For all intents and purposes, Al Haymon is a polarizing figure in the sport of boxing. You either love him or hate him. Those that love him do so because they feel he is bringing more boxing to the forefront with his numerous fight cards on various platforms while taking care of his fighters better than many other managers or advisors. Those that hate him feel he diluting the sport by putting on sub-par match up and in a sense creating a separate universe where we can’t see the best fights since it is very difficult to have an Al Haymon fighter face one represented by another promotional company that is not aligned with the Premier Boxing Champions league.
Even though Haymon has been involved in the sport for years, his name did not start popping up in the media on a regular basis until some years ago when he began nearly in a sense to monopolize a number of dates on the biggest platform of the sport, HBO. Many began to ask themselves why this tall, lanky reclusive advisor, who was neither a manager nor promoter of fighters, had so much power within the industry. Once he hooked up with former Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer and Showtime, Haymon’s grip over certain aspects of the sport only got tighter.
When Oscar De La Hoya, founder of Golden Boy, came out of his drugged-induced haze and was able to see that Schaeffer was perhaps not making the best decisions for his company, he decided to get rid of Schaeffer and in a sense Haymon along with his huge stable of fighters. Fighters who were performing under the Golden Boy banner without an actual contract with the company and taking advantage of the TV dates the company had secured to promote their contracted fighters.
That is when the Premier Boxing Champions series was born.
