Boxing with Chris MannixBoxing with Chris Mannix - The Future of The Ring
Mannix is joined by Doug Fischer, Editor in Chief of Ring Magazine (19:30). Mannix and Fischer discuss the evolution of Ring, from Golden Boy’s stewardship, to going all digital, to the controversies it has become embroiled in over the last few months and how a century old publication stays viable into the future. #Volume #Herd
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If you haven't subscribed yet, get over to Boxing with Chris Mannix. Hit that subscribe button so this podcast gets into your feed every single week. What welcome in everybody that's watching a clip on our YouTube page. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube page as well. A lot of good stuff from this show other shows on the YouTube page over the next couple of weeks and months into twenty twenty four. So we've got a great show for you today, A little bit of a different show today. Doug Fisher, who is the editor in chief of Ring Magazine, has been since two thousand and eighteen. It's been working for Ring for years before that. Ring Magan has been in the news a lot lately. It was in the news when Mauricio Suliman, the head of the WBC, attacked it. It was in the news for its refusal to sanction Bam Rodriguez and Sonny Edwards as a ring title fight back in December, and it's been in the news as far as it's relevance with its ratings, its title, its print issue. I want to talk to Doug about the state of Ring Magazine and all the controversies that have been around Ring over the last few years and more recently in the last few months, because in a way, the last few months have shown that Ring is as relevant as ever. If people are talking about your publication, it means something. It means that your publication is still a relevant one in the world of box So Doug Fisher joins me to talk about that couple other topics I get into with Doug as well, So a great conversation with Doug Fisher of Ring Magazine.
Before we get to that, I do want to address.
The biggest topic in boxing this week, and it's a topic that I think can still develop into one of the biggest stories that we've talked about in boxing in quite some time. What I'm talking about is the controversial stoppage last weekend in the fight between Virgil Ortiz and Frederick Lawson. If you missed that fight this past weekend, Virgil Ortiz, young, undefeated rising star, coming off a long layoff. He was taking a comeback fight against Frederick Lawson, unknown fighter, few losses on his resume. He was just there to hopefully give Virgil a few rounds and then eventually go down and Virgil could build on that win. It didn't last one round, and it was controversial at the time because Tony Weeks, the referee, stepped in when it didn't look like Lawson.
Was all that hurt.
You know, if you watch the fight, you knew that Frederick Lawson sooner rather than later was going to go down. But in that moment when Tony Weeks stopped the fight, it looked suspicious, or at least it looked questionable. And because it was Tony Weeks, we started to think about what happened last year in the Rolando Romero Ishmael Barroso fight, where Tony Weeks stopped that fight way too early, when Barroso was still very much, you know, in the fight, on his feet winning the fight, and Tony looked like he misjudged the shots that were being thrown by Roly Romero stopped that fight. Took a lot of heat for that stoppage as well, so that was a bad stoppage.
He received criticism at that time.
A couple of days later, this story took a major twist. That's because Tony Weeks went onto his Facebook page and posted the following. What the public didn't know that prior to the fight, they did a brain scan on him him being lost in and it came up that he had an aneurism, and they did a test again and the same anneurism came up. Another doctor was brought in and gave him the same examination and he tested negative for the aneurism, so they cleared him to fight. These are, in no uncertain terms, explosive allegations by one of the most well known officials in the state of Nevada. Tony Weeks is someone that even if you are a casual boxing fan, if you see him, you recognize him.
He was in the most recent Creed movie.
That's how recognizable Tony Weeks is as a boxing referee. When you think of boxing referees, one of the ones you think of is Tony Weeks. So for Tony Weeks, a decades long referee, a decorated referee, to make these kind of allegations, it was shocking.
There's no other word to use, but it was shocking.
So in immediate aftermath, Golden Boy Promotions, which mode of the event, put out a statement saying that Frederic Lawson was cleared by a Nevada State Athletic Commission neurologist. The next day, the Nevada Commission put out a statement that said quote. On January sixth, twenty twenty four, a contest was held between Virgil Ortiz and Frederic Lawson in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The contest was under the.
Jurisdiction of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. The health and safety of the unarmed combatants that compete in the state are paramount to the Commission. All contestants in the event were subject to full medical examinations and were cleared by medical experts to compete without restrictions. The Commission and its executive director will continue its ongoing practice of review doing its official performance during and after the event.
So what Golden Boyce said in a couple of.
Sentences mirror what the Nevada Commission said in like four sentences a full paragraph. Basically, what neither of those statements addressed were these specific allegations that were made by Tony Weeks. What Tony Weeks alleged it was twofold one. He alleged that twice during brain scans prior to the fight, Frederick Lawson had an aneurysm show up on those brain scans and annurism. That's as serious as it gets when it comes to finding something on the brain that is about to get hit in a boxing ring.
That's number one. The second part about this, which I don't think it's talked about enough.
Another doctor was So, what Tony Weeks is alleging is that the Nevada Commission went doctor shopping, that they went out and found a doctor to give Frederick Lawson an exam and that doctor ultimately cleared him.
Now look like you.
My initial reaction was, there is no way that the Nevada Commission would go along with.
This, like this was not a mega event.
Not that you do it anyway, but if you were going to skirt medical protocol, you probably don't do it. For Virgil Ortiz against Frederick Lawson in early January. That was my first reaction to all this. But the statement was a nothing burger. That was boilerplate pr vetted straight nothing. It told us nothing specific and it did not specifically address the allegations that were made by Tony Weeks. This cannot be the only rebuttal, the only answer that the Novada Commission has to these allegations.
This is way too serious.
This is a respected, longtime referee who has been part of the Devada Athletic Commission for decades making explosive allegations that they put the life of a fighter in danger. What Tony Weeks is effectively saying is that he knew it and that's why he stopped the fight.
As quickly as he did.
That needs an investigation, that needs a thorough airing out of the facts at a bare minimum. Now, if this was just a you know, if this was somebody on social media, or if this was an unverified so, I probably wouldn't give it the kind of credence I'm giving it now opening this show with it, talking to you about it on YouTube.
But this is Tony Weeks.
