Golden Boy Promotions begins it's 2023 schedule with a card that takes place at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California on January 28 that features a welterweight scrap between Alexis Rocha and Anthony Young.
Coming into the year, there are those who have been giving the company it's last rites and forecasting it's ultimate demise.
But according to their founder, Oscar De La Hoya. "The future of Golden Boy Promotions is to continue to put on the best fights that we possibly can, continue to build champions, continue to build our product. we are the best at what we do, we do have the best prospects, we have great champions. We have fighters like Vergil Ortiz, and Ryan Garcia, I'm obviously excited about Alexis Rocha."
Cris Esqueda/GBP
'the Golden Boy' remains bullish on his company.
"The future for Golden Boy it's always bright, it's always well," said a chipper De La Hoya on Tuesday afternoon at the YouTube Theater, where a press conference was held to promote his upcoming card. "We always have to keep climbing that mountain until we get to the top. We've been there, we've done that. It's just a matter of staying consistent."
Perhaps the rumors of GBP have been greatly exaggerated, but De La Hoya admits that he does hear the dire forecasts. To him, it serves as a bit of motivation. This comes with the territory.
"I hear it every day, but that's the beauty of owning a company that's so big and popular, and that is the best," he stated. "You have to always listen to the naysayers you always have to listen to the critics. You always have to grow and continue to do what you're doing.
"When you're on top of the game, you're the best, people are always going to try and bring you down. That's the unfortunate part of it."
But while it may be premature to pen the obituary for GBP, they haven't been quite the same company since the departure of Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (who they developed into the biggest pay-per-view star in the sport), and they just currently trimmed their staff. Its clear that this is a company in a bit of a transition.
GBP
At the moment, they still do not have a long-term deal with a network, although they have been working consistently with DAZN (which will be streaming this upcoming card next week). But it does look like they are getting very close to finalizing the highly anticipated showdown between Garcia and Gervonta 'Tank' Davis, and Ortiz will be facing Eimantas Stanionis in the spring in what is a pivotal welterweight bout.
There are times when Oscar doesn't seem as committed to this job as say a, Bob Arum or Eddie Hearn. Yet when he's fully focused, De La Hoya still has an ability to draw attention like no one else. Case in point, the recent focus on his newly 'etched' abs.
He swears he still has the same passion for boxing and his business.
"Oh absolutely, even more so," claimed De La Hoya. "I strongly feel that with our stable, what we're building, the ideas that we have, what we're going to execute on for the future -- the skies the limit. We have some interesting projects coming up that we are very exciting for Golden Boy Promotions."
KINGRY-TANK?
On Sunday, De La Hoya tweeted that he was putting a Monday deadline for PBC to send over a contract for this bout.
Perhaps he forgot that Monday was a federal holiday, but it looks like a major step was taken in finalizing that bout as a contract was sent over on Tuesday, as Garcia went over to the Golden Boy offices.
FINAL FLURRIES
There is a ShoBox card on this Friday from Bethlehem, PA that has a main event featuring super middleweights David Stevens and Sean Hemphill.....DAZN has live coverage of the clash between Chris Eubank Jr and Liam Smith on Saturday, which is a solid pairing....Mike Coppinger of ESPN is reporting that Edgar Berlanga and Top Rank have mutually agreed to part ways. I think you can label this 'diminishing returns' and 'addition by subtraction'.....Really enjoyed 'the Last Blockbuster' on Netflix.....I can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com....
