Boxing promoter Dino Duva sat inside Workers Indoor Arena during last summer’s Beijing Olympics and watched the Chinese team win two gold medals, a silver and a bronze in a surprising show of strength.
Like so many other sports that have gained traction in the world’s most populous country, from the NBA to golf, Duva reasoned that boxing might be on the precipice of becoming a major attraction. All that seemed to be missing was some expert training and the business acumen to market fighters to a rapidly expanding audience.
Duva and businessman Richard Davimos plan to fill that role.
Their partnership, called D&D Global, has reached a unique agreement with the Chinese Boxing Federation to train and market amateur fighters, with the idea to commercialize the sport in a country where professional boxing was once banned.
“In China, there’s always a lot of bureaucratic red tape,” Duva said. “What took a while is to basically convince the boxing federation we were the people to do it with. It’s very, very rare for any government entity to make a deal with a foreigner.”
The centerpiece of Duva’s efforts is Olympic silver medalist Zhang Zhilei, a super heavyweight in a continent that has produced mostly featherweights and bantamweights so far. Zhang has already spent nearly three weeks in Pennsylvania working with Lou Duva and several other trainers. The rest of the Chinese national team plans to tour the U.S. in November, after competing at the world championships Sept. 1-12 in Milan.
Zhang Zhilei stands 1.97 meters (6’ 5 1/2”) and fights in the over 91kg (200 lbs) class. His unusual size and talent made the 26-year-old a darling of Asian boxing fans when he won silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics which just happened to be the 100th and last medal for China.
“This is the chance to develop them right to the pros,” said Duva, the son of Hall of Famer Lou Duva, whose family has promoted champions from Pernell Whitaker to Evander Holyfield. “We’re the first company to do a broad, comprehensive deal with the Chinese.”
Longtime trainer Al Mitchell said their talent level is still far below traditional powers like the U.S., Cuba and Russia. But the country’s enormous population and the many schools dedicated to specific sports could allow the Chinese team to quickly close the skill gap.
“The USA, 20 years ago, had the same kind of pool,” Mitchell said, “but people are playing baseball, football, basketball. They choose other sports where they can make guaranteed money.”
By the 2012 London Olympics, Duva predicted, “The Chinese team will be poised to be as good as any team in the world.”
Beyond simply training fighters, D&D Global has exclusive rights to market them through sponsorship agreements with a range of companies. Adidas is already on board, Davimos said, and within the next three months he hopes to have several more contracts in place.
“We’re in the process of working on TV deals in China and globally,” Davimos said. “The thing that’s interesting for me is the money is there to commercialize, even while they’re amateurs. We’re talking to sponsors that would never go near boxing in the U.S.”
The plan represents a major departure for Duva, who’s been involved in professional boxing his entire life. He said the sport has changed dramatically in the past dozen years, snake bit by fewer TV dates, a poor U.S. amateur program and waning public interest. Only promotional giants like Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions have been able to prosper.
Duva plans to scale back his own promotional business, Duva Boxing, while he dedicates his energy to D&D Global. He’s already made seven trips to China in the past nine months, laying groundwork for the nascent training program.
“The fact is, whether we like it or not, USA Boxing, especially their performance in the Olympics, has gone downhill,” Duva said. “It’s not only because the talent level has gone down. With the global market these days, promoters have to adjust. There are markets out there where you can make more money than you can in the United States.”
Davimos said that boxing is the first of what he hopes to be agreements with a several Chinese sports federations. And much like Dino Duva and his father Lou have a background in boxing, Davimos plans to bring in experts to consult on other sports, such as former British Open champion Tom Lehman in golf.
There is already some fringe competition. The NBA markets heavily in China, spurred by the success and popularity of Yao Ming. The basketball league, through a joint venture with Anschutz Entertainment Group, hopes to develop about a dozen arenas in China, and mega sports management company IMG also has a strong presence in Asia.
Still, none of them have been able to sign an exclusive agreement to train and market teams through the State General Administration for Sports, the government agency responsible for sports in the rapidly growing country.
“Boxing is the first deal, and I think just naturally, there’s no doubt in my mind we’ll get in other sports as time goes by,” Duva said. “Yeah, to some extent they’ll look closely and see how it goes, and that determines if or when we get involved with other sports.”