I can't think of what motivation Tony Weeks would have to put out a statement like this. What Tony Weeks did with this statement was commit career suicide. Tony Weeks will never referee again. He will certainly never referee in Nevada, and I'd be surprised if he referees anywhere ever again. What he did was accuse his effective employers of illegal activity activity that looks Some boxing lawyers have said to me that if the Nevada Commission actually did this, then the commission itself would have to be disbanded. Ever, would have to be fired because this is this serious and allegation. So we are now a few days removed from all this. We have the statement from Golden Boy, and we have the boilerplate statement from the Nevada Commission. That's not sufficient. You know, people want to put some blame on Golden Boy. I think it's more on the Nevada Commission because they are responsible for licensing these fighters. They are the commission that allows these fighters to get into the ring and gives them the bill of health that they need to get into the ring. The Nevada Commission, Jeff Mullen, all the people in charge there have to be more accountable than how they have been up until this point. The accountability they have shown is unacceptable. Repeat, the accountability they have shown is unacceptable.
They need to produce evidence.
They need to show that Frederick Lawson had clean brain scans. Now, look, I know there's going to be some hiding behind hippo laws and you know, medical privacy and all that. But Tony Weeks made an allegation that is incredibly serious and the Devada Commission cannot just dismiss it with a boilerplate lawyer approved statement that told us nothing. They told us the exact same thing that Golden Boy told us. They told us that Frederick Lawson was approved to fight. That is not what Tony Weeks is accusing them of. Tony Weeks is accusing them of having two brain scans that showed an aneurism. He is accusing them of bringing in another doctor to give them another brain scan that showed no anneurism. So these types of things need to be addressed, and if they're not addressed, they should not be swept under the rug. They should not be let go. This is the lives of fighters we're talking about. This is life and death that we're talking about. It cannot be dismissed. Well, the Nevada Commission said it didn't happen, so we should all just move along. Doesn't work that way. It needs to be addressed. It needs to be addressed with specifics, and until then we simply can't overlook it. So we're gonna be talking about this in the weeks and months ahead as this show goes forward, because I don't think it should be let go as quickly as maybe some people want to see it let go. All right, coming up, Doug Fisher, Ring Magazine editor in chief, been around for a long time, seeing a lot of things with Ring Magazine. I'm also gonna ask Doug about this tony weeks issues. Stick around for that topic at the end of our conversation. But it's a great conversation with Doug about the state of Ring Magazine, the future of Ring Magazine, and how it's been able to maintain its relevance despite the fact that it is a century oal So.
Here's my conversation with Doug Fisher. All Right.
Doug Fisher is the editor in chief of Ring Magazine, the Bible of Boxing, which is now more.
Than a century old. If you can believe that.
Back then, a twenty four page edition cost twenty cents, pretty good deal even by nineteen twenties standards. Today of the magazine is exclusively digital, but is still making an impact both in print and with its world title belts, which are well known throughout boxing. Doug, a century old that, even by publishing standards, that that feels like a long time.
Yeah, no, and it's rare. I mean, I can't name more than five other existing print publications that are over one hundred years old, can you?
No? I mean, look, I work for everyone.
Else is out there? What's older than it?
Like?
Like, how old is the New Yorker?
God, I couldn't even guess.
I mean, look, I work for a magazine that first published in nineteen fifty four, so you've got his beat by more than thirty years.
So it really is an incredible run.
Yeah, and that's a long time though. If a man if a publication has been in existence for more than fifty years, that's that's a triumph. It's it's really amazing how many years from we barely I mean we barely got across the finish line. The pandemic almost ended it in twenty twenty. And our saving grace was we we had an online shop and we just kind of went back into our archives and you know, the boxing schedule, the live boxing schedule was was erased for you know, who knew how long it would it was going to last, or how long everybody would be quarantined, and you know how long live events would be postponed. But I think we put out a special edition on the Gotti Ward trilogy, followed by a Mike Tyson special and got awards sold very well. Mike Tyson Special sold out, and most of those sales were through the online shop, which just you know, was revenue directly to us, and that that just kept us afloat and we kept up let us know that, okay, we could do more special issues So we did many pak Yeah, we did Julio Caesar Chavez, we did Larry Holmes, we did Oscar de la Hoya. Some sold better than others, but they all sold pretty well. But still the effect of and whatever publishing has been. You know, there's been diminishing returns for years and even decades, but the pandemic put so many of our vendors, distribution companies and the printing presses, the printing companies out of business that it really kind of made it impossible. Even once everything was quote unquote back to normal, it wasn't back to normal for the publishing world. In order for us to like even dream of breaking even, we would have had to raise the cover price to like thirty bucks per issue, and it just didn't make any sense. So after the one one hundred and first year of being a monthly publication, we made the tough decision of going digital.
Only how close do you think you got to maybe having to fold.
Numerous times? I mean sometimes it was it was like there was sometimes there was on on you know, the company level. You know, Oscar de la Joya owns the magazine, he bought it in two thousand and seven, but Golden Boy Promotions is a company. I mean he's he's the founder, he's the CEO. But there have been different people, kind of a revolving door of CEOs and people in charge of media, people in charge of company or business operations that saw no reason for, you know, for Golden Boy to have any business in the publishing world. And you know, those folks will get into Oscar's ear and but Oscar never lefts and Oscar loves the ring, you know, so it endured, It persisted, It survived because Oscar wanted to keep it and wanted to keep it afloat. But there was always talk about you know, going either going digital only, or the magazine being sold or you know, discontinued in various ways. After the first issue that I published as the editor in chief, that was like early Actually we produced the magazine in late twenty seventeen, and it was like the first issue of twenty eighteen, so I've been doing this six years. The guy who was in charge of like company operations at Golden Boy at the time said, hey, how was it, How was it producing your first issue? And I said, it was hard as hell. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, Like you know, I'm just I'm learning on the go, right And I said, but I learned a lot and I'm going to use that experience going into the next issue. And he said, don't worry about it. There's not going to be a next issue. And I went crazy on him, and it was just my pride. I was just like, you can't kill the magazine. After my first issue of being editor in chief is going to look like I killed it, you know what I mean, Like seriously, I was just like, you know, and then as I'm arguing with the dude and We're like shouting at each other because this guy was kind of crazy, you know. I was sort of emboldened by just the history of the magazine. No, can't go out this way. And then you know the way it is off and people will say, well, you know, Oscar wants to discontinue the print publication, and I would always pull rank on him. I'd always say, well, I have to hear that from Oscar himself, and then they backed the fuck off. They back off, were like, oh shit, okay, never mind man. So but it was from twenty eighteen. I was at the start of twenty eighteen. From twenty eighteen through i'd say the start of twenty twenty two. There were probably four or five times where it was it was just like it was just different people who were working for Golden Boy at that time who were no longer there by the way. You know, sometimes it was a CFO. Sometimes it was the guy in charge of you know, the in house productions and Golden Boy Media and so forth. Other times it was the business operations guy. We just butted heads, you know, but you know, thankfully I was always able to go to Oscar when it really looked like, you know, when they're like, no, we're we're cutting funding, We're not going to put the bill on this or whatever, or I don't see you know why we need a print publication. You know, we can persist as a website, you know, or or a digital edition, and we can talk about that. But it was really a goal of mine to get across that finish line of the one hundred year mark. That's a that's a milestone in publishing, that's a milestone in anything, you know. You know, I say, any sort of company, your institution, if you can get you know, to your centennial, it's a big deal. And that was very important to me. So that was the goal, and I was willing. I was willing to fight for it, fight tooth and nail, fight City Hall until that birthday, and then after that I was like, Okay, I'm going to be reasonable.
