Paulie Malignaggi thinks Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ new promoters at Matchroom should have invested in him by coming up with the extra $500,000 that WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. wanted him to agree to a unification fight on November 9 in Boots’ hometown at. the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Boot’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, refused to budge from the $1.7 million offer to increase it $500K to $2.2 million to make the clash with Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KO’s). The fact that Hearn didn’t want to part with a measly $500,000 is telling.
Hearn’s short-sightedness: the $500,000 cost
As American business magnate John D. Rockefeller approached business the way Hearn does, thinking only in the short term, he would never have acquired the pipelines and terminals and bought the competing refineries to create a billionaire in the 1930s. Hearn’s focus on not wanting to leave a small sum sparked a fight that would have helped Boots’ career.
If Boots had Rockefeller as his promoter, the fight with Norman Jr. be made because the American businessman was a genius.
Hearn should have invested the $500,000 in Boots Ennis because it would have helped his career if he had captured the WBO title and become undisputed welterweight champion.
Yes, it would have cost Hearn money to get the three champions to agree to fight Boots, but his popularity would have increased had he won those belts, and the investment could have worked well in the British promoter’s favor.
Hearn’s refusal to budge on his $1.7 million offer without sweetening it to $500,000 to get the Norman Jr. fight made suggests he is only focused on the short term and is unable to comprehend the money he would have earned in the long run.
Hearn’s short-term focus: a double whammy for Ennis
Hearn also lost the purse to Ennis’ IBF-bound Karen Chukhadzhian, which some say suggests he is unwilling to invest in his fighter Boots. It was a double whammy for Ennis.
With the failed negotiations with Norman Jr. and the lost purse for the mandatory defense against Karen, Ennis must travel to Europe to defend his IBF title in Germany or Ukraine.
If Boots vacates his IBF title and moves up to 154, there is no guarantee he will enjoy the same success in that weight class as he has enjoyed against the low-level competition he has enjoyed. Despite the hype surrounding Boots, he never beat anyone at a high level. Ennis’ best was against these fighters:
– David Avanesyan
– Custo Clayton
– Sergey Lipinets
– Roiman Villa
– Chris Van Heerde
– Thomas Dulorme
These are very average fighters and nowhere near as talented as the dangerous punchers awaiting Boots Ennis if he loses his IBF welterweight title and moves up to 154 to try and reinvent himself in a new weight class.
Malignaggi’s call for investment in Ennis
“I think a promoter has to make an investment. I think sometimes when promoters sign champions they think it’s not an investment anymore. ‘I’m going to sign him and assure him that I’m going to get him the best fights possible. I don’t have to pay any more to this because it’s not a prospect,” expert Paulie Malignaggi told the Probox TV YouTube channel, reacts to promoter Eddie Hearn failing to secure a unification fight for his fighter, IBF welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis and WBO champion Brian Norman Jr. .
Hearn should invest in Boots Ennis because he is not well known enough to the casual boxing fans in the US for him to lose on important fights like the Norman Jr. clash.
Ennis’ lack of recognition
I don’t know if Hearn keeps up with things, but Ennis doesn’t have a social media presence, and his interview skills are beyond awful. He had nothing to say and repeated himself in every interview.
“Well, in this situation Boots could have used a bit of a financial injection of some sort from Matchroom,” said Malignaggi. “Maybe Matchroom could make a fight where they wouldn’t make as much money or take a loss just to get the publicity of Boots going. Otherwise, what else are you going to do?”
All it would have taken from Hearn was $500K. It’s not like Norman Jr. for the crown jewels or asked for something. He just wanted an extra amount to make up for the fact that he would be fighting Ennis in his hometown and giving up a significant portion of his purse to his promoters. The money for which Norman Jr. asked, Hearn should not have dug in his heels and refused to pay.
“You’re not doing (Matchroom) for Boots what anyone else couldn’t do already. So, there’s not really a change in the Boots Ennis business at the moment,” said Malignaggi.
Hearn was supposed to boost Boots’ career by signing him, but things aren’t looking good right now after one fight with Matchiroom against Avanesyan. These big fights that Hearn has been talking about have not materialized, and some fans believe that he is taking the same promotional approach with Ennis as he was with Demetrius Andrade and Danny Jacobs.
“Norman is 23. Why fight Boots? He knows he’s going to lose that battle. You go to Philly. You have come to the score cards; he knows he’s going to lose that fight,” Tim Bradley said of Brian Norman Jr. said. “He wanted a certain amount of money which he did not get. Devin Haney went overseas and took short money (against George Kambosos) to get those belts.”
Ennis should have stepped up and given up the $500,000 purse to let the Norman fight or volunteered to win the purse bid with Karen once he saw that Hearn wasn’t going to do it. It shouldn’t have come to that point, but if Hearn wasn’t going to do it, Boots should have invested in himself.
Ennis is needed to act
“So if Boots wanted this fight, it wasn’t Eddie Hearn who had to give the extra money,” said Bradley. “It should have been Boots who said, ‘Okay, do you want the extra $500,000? I want that title. Here you go. Take a little of my cut. I’ll take a gamble because I believe I’m going to knock you out and beat you, and the fight is going to be made.’”
If Boots was confident of beating Norman, he should have given up some of his purse, which was said to be $5 million for that match. With that kind of money, Boots had more than enough to give Norman the $500K he wanted to close the deal.
“All it was (that prevented the fight) was $500,000. Now you look at this purse that Eddie Hearn just lost (for the Karen Chukhadzhian fight). Eddie Hearn is not in the business of losing money. He’s in the business to make money,” Bradley said.
