As in any sport, boxing has its big-market teams -- promoters who are flush with cash and more willing (and able) to take risks signing fighters. There also are the small-market teams -- promoters who need to carefully evaluate every signing and make sure each makes economic sense when every dollar counts in a tight market.
In the United States, promoter Bob Arum's Top Rank and Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy are the big-market teams. They are good at what they do, and can afford to sign the top amateur stars and throw lucrative promotional contracts at big-name free agents. When they miss on a fighter, it's not nearly as crippling as when a smaller promoter blows it.
Promoter Lou DiBella has taken the smaller-market approach, looking for hidden gems who might pay big dividends down the road for his DiBella Entertainment.
DiBella always has been a good judge of talent, going back to his days as the chief boxing programmer for HBO's boxing franchise. In June, he landed a pair of talented, crowd-pleasing fighters who flew a bit beneath the radar but have major upsides. On Friday, they'll get national television exposure on Showtime's "ShoBox: The New Generation" (11 p.m. ET/PT).
While established super middleweight contender Allan Green faces Tarvis Simms in the main event, two of DiBella's lesser-known -- but potentially just as important -- fighters will get a chance to strut their stuff on the undercard of the tripleheader.
I'm talking about welterweight Antwone Smith (16-1-1, 8 KOs) and super middleweight Marcus Johnson (17-0, 14 KOs). Smith is in tough against fellow prospect Henry Crawford (22-0, 9 KOs), while Johnson is in more of a showcase fight against Victor Villereal (8-3-2, 4 KOs).
"I don't have a giant operation like Top Rank and I don't have a lot of advantages that Golden Boy has," DiBella said. "I have to be smart. I get along great with Bob and [Golden Boy CEO] Richard Schaefer, but they are not the only games in town. You have to keep your talent pool going. By signing guys like this, I am definitely adding quality fighters and depth. I did the same thing when I quietly signed guys like Yusaf Mack and Deandre Latimore. These are guys who can compete at the highest level and have already been built up. I'm looking for bang for the buck. If you can add a diamond in the rough who has talent to fight at the highest level, you're ahead of the game. Marcus was a top-level prospect who languished. Antwone earned his way to be a top prospect. Both guys have a ton of talent and are just babies in their early 20s."
Smith is only 22 but already has a lot of experience. Often the so-called opponent in his bouts, the Miami fighter disregarded the odds and just kept winning, including pulling several upsets on ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights." In February, for example, he outpointed undefeated and favored Norberto Gonzalez, and followed that victory by outpointing (rather easily) Richard Gutierrez in May.
DiBella had seen Smith a few times and liked him, and was happy to learn he had no promoter.
The first time DiBella saw Smith was in 2007, when he lost a debatable six-round decision to the house fighter, Ed Paredes.
"He was robbed in that fight and I kept following him," DiBella said. "I was super-impressed with his performances, and then with what he did against Gonzalez and Gutierrez. He was a free agent because he was treated as an opponent. I didn't view him as an opponent. I viewed him as the prospect. In this marketplace, where it's expensive to develop a kid from 0-0 and there aren't platforms for an 0-0 kid to be seen, picking up a guy like Antwone Smith, who had four good wins in a row on ESPN2 and is still a baby, I can get that kid some attention. He can potentially do some big things."
Johnson, a 23-year-old from Houston, was a tremendous amateur and has unlimited professional potential. He was a U.S. national champion, but just missed the 2004 U.S. Olympic team when Andre Ward beat him in the Olympic trials finals and went on to win a gold medal. Johnson signed with promoter Don King, which was a terrible mistake. As he does with all his young fighters, King buried him. He never spent a minute trying to promote Johnson, who wound up deep on undercards with no television exposure and no buzz.
Johnson contested his last fight for King in September 2008, then waited and waited for his contract to expire. All the while, DiBella had his eye on him. When Johnson's deal was up, DiBella and Antonio Leonard signed him to a co-promotional contract.
After such a long layoff, DiBella got him a fight Aug. 22, and he knocked out Matt Gockel in the first round in Houston on the Juan Diaz-Paulie Malignaggi undercard. Now, in just his second fight with DiBella, he's going to be on television.
"With Marcus, I need to get the kid exposure and remind people why he was so highly touted a few years ago," DiBella said. "For me, Marcus and Antwone are significant signings. They are strategic signings. I had my eye on Marcus for a long time because I knew his contract was running out."
The fighters seem equally as excited to be with DiBella as he is to have them.
"Being with Lou DiBella is going to help dramatically," Johnson said. "He's going to push to get my name out there and get me recognized. He will get me a title shot. I have moved a lot slower than I had hoped. Now we are taking a new step towards bigger and better things."
Said Smith, "It hasn't been easy, so it feels good to have someone in my corner helping me out. Who better than Lou DiBella?"
The fighters needed a promoter to give them the attention nobody else would, and DiBella believed both talented fighters made sense for his company to sign.
Seems like a perfect match.
Dan Rafael