How have you found the stewardship overall of Golden Boy?
I mean, I remember back in two thousand and seven when Golden Boy bought the Ring, and the narrative back then was, well, how can the ring maintain objectivity or even the perception of objectivity when they are owned by one of the biggest promotional companies in the world, by a guy who at the time was still an active fighter and still one of the biggest cash cows in all of boxing. I mean, how have you found their stewardship over the years?
It's changed. It's crazy to think about this, but I've been working for the Ring for a little over fifteen years. I started in late two thousand and eight. I left maxboxing dot Com that I co found with Steve Kim and Tom Grabaisy uh and and a webmaster named Gary Randall and uh. When I started it was I mean, I knew you, like the short answer to your question is, you can't there's always going to be somebody that says that we're compromised because we're owned by a promoter. And I totally get that, and I understand that. And when it looks like we're doing something, we're making an editorial decision because it's it's making Oscar de la Hoya happy or it's in favor of Golden Boy. I welcome the criticism. You know, we should be you know, we should be dragged across the coles. But I can say that, you know, I've never done that. My predecessor, predecessor, Michael Rosenthal, never did that. I know Nigel Collins didn't do that. But that isn't to say that the editorial board doesn't butt heads with the company that owns the magazine. It's happened numerous times. When I first came a board, it was like a three way partnership between Golden Boys Enterprises, a subsidiary that was, you know, basically the company that is ring magazine called Sports and Entertainment Publications, which still exists, and Yeahoo's Sports, and we answered editorially to the guy who was running Yeah Who's Sports. At the time, I can't remember the guy's name, but he had come from the La Times, and he was a young mover and shaker, and that's how it was for a couple of years. But I think Yeahoo's Sports didn't uphold their end financially like they were supposed to put in financially and invest financially and do certain things, and they weren't able to because as soon as that deal was done, Yeahoo Sports took a hit like that, the company of Yeah Who took a hit whatever, and a lot of their infrastructure was just gutted. And so there was a lot of support that we didn't get editorially and just in terms of utilizing Yeah Whose Sports as a platform, and Golden Boy just took it over right. And and after that point there were times, and I know, especially when Richard Schaeffer was the CEO, and Schaefer is Schaefer. He's unapologetic. He was a promoter and at the time, Golden Boy Promotions was the eight hundred pound gorilla in boxing because as you said, Oscar de la Hoya was still he was still an active fighter, and he was the biggest ticket in the sport, and that that gained Golden Boy a lot of leverage with HBO just gained them a lot of leverage in the sport period. And when you are the eight hundred pound gorilla, you don't like to hear people tell you no, or you don't like to hear people push back. You know when when and you know when Schaeffer is saying Adrian Broner should be in the pound for pound, right, you know, or you know Abner Marris, it should be top five pound for pound or whatever, and they're Golden Boy fighters and they may or may not have earned that position, and editorial pushes back. Schaefferrank gonna be happy about it. And I know, especially once the Cold War really got rolling between Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank, and especially when Golden Boy Promotions was closely partnered with Floyd Mayweather and they took Floyd Mayweather from HBO to Showtime and Top Rank Star was many Pacquiao and Top Rank, and many Pacquiao were still with with HBO. The Cold War and that divide got really strong, and that whole pound for pound debate before they fought, right that whole ridiculous five year build up to that mega event, things got real tough, and I know Nigel Collins was like he was kind of a manupacyo guy, you know what I mean, And so was I, you know, uh, And obviously Richard Schaeffer was a I'll say he was an Al Hayman guy, but he was by proxy he was a Floyd Mayweather guy. And I mean, Nigel Collins will have to speak his truth, but I know things got harry between them, and they did. They they got rid of them. They they cleaned out the editorial board at that time. I think in uh, maybe it was late twenty eleven, and I was Nigel Collins and Eric Rashkin and William Dettlof and suddenly the two guys that were the editors of the the online version of The Ring ringtv dot com. That's me and Michael Rosenthal. We were sort of in charge of the magazine, although it was mainly Rosenthal was the magazine and then I was just like the head guy on the website until they got rid of rosen Thal and that was late twenty seventeen and it's been yours truly ever since. But no, it absolutely happens, and that's just I mean, that's how it is in boxing. I mean, you know, promoters want what promoters want, and you're either The mentality often in boxing is you're either with me or you're against me, and there's no such thing as partnerships, you know, so there's naturally going to be the butting of heads, and it has happened. But I can say since I've been editor in chief, I haven't had any trouble from Oscar de la Joya or Eric Gomez. I think the one time, the one time I got kind of a frustrated call from Eric Gomez is when we put Eddie Hearn on the cover of and He's like, whose idea was it to put Eddie Hearn in the cover? And I was like, well, yeah, I guess that down to me. You know, it was supposed to just be Anthony Joshua, but we had trouble getting the rights to certain studio shots or whatever and whatever. We wound up with Eddie and a bunch of fighters standing behind him. But you know, and he was kind of like, well, wait, since when do you guys put promoters on the cover. I'm like, it happens. You know, Don King's been on the cover, and hey, Eddie's doing some big things. It's never before then, it had never been that the top or one of the top UK promoters, came to the US and got a promoter's license and started doing shows in the US, and part of that was that huge whatever billion dollar deal with his own It was all huge, So whatever, we made that decision. But that's the only time. And it wasn't like, hey, don't ever do that again, or fuck you, Doug, I'm mad at you. It wasn't like that. He just called up and like, man, what the you know. I'm like, hey, you know, it is what it is, and we just move on, you know.
