Tim Bradley feels WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr will be fine with his career despite turning down a $1.7 million offer for a unification fight against IBF champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis .
Norman’s long-term vision
As long as Norman (26-0, 20 KOs) keeps winning, it won’t be a big deal that he walked away from the $1.7 million offer to fight Boots. That low offer is a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of dough Norman can make if he keeps winning for the next two or three years.
Norman Jr. has a better chance to become the undisputed welterweight champion than Boots Ennis because his promoters at Top Rank believe in him, and they won’t be miserable when it comes to negotiations with the other belt holders at 147. I’ll get the job done putting those fights together for Norman.
“It’s a risky move, but you have to bet on yourself and you can’t lose. All he has to do is keep winning. His money will gradually increase,” Tim Bradley told the Probox TV YouTube channel about WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr., who is still ahead despite turning down a $1.7 million guaranteed payday for a November 9 unification fight against IBF champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis.
It may seem crazy to some boxing fans that Norman turned down the biggest payday of his career and is making significantly less for his defense against Derrick Cuevas on November 8th on the undercard of Keyshawn Davis vs. Gustavo Lemos, but it was a bad deal that Hearn offered him.
He gave Norman Jr. offered small change to fight in Boots’ hometown of Philadelphia, where he might have needed a knockout to win. The money Norman would make after losing his WBO title would be next to nothing.
Hearn’s lack of confidence in Ennis
If Hearn wanted the fight so badly, he would have come up with the $2.2 million Norman asked for, or he would have agreed to stage the fight in Las Vegas. It was the alternative offer that Brian Norman Sr. He would agree to Hearn’s $1.7 million if the fight was held in Las Vegas, but that offer was not accepted.
Boots’ promoter, Eddie Hearn, doesn’t act like a sales person. You could see it with Hearn’s performance last week, failing in negotiations with Norman and then losing the purse to Ennis’ mandatory Karen Chukhadzhian. That’s a bad sign.
If you’re Ennis, you should take note of Hearn’s failures and take them as a sign that he’s not one of the favorites in his Matchroom stable. He needs to think carefully about what fights Hearn Boots offers because it might not help his career, starting with the defense against Karen.
“Understand that. He is not yet a million dollar fighter. His minimums have to be raised before he takes that big of a risk to take that $1.7 (million) because once he gets hit and he doesn’t have a strap, he’s at the back of the line,” Bradley said of Norman Jr.
Norman’s star potential
Norman has the ingredients to be a much bigger star than Boots Ennis could ever hope to be due to his fighting style, natural charisma and his father, Brian Sr.
