Historic
Fort Wayne, June 20 In response to a story penned by Lindy Lindell and published here last week about the June 20th pro boxing show at Detroit's historic Fort Wayne, co-promoter Gino Cicarella of Heavy Hitter Promotions took issue. His remarks are published here, in their entirety. In
a town where boxing has all but disappeared or "cancelled"
the night before the show, the general consensus of the media in
this town specifically Lindy Lindell appears to be unmoved by the
recent efforts of Heavy Hitter Promotions / Clip Boxing to keep
this sport alive. What he fails to realize is that there is a serious
struggle for balance between maintaining profitability, putting
on competitive fights and ultimately delivering it to the public
at an affordable cost. At the "club show" level, this
balance from my experience (5 shows in 7 months) is next to impossible
to achieve. This is why we haven’t had a consistent schedule
of PRO boxing in or around Detroit in a number of years. I have
personally attended shows in this area for over ten years. I've
been to them all. What I would like to ask of Lindy is this: Who
are you comparing the level of our show to? No one obviously. What
we do is not easy. That is why no one is doing it. I would like
to offer Lindy to put up half the money to do a show with me and
keep ALL the profits. I would also like to comment on cage fighters
being on my card. They are sometime fighters who train as boxers
and cage fighters. In case no one noticed this is now a very common
thing for fighters to flip from sport to sport especially in states
where cage fighting is amateur and they can’t get paid. Derek
Spicer from Rumble Time Promotions in St Louis can attest to this.
It’s a sign of the times. We have been able to draw a bigger
and more diverse crowd than any of our competitors consistently.
In case Lindy Lindell hasn’t been paying attention all the
years of covering boxing, club shows are always "good guy vs.
bad guy." That’s how its always been done. And not to
mention Lindy Lindell is probably the only one who can’t seem
to enjoy themselves at a Heavy Hitter show. Next time he can buy
a ticket and help raise the quality of fights.
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