The uh.
But by the way, try try telling that to boxing Twitter. You know they're gonna, oh yeah, Oscar calls the shots or whatever. But I grew up in Missouri, and I just say, show me if you think that we're favoring golden boy fighters in the rankings or in terms of our championship belt policy or whatever, point it out, you know. And you know, we're myself and most of the ring ratings panel. We're all on social media, you guys. You know, anybody can come at us and question us or debate us or whatever. We're not hiding, you know, so.
I can speak from personal experience when I say that fighting with boxing Twitter gets you nowhere.
So, yes, you're right, I do. I do understand that sentiment.
You know, the power and the influence of print publications, magazines, what have you have certainly diminished over the last couple of decades. But over the last let's say, six to eight months, you can certainly make an argument that Ring is making a case that it is still as important as ever in the boxing sphere because you have been in the news a lot, you know, for good and bad. You've been in some squabbles with people over the last couple of months. But I think that speaks to the importance of Ring and the relevance of Ring magazine, and I would.
Have said relevant. Yeah, and if somebody's not complaining about you or taking shots at you, that's more cost for concern.
Yeah.
I want to ask you specifically about a couple of cases. One was with Mauricio Suliman, which was happened late last year at that WBC convention, where Mauricio kind of unprompted, attacked the Ring It's championship. He said, quote, I don't know why media champions and promoters give any credit to a ring magazine belt, which only threatens the credibility of the sport.
It went on to say, they are a business. They are they make money, they are biased.
Now.
I have commented in the past about the ridiculousness of a statement like that coming from the head of a sanctioning body. But when you first heard that attack from Mauricio, what was your reaction?
I was I was amused at first. I was amused.
I immediately I thought, okay, Mauricios, he's been under a lot of heat, right, people were giving him crap about uh, you know ranking Naganu Francis Nagano number ten in there. There was ridiculous of course, it was he's one and oh you know, uh, I'm sorry, oh in one.
Yeah, I canna argue you beat him? Yeah, but yeah, yeah, exactly. But there were some other things, Oh, I know, they he had been under a lot of heat for uh keeping Jamal Charlow, the WBC middleweight title holder, and there were some other things. I think there was a lot of pressure. He was asked that question at the WBC annual convention. I think they were in Uzbekistan. Yeah, and you know, the sanctioning body conventions are a celebration of those sanctioning bodies, especially the WBC. They do things big, you know, they they you know, there's big egos with that organization because in their own right, they are iconic. Right that green belt, it does stand out in front of the other sanctioning organizations. When you think about Mike Tyson and Julio Caesar Shavez, you can envision them, you know, with that green belt after their biggest victories and all. So they've got some history. There's a lot of messed up history. There a lot of controversy. But the convention is a celebration of the WBC. And there's this guy from IFL TV who's interviewing them and ask him about a flyweight unification belt that doesn't involved the WBC title. And he's not even asking him about the whatever the IBF and WBO belts that were on the line. He's asking him, Hey, what do you think about Ring Magazine not recognizing it as a flyweight championship, And he's just like this, this is what I'm thinking. I haven't spoken to Mauricio since those statements, but I in my mind, I'm like, he got he's pissed off at that dude for asking him that question at the WBC convention and what he should have said, if his temper didn't get the better of him, was why don't you ask the Ring magazine that? Why are you asking me? That's not even a WBC flyweight title fight. It's a unification bout between two other sanctioning bodies, and if the Ring doesn't want to recognize it, that's on that. Now. Hey, he could have ripped us for not recognizing it, or he could have agreed with us, but instead it triggered him, right, and so I just figured, Okay, his temper got the better of him, or his ego got the better of him, and he said those words. But then when I read it, I got mad because he was like, first he's like, you know what is Ring Magazine? It is a magazine. I'm like, yeah, no shit, you know it's a business again, no shit, They are about money. I'm like, yeah, we're about Yes, we're about money from people who buy the magazine or subscribe to us, you know, but we're not It ain't like we're leaching off the fighters, you know what I'm saying. Ain't like we're invoicing the promoters, you know what I'm saying, Like we're actually we're not a business within boxing's infrastructure. It's like, no, the sanctioning bodies are business and they can hide behind nonprofit status. We all know that's bullshit. You know, show me the CEO of any major nonprofit and I'll show you a dude driving a really nice car and living in a big ass house with a swimming pool out back. You know, they're about money. And the more I thought about it, I'm like, WBC sells more more merch than Ring magazine and all the sanctioning bodies put together. They're all about money. They're all about status. If there's a big money bout, it don't matter who is in the main event. Mauricio Suleiman's gonna be there with the green belt. Hey, green, the color of money. It doesn't matter if it's Tyson Fury and Francis Naganu or Jake Paul versus whoever right Jake Paul could fight you, They're gonna put Even if an actual WBC title isn't on the line, They'll make a commemorative, celibatory title just to be there, to be a part of the extravaganza and the exposure, and you know, whatever, the money. You know what I'm saying, So that upset me, and I really kind of wanted to go off. And then, you know, I went to the YouTube channel and I looked at the comments underneath it, and it was just fans ripping the ship out of Mauricio and the WBC. And I looked at the tweets and uh on x, you know, and on Instagram all of the comments I mean, I mean, like ninety nine were like the audacity, you know, like the nerve Mauricio of you, you saying that they're a business and their decisions are arbitrary.
My my interpretation of those comments immediately were there's a part of Mauricio Suleiman that sees Ring Magazine as a threat and maybe but he shouldn't.
Well, I think that's crazy. We're not a sanctioning.
Wow, you're not.
You're not. But but look, I we can get into this later. But I certainly hope there comes a day when we have fights that are just for the Ring Magazine time, like there was one in Saudi Arabia where Jayapataia dropped his ibs.
You mentioned it.
