Marketting a fighter..

[Bigcat]

I don't think i have seen a better example of a fighter (or heavyweight) being marketted and brought along exactly right since Mike Tyson emerged towards his assault on the heavyweight division. Bill Cayton (the so called man from Madison Avenue) and Jim Jacobs (regarded by many as the single greatest handball player of all time) did a marketting job with Mike that was subtle and eye catching on a massive scale that turned Kid Dynamite into a household name before he had boxed his tenth pro fight.. Cus turned his charge into the wrecking ball terror we all came to revere for his no nonsence KO approach and awe striking power.. But after six or seven straight wins, Jacobs and Cayton had video cassettes of Mike best highlight reel ko's amateur and pro, sent to every single hot A list celebrity and agency in America, in a hot property type of invitation to come see the next new thing in high octain entertainment ... Mkes following became almost cult like and snowballed into making Mike an A-listed celeb even over most of the Beltholding champions.. I remember Jacobs saying "Our criteria, is getting everyone who comes to a Mike Tyson fight night, leaving the arena saying.. 'When can we go see him again' " I havent seen since then, such a top class PR job done on a fighter.. Mike was destined to make Millions on really becoming a celebrity outside of boxing way before he became champion.. His notoriety of late helped his crowd pulling cause, and Mike himself only lost the bulk of his cash because he couldn't handle fame.. In many ways he always had a destructive nature.. But my issue is giving proper recognition to Jacobs, Cayton and D'amato for doing the impecible job that they did........ :good

[GPater11093]

the best marketed fight in the time i have followed boxing was Hatton-Mayweather everyone was speaking about it in britain

[TBooze]

The Tyson team did a brilliant job, but they nicked (and perhaps to a point, improved) the formula used by Trainer and Dundee with Leonard.

[janitor]

I don't think i have seen a better example of a fighter (or heavyweight) being marketted and brought along exactly right since Mike Tyson emerged towards his assault on the heavyweight division. Bill Cayton (the so called man from Madison Avenue) and Jim Jacobs (regarded by many as the single greatest handball player of all time) did a marketting job with Mike that was subtle and eye catching on a massive scale that turned Kid Dynamite into a household name before he had boxed his tenth pro fight.. Cus turned his charge into the wrecking ball terror we all came to revere for his no nonsence KO approach and awe striking power.. But after six or seven straight wins, Jacobs and Cayton had video cassettes of Mike best highlight reel ko's amateur and pro, sent to every single hot A list celebrity and agency in America, in a hot property type of invitation to come see the next new thing in high octain entertainment ... Mkes following became almost cult like and snowballed into making Mike an A-listed celeb even over most of the Beltholding champions.. I remember Jacobs saying "Our criteria, is getting everyone who comes to a Mike Tyson fight night, leaving the arena saying.. 'When can we go see him again' " I havent seen since then, such a top class PR job done on a fighter.. Mike was destined to make Millions on really becoming a celebrity outside of boxing way before he became champion.. His notoriety of late helped his crowd pulling cause, and Mike himself only lost the bulk of his cash because he couldn't handle fame.. In many ways he always had a destructive nature.. But my issue is giving proper recognition to Jacobs, Cayton and D'amato for doing the impecible job that they did........ :good

Joe Louis's managment team did the equivalent job to Tysons by the standards of the time.

No heavyweight prior to that had enjoyed a manager and promotional team from the start of his career.

No contender before or after had been brought along so quickly.

Nine months into Louis's profesional debut he was fighting Primo Carnera in what was meant to be an elimination tournament for a shot at Max Baers title.

A poster was published before that fight depicting Louis punching the top off the empire state building, with the caption:

"Big brown bomber hits town".

[rekcutnevets]

Bigcat, they did market Tyson better than most any other fighter gets marketed. Everyone should take several pages out of their book. I must say, though, that a major part of their success was because they really had something to market.

Mike Tyson had a combination of hand speed and punching power, matched together with an aggressive style, unseen for 60 years in the heavyweight division. Not since Jack Dempsey had there been such a force to be reckoned with.

I often wonder what would have happened had Roy Jones Jr. been marketed in such a way. Jones didn't really become a story until he broke from his father, and HBO got wind of him.

[Boilermaker]

The Tyson marketing job is overated. Any figher who knocks out the champion in one round, unifies the division for the first time in years, KOs the peoples champ in one round, knocks out an all time great in Larry Holmes, puts together a string of one punch knockouts and/or totally dominates all his competition is going to be easy to market. From memory, they tried to market him as a nice respectable guy in the Joe Louis mould in those early days, but that pretty much backfired!

I think that whent it comes to marketing, Ali is close to without pier. Comeback George is another who was well marketed well. Jack Johnson, believe it or not, imo was one of if not the best marketed fighters ever. He drew on the race angle and it produced a ton of money for him, and even managed to get him the first ever black title fight. It was different in that he was marketed as a bad guy but it was still effective. John L sullivan also may be right up there. The thing though, with all of these guys is that they made the marketing with in ring performance.

If you want to look at fighters whose reputation/career was greatly enhanced by marketing, then i would think of someone like a Gerry Cooney is as good as anyone.

