Boise to host light heavyweight title fight
BOISE, Idaho – Sports promoters in Boise are looking to take on the West’s boxing heavyweight, Las Vegas, to get a share of lucrative professional title bouts between big-name fighters.
“That is a vision and something we’ve talked about the last couple years,” said Debbie Kling, general manager of Qwest Arena in Boise. “It’s a direction we want to go.”
A first step is Saturday’s title fight at the 6,400-seat arena, where Roy Jones Jr. will end a 10-month layoff and try to take “Prince” Badi Ajamu’s North American Boxing Organization light heavyweight title. The fight is scheduled for 12 rounds and will be shown live in about 40 countries on pay-per-view outlets.
“It’s pretty hard to rival Nevada,” said Ritch Danner, vice president and director of Sports and Entertainment Media Inc., the company promoting the Jones-Ajamu fight. “But it (Boise) could on a show-by-show basis. We’re kind of blazing a trail here and introducing a concept that probably hasn’t been in Boise before that will allow for worldwide exposure.”
The 37-year-old Jones, with a 49-4 record, is a former middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight champion. Before losing his last three fights, he carried the unofficial title of best pound-for-pound boxer in the world and was one of the top draws in boxing.
Ajamu, 34, is 25-2-1, but none of his fights has been against a fighter of Jones’ stature. In the light heavyweight division, however, he is ranked ahead of Jones by most of the top boxing organizations.
Whether boxing will return to Boise after the fight depends on ticket sales, Danner said. To help fill Qwest Arena on Saturday, 38-year-old local fighter Kenny Keene, 51-3, is on the card. Keene rarely fights outside the state and has lost only once in it.
About 2,000 tickets had been sold early this week, with ticket prices ranging from $50 to $350. The pay-per-view price is $25, and those sales won’t be known until the night of the fights.
Danner’s expenses include paying the boxers. Jones is getting $500,000 plus part of the pay-per-view sales, Danner said, while Ajamu is getting a flat fee of $100,000. Keene is being paid the third most – $50,000 – among the eight fighters in the four bouts on Saturday’s card.
Kling said Danner is not being charged for the privately owned arena, which will make money from concession sales and will receive publicity from coverage of the fights. Kling declined to say how much it costs to rent the arena for a day.
“If you want the promoter to come back, you have to make it work for them,” said Kling. “In this case, we struck a deal that was a win-win for both of us.”