Listen, Lord, I didn't go into the ring, we didn't.
I didn't go into the ring wearing my ring magazine t shirt, but it was brought up over the course of the broadcast.
It was thank you, but it goes with the dark look. I great, I think there.
I hope someday there is a day where one of the most popular boxing champions only fights for a ring belt because they are not reaching into their pockets to pay a sanctuary fee, which to me is the most important facet of your belt. You know, your rankings, I I agree with them, sometimes to disagree with mother. That's what happens in subjective rankings. But you know, but you know you're coming from an authentic place.
You're not making those decisions based on money.
It's coming from correct It's coming from an authentic place. So I I can That's where I can see Mauricio seeing ring as a threat, where someday Canelo wakes up and goes, you know what, I don't want to pay a million and a half to defend these four titles or whatever it may be. I'm just gonna and this ring belt and everybody else can go take a hike. Like in the back of my mind, if I'm Mauricio Suliman or Gilbert Goal Mendoza or Paco with the WBO or Darryl with the IBF like I that would be my greatest fear that some of these big time stars who generate big time sanctioning fee, but.
It would only be those big time I mean, first of all, do you see that happening. Do you think that will that will ever happen?
Never say never.
I think I'm boxing's addicted to sanctioning organizations. I mean it is part of the structure. It's part of building a fighter up. I mean we both you and I both know and are even you know, friends with managers and promoters, and we know, we know how hard the promoter works, how much the obviously, how much the fighter, the fighter's sacrifice, the trainer's sacrifice, how much of an investment the management and the advisors and the promoters put into a fighter. And we do know that those sanctioning by belts, those minor belts, that they win the USA Belt or Continental America's Belt or whatever, it pushes them up those rankings. It does. And even in promotional contracts, when you win some of these belts, not even world titles, it gives you an automatic bump up in your minimum perse. So they're already in they're part of the infrastructure, Like they're cleared by the state commissions to be in the ring. You know what I mean. I can't walk in the ring with the ring belt. You know, we don't have inspectors that stand there. Inspectors, right, you know, sanctioning body like the reps that the sanctioning bodies have at the weigh ins and before and after the fight to make sure that everybody sees the belt and they put it on the fighter. And if you're the WBC, you're putting on a belt and a T shirt and a hat and who knows what else, a medallion, you know what I'm saying, Like we're they're in there, they're already like a part of the fabric of the modern business of boxing. I don't know why they would be threatened by the Ring Magazine because it's only the most exceptional fighters that win that title. We don't have interim belts, We don't have Continental America titles, you know, we only have a world title. The only time you see a fighter with the Ring Magazine belt is they're the world champion and they had to go through hell to get that belt, okay, or they had to beat a sitting ring champion or their fighter the fighter of the year or they've been number one pound for pound for a number of years and will award a pound for pound belt, and it's very rare, you know. And personally, I thought, Sonny, the fight between Sonny Edwards and Jesse Rodriguez, I thought that was worthy of the ring.
Okay, okay, let's let's get into that.
Let's let's address that, because that was another one of the topics I want to hit you on. So Sonny Edwards and Bam Rodriguez fought for two of the official sanctioning Bodies belts last month. It was widely considered throughout boxing the top two guys in the flyweight division. The Ring magazine ratings had Sonny Edwards at number one, bam Rodriguez at.
Number four for a justifiable reason.
Of course, bam Rodriguez had only fought the one time at one hundred and twelve pounds. He did win a title in that first defense. In between those two was Julio Caesar Martinez and ar Met Delachia.
Now I got a hot yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah yeah, Number two with Martinez. Number three is Delacke right now, and I by the way, I agree that those that Edwards and Rodriguez were the two best flyweights. I'm not a fan of Mark Martinez or Delachian with no offense at De Loachey, and he doesn't fight enough, which and Martinez to me, has had opportunities to unify.
He hasn't done anything, which is why I did think that the decision by your ratings panel, and you were transparent about this.
You published the transcript total of the debate over.
For months, right the way, for months we had been debating it, from the day that the fight had been announced, even before it had a date and a place we were debating. I did.
I did think that the decision not to sanction it was a little highbrow because even those in the chat would acknowledge that it was one versus two, because Martinez, to your point, just doesn't fight anybody, and Delachian is like the Gary Russell junior of Europe, like he fights once a year against exactly virtually nobody, and.
And they haven't looked good in recent bouts. De Lachean arguably lost his last fight, and I think Martinez arguably lasted lost his last fight, his fight before.
He was losing his last fight I've seen, he scored a knockout lead in Guadalajara.
I think it was yet Yeah, but before that, there was another guy he was in with who stank it, stunk it out, but he couldn't do anything about it. I forget the name of the cat. But anyways, they hadn't they haven't looked good and uh, you know, but members of the panel would say, well, Bam Rodriguez didn't look like a world beater in winning that vacant de way.
I mean a broken jaw for the second half of the fight.
Exactly, you know. And I pointed that out. I pointed that out because I could I could foresee it, you know. Yeah, I had argued that he'd be ranked like at least number three, and in that way, it's within our rules to you know, it's you know, we can debate it. But there are members of the panel that are just like, they're very cold. Could you rule say number one for a vacant belt it's number one versus number two or in some cases number one versus could.
You, as editor in chief have overruled the panel.
I'm not comfortable with doing that. Yeah, I could have. Uh, and what what the message that that sends is if you're a promoter or you're a manager and you want to fight, you want, you know, a fight that you're promoting to be for the Ring Magazine championship, you can circumvent the panel and go straight to Doug Fisher and try to get in his ear and you know, twist his arm or whatever, you know. And that's and that's how promoters are. And I'm not mad at promoters like I I wasn't mad at any hearn from, you know, or even Louda Bella who had nothing to do with the promotion to express their opinions on the Ring panel's decision. But I like it to be democratic that way. We can be transparent that way. It's like you know, I sometimes I'll agree, sometimes I'll disagree, and I don't mind doing that. And anybody who's part of the panel, they understand this, they understand you know, how have I phrased it? You know, what you say and write as part of this panel can and will be used against you in the court of social media opinion. And you got to be ready for that. And you have to be willing to stand up to the heat. And I'm not always going to agree with you. You know, I'm not gonna put them on blast in a disrespectful way, but I'll say, you know, I think the panel got it wrong this time. What I will do is if they're if the panel is deadlocked, and that happens, okay more, you know, it happens a few times every you know, you know, once a year or whatever, whether it's uh, you know, usually when with pound for pound rankings and with with the Ring Magazine championship, and I'll act as a tiebreaker. I'll sit out, and if they're deadlocked for a long period of time, I'll just say, Okay, we're going to do this. This is the direction we're going in. And I think that's fair, you know, But I don't like to if if the majority of the panel you know, votes one way, I don't like the veto.
