all the help they could get. They admitted that they were hurt by last week's overwhelming coverage of Mayweather-Marquez.
I ran into Arreola, trainer Henry Ramirez and strength coach Darryl Hudson in the hotel. Arreola, who was with his wife and daughter, was very relaxed and in a playful mood. He signed some autographs and posed for a few photos with some fans hanging around in the hotel lobby. The Arreola team offered me a ride over to the weigh-in in their van.
Once we were in the van, Arreola played jokester. He pulled off his shirt and pulled out the weight vest that he originally weighed in wearing to mock himself and the criticism of his conditioning. He had a great sense of humor about it. He put on the vest and then put his T-shirt back on and said I shouldn't tell anyone because he wanted it to be a surprise. I laughed and didn't argue.
• After the weigh-in, I returned to the hotel to work on the Arreola feature I wrote for Friday. But then I took a break and went to the "Fight Night Club" show. It was a good club card with a lively crowd. What a fantastic venue for a small show. Just outstanding. The crowd was into the fights. The ring is small and on a stage and it was a fun time. I thought Karl Dargan, a promising junior welterweight, looked very good in winning a well-matched fight with Renell Williams. Also enjoyed seeing lightweight prospect Luis Ramos, one of manager Frank Espinoza's most promising youngsters, win the main event against journeyman Cristian Favela. After the show, I chatted for a few minutes with Hopkins, who calls the fights on Versus. I mentioned I liked what I saw from Dargan because Hopkins has known him since he was a kid. Dargan is a cousin (or nephew, can't remember which, quite frankly) of Naazim Richardson, Hopkins' longtime trainer. He also trains Dargan. I mentioned that I thought Dargan fought a lot like Hopkins and he agreed but said the kid needs to keep his chin down a bit more.
• Came back to the hotel and was up way too late finishing my Arreola story before the early rise for what would be a very interesting Friday. The back-to-back West Coast trips with a few days home sandwiched in between has left my internal body clock completely haywire.
Dan Rafael