[GPater11093]

out of intrest is anyone here posting

caught up in the tyson marketing maybe as a kid and one of the reasons why you like boxing

im abit after tysons prime born 1993. but i would be intrested to know how many people were inspired by him

[sweetsci]

When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it would be asking for views on how to market a fighter, and I thought "What Cayton & Jacobs did with Tyson."

Tyson was well known by boxing fans before he even turned pro, and when he did turn pro he fought often and on TV. And, as was mentioned, Jacobs & Cayton sent videos to local news stations across the country (from what I've heard) after each fight. True, he was a special talent who backed up the marketing. Cayton tried to do the same thing with Jeremy Williams early on, but Williams' career didn't pan out as well.

Ray Leonard's team also did a spectacular job. He was on free tv almost once a month and featured enough in the mainstream media by early 1979 that my great aunt liked him, and she hated boxing.

[TBooze]

out of intrest is anyone here posting

caught up in the tyson marketing maybe as a kid and one of the reasons why you like boxing

im abit after tysons prime born 1993. but i would be intrested to know how many people were inspired by him

I was a kid (12ish), and the publicity did perk up my interest, but I remember the old man telling me it was pure hype and we would not know how good Tyson could be until he fought for a championship.

Now although Tyson did walk into the Berbick fight a fairly warm favourite (1-4), the fight was virtually pick-em all the way up to the final week, as Tyson just seemed too good to be true.

Also if you listen to the American commentary in the fight, although Tyson was winning comfortable, the hits Berbick did get in (in the first two minutes), got the commentary team going, as they suggested either man could go.....

[Primadonna Kool]

Nigel Benn........

[TBooze]

Nigel Benn........

Having a pony tail and screaming "I'm Bad", is not good marketing!;)

[GPater11093]

Having a pony tail and screaming "I'm Bad", is not good marketing!;)

he was marketed as a new undefeatable champpion akin to Tyson but Watson shattered that

[TBooze]

he was marketed as a new undefeatable champpion akin to Tyson but Watson shattered that

No, after Logan, he was marketed as a big puncher, who got tagged, hence was never in a bad fight. Logan showed he clearly was very beatable, but was fun to watch.

Tyson in the same period looked unbeatable, and even pre Watson, Benn was clearly along way behind the likes of Iron Mike.

But of course Benn had potential, and potential that developed into a truly world class fighter in the early mid 90s......

[PowerPuncher]

Other Marketing phenomenons (way beyond their boxing ability):

Hatton - was a British favourate before he ever took on a top 10 contender
Delahoya - we all know this 1
Hamed - brought the 7figure+++ sums to FW boxing, the explosiveness/excitiment, entrances, hype

[TIGEREDGE]

Other Marketing phenomenons (way beyond their boxing ability):

Hatton - was a British favourate before he ever took on a top 10 contender
Delahoya - we all know this 1
Hamed - brought the 7figure+++ sums to FW boxing, the explosiveness/excitiment, entrances, hype

naz was a great hype job. what about the work eubank did in making him public enemy number 1

barry mcguigan in uniting a divided nation was another master stroke

[Bigcat]

It is easy yes, to market any fighter who ko's the champ in 2 rounds, unifies in 4 fights, and ko's a peoples champ in 1 round but to have made him a house hold name in the years prior to him even being a contender was priceless.. He was an established A-lister even before boxing his final eliminator for Berbick.. because of the pr job done by Jacobs and Cayton....... You can have a great fighter and not market him well at all , look at Lennox's early career , the time between the OLympics and his fight with Mason , he was reletively (as many insiders put it at the time.) a cecil B d'emille in reverse, meaning taking a famous amateur star and turning him into a scarcely heard of underground British heavyweight no name... Marketing is an essential and Tysons men did it better than anyone at the time...

[TBooze]

It is easy yes, to market any fighter who ko's the champ in 2 rounds, unifies in 4 fights, and ko's a peoples champ in 1 round but to have made him a house hold name in the years prior to him even being a contender was priceless.. He was an established A-lister even before boxing his final eliminator for Berbick.. because of the pr job done by Jacobs and Cayton....... You can have a great fighter and not market him well at all , look at Lennox's early career , the time between the OLympics and his fight with Mason , he was reletively (as many insiders put it at the time.) a cecil B d'emille in reverse, meaning taking a famous amateur star and turning him into a scarcely heard of underground British heavyweight no name... Marketing is an essential and Tysons men did it better than anyone at the time...

Lennox Lewis in 1989 and 1990 was regularly fighting live on prime time Saturday night ITV, he was getting all the publicity an up and coming Olympic Heavyweight Champion should have.

[Bigcat]

Exactly ... But you just said it yourself.....

ITV... stateside he was not reletively known...

I remember the first proper show he appeared on and how surprised the Americans were that it took so long to unveil him to them....

ITV didn't have him, it was almost always Sky networks, Screensport and Barry hearns Matchroom promotions cards... that started Lewis's career off and it was a very low key affair for such a high note heavyweight.....

It was Maloney himself who was critisised for the way it was handled , ala the remark made at the time in a news article, QUOTE ( A cecil B D'emille in reverse...)

Meaning How a high profile International Heavyweight amateur star could end up a professional heavyweight cellar boxer .. on a lot of gloomy small hall shows....

I am not against that btw.. in fact it teaches character, but from a marketting point of view it didn't compair to the way Tyson was thrown into the public eye.....