I think my case for an exception would have been again, obviously one versus two in terms of pure talent. Second, if Sonny had won, it would have been the number one guy winning and the belt would have been deserved. If Bam had won, he wouldn't have kept it, he would have vacated it and gone up to one figure.
Regardless. That was his last fight at one twelve day.
So did it feel to you in the moment, because it was a great fight for as long as it lasted.
Did it feel to you in the moment? And I know you in the moment thought like an opportunity missed?
Uh No, you know if if well, if Edwards would have won that fight, I would have felt bad for Edwards because I know wanted it. Sonny has he wanted it. He has, and he's been he's talked about it for years and he he earned that position, that number one position. He's He's defeated in succession, back to back to back to back, a bunch of badasses, different styles, all of them world class. There was a fight with a with a really big one hundred a former hundred and eight pound title holder, uh from Nicaragua, Calvado Alvarado, Yeah, yeah, Alvaara, and that in that fight he answered all the questions I had about you know, like he just showed such tenacity and such skill and ring generalship and to be willing. And I think that was like a voluntary defense too, you know, to fight somebody, you know, a big, strong, heavy handed pressure fighter like that and go through hell for twelve rounds, uh and not just you know, milk easy voluntary, you know, defenses of that IBF belt. He really impressed me. And and I, you know, and I want guys like that to hold the Ring Magazine title because, as I said, we're not a sanctioning we're not a sanctioning organization, so we don't have mandatories. So whoever holds our championship belts, I want them to be fighting champions. And I want them to be the type of fighter and competitor that constantly wants to challenge themselves, that has that chip on their shoulder even though they've made it, even though they've achieved their goals, still keeps that chip on the shoulder to where they want to fight the best because they want to prove to everybody, hey, I'm the king of the mountain. They got that, like that Marvin Hagler mentality, you know, and I felt that, Okay, you know, Edwards isn't this physically imposing boxer, but he has that mentality like he's going to win on sheer ring IQ and guile and savvy and guts. He's tough. Dude's tougher than nails, you know. And I think he proved that even in a loss to Bam Rodriguez. So, had had Edwards won the fight, I would have felt bad. I would have probably said something, Hey, Sonny, I'm sorry. I probably would have put that out there, you know, but hopefully he gathers himself, you know, back up he didn't. You know, I think he's like, currently he's number two in our flyweight rankings and now Bam is number one. Uh in BAM's next fight or the fight they're talking about, is Juan Francisco Estrada right at one hundred. Yeah, hopefully you know, if not next then at some point.
Either way either way, he will not be ever.
Yeah.
Yeah, one more question for you on Ring. It's lasted one hundred plus years. It's an ever changing landscape for all print based publications. How does Ring Magazine survived, say, the next ten years.
Yeah, it's tough. This past year, we didn't know what the heck we were going to be. You know, once the decision came through that you know, we were going to cease a monthly print publication. The editorial board we got together and we said, okay, you know, do we bother with a monthly digital edition? Because that those monthly print deadlines. That's stressful. It's stressful. And the way, you know, the way things change so quickly in boxing. You know, we'll have a cover story all set up and you know, sixty percent of a magazine done, and then you know, that fight that is the cover story falls out because somebody tests positive, you know, for a banned substance, or you know, somebody gets injured or whatever, and you know, and we've got like two weeks to salvage a mag That's happened a number of times, and you know we lost hair over that. You know, so part of us were like, let's just focus on the website. Let's just you know, focus our energy, our time and our energy and our efforts, and you know, let's bring these magazine contributors over to the website. Let's let's make ringtv dot com the best website we can be. And then somebody pointed out, like, you know, those subscribers, a lot of them are subscribed till the end of twenty twenty four and some till twenty twenty five. If we're not going to have even like a digital edition of this magazine, we have to refund them all. And we'd crunch the numbers and we're like, oh shit, okay, all right, we're going to continue having a digital issue. But it was it was a grind, like we we only did seven issues and twenty twenty three. So my goal going forward, I want to have a monthly digital edition. And throughout last year and going into even this year, we're almost finished with it. We Golden Boy hired a company, an app company to develop a new app, right, so real user friendly and all that. So my goal is to have go back to a monthly magazine, but it's the it's monthly digital, but it'll be a quarterly. As a print publication. We'll still we'll still have print publications and if you subscriber, you will get those four print magazines and they'll be collector type magazines. Like we did one print magazine last year and it was a preview for Spence Crawford and the magazine was beautiful and I'm real proud of it, but it was an absolute disaster because it didn't get to people's hands until the week of the fight, and in many cases till after the fight. So obviously fans who bought it on the online store were pissed off. Subscribers were you know, they were happy to get it, but you know, and subscribers were able to read the magazine digitally. But if you're like me, if you're old school like me, you want to read something in your hands. Like you know, I don't read anything digitally, you know, I'm over fifty. But uh, you know, if it's not like you know, a manga, you know, comic or something like that, I'm not reading that digitally. But it's that's important to keep it some of the print. You know, we can't do a monthly it's too expensive. But to have special treasury editions, special you know editions, whether it's on like an all you know, a legendary fighter like Joe Lewis or whatever, like you know, some kind of like big fight anniversary, right so I think, uh, the fifty year anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle is this year, right in October, you know, something like some kind of you know, commemorative type issue like that where we mind the ring archives and we get the best writers you know, to to to put it together and maybe we reprint some old you know, classic articles or whatever that sort of thing. That that's that's my goal is to have the best of both worlds digital and print and to really and this is a real challenge. You know, what's the difference between what we put on the website and what goes into the digital edition of a magazine. It can't be the same thing, you know, because otherwise people are like, you know, I'll just read it on the website, you know, So finding know, what is the type of content that people want to read digitally that people will subscribe to, And we'll have to you know, we'll have to figure that out. But I do think there's a place for long form stories, for analysis, for obviously for historical articles. I think the website that's that's breaking news, that's that ever changing hourly news cycle that we have in the social media age. And uh, you know, the sort of the deeper content will be the digital edition and there and there's a lot to that's that we're going to be unpacking this year. I mean, Saudi Arabia is this new player, you know, I'm here and they're gonna have like eight shows this year and they're all going to be like the super Bowl of boxing. You know, what does that mean for the sport? What are the pros and cons? You know, the PBC going to Amazon Prime. You know, what's that? How's that going to play out? You know, there's gonna be you know, thousands of news items that come out of those those events and these changes. But you know there there needs to be a place for like a deeper analytical look, and I think, you know, it should be.
