Eye of the Tiger Management expected to receive a formal directive from the World Boxing Council (WBC) in the coming days for Jaime Munguia to face Christian Mbilli for the interim super middleweight title. The Mexican’s surprise defeat against Marseillais Bruno Surace on Saturday in Tijuana changed everything.
“I’m expecting a call from the WBC shortly to see what direction this will all take, but Munguia’s defeat leaves us in the unknown,” said Camille Estephan, president of EOTTM, joined by The Canadian Press on Monday. I would be very surprised if Surace replaces Munguia. I don’t see how a guy who wasn’t ranked would replace the guy who came second.”
While he was behind on all the scorecards after five rounds, the French Surace (26-0-2, 5 KOs) surprised Munguia (44-2, 35 KOs) ‘a resounding right to the temple. Munguia was unable to beat the referee’s count and the fight was stopped at 2:36 of the sixth round.
Mbilli (28-0, 23 KOs) is the No. 1 contender in the WBC, whose belt is held by Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Perhaps the Mbilli clan will have to turn to other options in the short term. Estephan spoke of potential plans from the International Boxing Federation (IBF), where Mbilli is the third contender for the title held by William Scull. The position of No. 1 contender is vacant. Estephan sees possibilities there, but he prefers not to move forward for the moment.
“Boxing is so unpredictable, whether for the boxers or the promoters,” noted Estephan. A punch on Saturday evening changed everything for the next few months.”
St-Denis, new player
When EOTTM revealed last week that Erik Bazinyan and Steven Butler were going to face each other in March in one of the best local boxing duels in many years, it was a nice surprise. After all, seeing two boxers from the same team fight each other is rare in Quebec.
But there was a second surprise in this press release, that of the room where the gala will take place — the St-Denis theater.
The hall with around 2,000 seats is not known for hosting sporting events. However, this could change in the coming years.
“It’s a beautiful room, which allows larger-scale events than at the Cabaret du Casino, where we can only sell 500 or 600 tickets,” explained Estephan. Jacques Aubé (former No. 1 at evenko) is now the boss there. He’s a guy who loves sports, boxing, and has a lot of experience.
“Medium-sized rooms are not easy to find in Montreal. There is Place Bell or the Bell Center in a small configuration. We could have done Bazinyan-Butler at the Bell Centre, but I find it difficult to create an atmosphere in an arena with 20,000 seats when you occupy 3,000. (…) I prefer the offer to be smaller than demand.”
Focus
Estephan also took the opportunity to provide an update on recent statements by Yvon Michel, president of Groupe Yvon Michel, regarding the way EOTTM financed its events at the Casino.
Last December 4, Michel deplored that his group was compared to EOTTM, believing that he was not fighting on equal terms with Estephan’s group.
“We are in a market where we have a well-heeled promoter who agrees to finance events at the Casino and we are compared to him. (…) We can produce Céline Dion at the Casino or Éric Lapointe. But both will only have 600 tickets to sell, there are no more. I couldn’t have done Adonis Stevenson against Chad Dawson (at the Casino),” he said.
“I find that a little reductive and it’s not at all to send an arrow at Yvon Michel,” argued Estephan. I find it a shame for the entire team who works hard to ensure that the company achieves the success it has.
“It’s obvious that we don’t work in the same way. For our part, we believe that not all galas have to be profitable. A card like that of Mbilli against Carlos Gongora is not profitable from a ticket sales point of view, but we have several other mechanisms that allow us to make all of our galas profitable in the long term. he added.
One of these means is the streaming platform ‘PunchingGrace.com’, which brings recurring revenue to the group. Another is to produce all of the EOTTM galas for television.
“We produce our events for ‘PunchingGrace’, but also for ESPN, which has purchased our last 15 galas. We also produce for TVA Sports, in addition to selling the rights to ESPN Latino, in Poland, Germany, France and a dozen countries in total, excluding South America.
“We have a major sponsor in Videotron, in addition to several other partners. We meet around 50 companies per month to sell them subscriptions for our galas, because we don’t just sell one gala at a time,” explained the big boss of EOTTM.
Estephan also noted that he acts as a promoter with Top Rank on important events, notably the last two galas in Quebec, the finals of which were provided by Artur Beterbiev and Mbilli. Finally, he underlined that the financial contribution of placing boxers on huge international cards, such as Arslanbek Makhmudov and Simon Kean in Saudi Arabia, Butler in Japan or the United States in world championships, or even Bazinyan against Munguia in Arizona, brings in a lot of money for EOTTM.
“It’s not just me putting my hand in my pocket to finance our ‘business’. Moreover, with the business plan that we have, my financial involvement in the operation of Eye of the Tiger is greatly reduced,” he concluded.