Has there ever been a conversation about charging a sanctioning fee for the belt?
Yes, yeah, we have talked about that, but not to the fighters, to the promoters or to the networks. And it has to be important, you know, it has to be and it wouldn't be like to rake in dough. It would just be to cover the cost of the production of the belts, the production and the shipping of the belts, you know, or for the cost for somebody to be there to present the belt, you know, because I mean that's that's what the sanctioning bodies have. I mean, like they have the three percent, the traditional three percent that they charged the fighters who are fighting for the belt. But then there's also those representatives, those inspectors, that's what they call them, and they invoice the promoter for that the promoter, you know, if the inspector is coming from out of city or out of state. It's the promoter pays for that travel. The promoter puts that that WBC or WBO rep up in the hotel, you know, and then after the event, the promoter will receive an invoice, you know, and it's not a ton you know, it's like fifteen hundred bucks or whatever. But they call it inspection fees. I don't know if people really know about this. I know this because I know promoters, right, you know, Hey, we're owned by a promoter, you know, and we hear them complain about shit. So we have thought, like, you know, something like that, something that either the promoter or the network, you know, you know, covers the costs that of the either the travel, but definitely the for the production of the belt because there it's not cheap. It's a considerable cost given you know, in entire.
I want you to put your journalism hat on for me and weigh in on what I think is the biggest story of the week by far, one of the biggest stories potentially in a while. That's what happened this past weekend in Las Vegas, where Virgil Ortiz stops Frederic Lawson in the first round a suspect stoppage, it seemed at the time by Tony Weeks.
Tony Weeks then goes on Facebook, of all places and.
Posts that he knew that there had been brain scans that showed aneurysms on the brain of Frederic Lawson before the fight, and he effectively accused the Nevada Commission of doctor shopping to find a doctor who gave a scan that cleared Frederick Lawson. Now Golden Boy has said in a statement that this Frederick Lawson was cleared by a Nevada Commission neurologist. The Nevada Commission came out earlier this week with a very carefully worded boiler plate ye pr vetted statement that effectively said the same thing.
I'm not gonna read the whole thing.
I touched on this at the top of the show, Doug before you you came on. But yeah, basically, give me your take right now on the information that you have at the moment on.
What is going on here.
Because Tony Weeks, for all the criticism he's received over the last year for the Romero Barroso stoppage for what happened is last weekend is among the most recognizable referees in all of boxing. You see him in movies, you see him in a lot of big fights, like people know, people weeks for him to come out and make those kind of accusations. I don't believe that they can be responded by just that statement.
What's your take on it? I, you know, listen, I think I don't know how he would be privy to that information. But the way boxing is, there's always people talking, right, There's always whispers, there's always rumors. If there's a fighter that's been through the mill and has you know, been knocked out, you know more than a few times, or had suffered an ugly knockout, or is beginning to show signs of neurological damage, and we see it, you know, we see like you know, you know older veterans, journeyman fighters who are getting thick in the tongue and maybe you know, in the ring even they don't move the way they used to move. And sometimes you will hear people say, you know, the ref nos to to keep a close eye on this guy because he's getting towards the end of his career and boxing needs to protect these guys who are basically professional opponents.
With which I'm convinced is exactly what happened the Romero Barroso fight from last year where Tony saw forty old looking like he was getting hit and stop the fight.
This though there was far more, but he was wrong.
But I agree with because Barosso had looked strong. But this, to me, that's that's judging him on his face and his age. He shouldn't do. But what I'm saying is I I I myself have heard people say there were you know, like let's say I'm doing a broadcast, right and we get a bout sheet. You know, you know this, right, there's a bout sheet, and then it's the day of the fight or whatever, or or whatever. It's a couple of days before the fight or before the weigh in, and and I say, okay, I'm looking at the bout sheet, and somebody saying, uh, like a matchmaker comes by and like this fight just so you know, this fight might fall out, and and and I'll say, well, why what happened? Like, well, there was some medical issues with this guy? Uh Now, sometimes that's like a doctor comes by an exam was a fighter The fighter arrives right, you know, before the press conference or before the like in California before the weigh in, right, there will be commissioners that come by and they do physical examinations. They're like neurological, but they're testing the fighters, you know, sight and reflexes, and they'll grab their arms and be like, you know, touch your nose like a sobriety check. That's what it looks like. It looks like sobriety checks. And I do know it's happened a few times. And I'm going back some years, ten, fifteen years or whatever, but I remember there was a fighter, a veteran, you know, former lightweight contender named Jose Armando Santa Cruz, who was supposed to be fighting on a card, you know, it was a Fox Sports card or whatever, and he was fighting some young badass, you know, lightweight prospect or junior welterweight prospect, and he was pulled from the card and I was like, oh, what happened? You know, like, well, he didn't pass is neurological? And I said, so there was something a brain scan and they found something like no, no, the they just didn't like his reflexes. They didn't like the way he walked and talked, and they were they did you know they did like resistance stuff on his arms and they said, this guy's this guy shouldn't be fighting and he got pulled from the cart. And you know what, I don't think he ever fought again, but that just comes to mind. So what I'm getting back to the Tony Weeks situation. I'm gonna say it's possible that Tony Weeks heard like rumors like, hey, I don't know about this guy. I heard there was something funny with the scans. Right. So sometimes they'll do if they do a scan, right, especially if there's a fighter coming in from another country or whatever, and they do these scans, sometimes on the brain, there'll be areas that like it'll just look like a shadow or whatever, you know, and this could be brain trauma, but sometimes it's just the way the brain is. Like sometimes brain right, there's like what what amounts to a pimple inside the brain, right, like a little pocket of fat, you know what I'm saying, like a cyst or whatever. But it's not necessarily a blood clot or you know, as Weeks was saying, an aneurysm.
Right, that's this was so so specific, Doug so specific with this.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna say this. If it's true, that's on that's on the Nevada State Commission, and these are that's that's that's that's these are serious allegations.
I'd someone say if I had a lawyer, a lawyer say, if it's true, the Nevada State Commission should be disbanded like that, that was how serious? Like again, if true, that's how serious it is.
But my point is at this point is we're talking.
All we have is a boilerplate statement for the Nevada Commission. I don't believe this is resolved with that. I know there are hippo laws and confidentialities here, but you just had arguably the most known referee in your universe, your boxing universe, say specifically two skin should up on an aneurysm, and you doctor shop to find someone to give him a third. You can't just say, hey, you know he was medically cleared, because that's exactly what Golden Boys said, and that that doesn't address the specific accusation that that to me is my always going to be my where I stand on all this, right, and.
It's such a strong accusation. You know, you you would think he would know if he made that accusation and he was just pulling it out of his ass, he was using it as an excuse or because he couldn't take the heat that he could be sue.
I mean he at a minimum, we just committed career suicide, like he'll never referee again.
Right right, at the minimum, right, you know, right, and at the maximum it's you know, it's it's libel you know what he what he because he wrote it. He went out there on Facebook. So that's that. You know, it's libelous if it's not true. Uh so it's yeah, you know, the funny thing is it's not funny. But I know, for a time, the Nevada State Athletic Commission had a bad rep among promoters because this is when Bob Bennett was was they had that they would veto a lot of opponents, you know then or somebody else thought like you know, if you remember when when the the the rematch between Ganetic glove Can and Canelo Alvarez, when when Alvarez tested positive and that bout had to be postponed, Team glove Can wanted to go ahead and fight on that sinkle to MYO date and they wanted to stay in uh In, Nevada, and they wanted to fight a Mexican opponent because HBO said, it'll be a pay per view if you get the right Mexican opponent, and they they selected Jaime Mungia, who was really young at the time. He was still he was still a prospect, and you know, he was a big, young, healthy, strong kid, even though he was a junior middleweight. And it was it was squashed. The commission was like, no, that's that's a mismatch. Glove can murder this kid or whatever. And there was I think people in the industry used to call him box Wreck Bob, as they said Bennett would go to box wreck and look at the opposition and say, these guy hasn't fought anybody. He shouldn't be in this match, and matchmakers and promoters and obviously the managers, they would get pissed as hell. And so the commission was getting this reputation for being very difficult. But the flip side of that is a commission that bends over backwards for promoters. So you don't want that because obviously, you know a promoter is going to want to protect their star, especially in Virgil Ortiz's situation. They just wanted him to get to the ring. He had so many health setbacks and so many fights canceled. They were like, we got to get them to the weigh in and through the weigh in and get him up those stairs into the ropes and then whatever happens happens. But they didn't want to put him in there too tough, you know, given those health issues and given the time out of the ring or whatever. So the crazy thing is is, you know lost in was he wasn't supposed to last more than a few rounds or whatever. But then there's this controversy over how quickly the fight was stopped, which I guess prompted Weeks to publish what he published via his Facebook, like, you know, an explanation. That's why I was looking after this guy's health because I knew this guy was not just in danger. He was like his health was was compromised. And who would investigate this, you know what I mean? Like could Weeks could like, like Weeks took the stuff a down right, But if Weeks wanted to protect his reputation, could he you know, could he like you know, could he come forth with his own investigation or even like his own lawsuit. I just don't want if he did it, would it would be against the commission.
I mean, it was my big things. I don't want to see this just go away. That's my fear at all this because that's what happens. It's like we move on to the next thing. Yeah, next week. If this guy had brain scans that showed something needs to be unearthed, it needs whatever it is, it needs to be addressed by Jeff Mullen and the Nevada Commission.
This was these were just too specific.
This wasn't you know I heard this guy had an issue in his pre fight medicals. This he had two aneurysms pop up and they doctor shop like, I don't know that that you know that.
You know what would be interesting, though, is if Team Lawson went to uh, you know, uh a doctor, a neurologist, and had scans done of his brain and and made that made that public, say hey, here's his brain. There ain't no aneurysms, you know, and here's this you know this doctor, and you know it has to be a respected doctor. Let's say it's a doctor Margaret Goodman. You know she was a neurologist. I don't think she's a practicing neurologist anymore, but she knows boxing and she's made fighter safety kind of like her crusade, you know, through Vada to have some like her, you know, who has credibility. You know, she's in the Hall of Fame. Say I've examined this fighter, and you know what, there are no aneurysms, you know what I mean, Like that would be nice. I would love to see that and team loss and hold the press conference and say, okay, let's put this to rest. Uh, But we're probably not going to see that. But I am kind of glad this kind of this comes out because I do think it puts all the other commissions on notice. And I will say, you know, even going to like a lot of the club shows that you know, I'll commentate on the streams or whatever. I've known fighters to be yanked from a card, you know, like right after the way in because they don't look right, you know, or certainly because of any kind of medical concern, whether it's their vision or neurological or what have you. You know, I've heard of fighters being pulled because of dental work that they had that had done that week, you know. So it's I don't want to say all, you know, I don't I don't want to create the impression that boxing commissions are inherently corrupt and they just want to you know, you know, you know throw, you know, put on mismatches or anything like that. There are a lot of really good commissions out there. But I think in a way this is good because it just puts everybody on a question and it's kind of like a reminder for you know, commissions throughout the US jurisdiction. You guys gotta you know, fighter safety comes first.
Doug.
As a lover of the print word, I do appreciate your work over at Ring magazine. On my producer Adam informs me that The New Yorker started publishing in nineteen twenty five, so you've got three years.
Oh we got them beat, got them beat there.
So congratulations on the century of success and here's to a century more, my friend.
I appreciate you joining me.
Thanks Chris, thanks for having me on.
That's it for this week's episode. My thanks to Doug Fisher for joining the show. As always, subscribe, rate review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you download podcasts.
See you next.
Week.
Thank you so much.
I go sleep
