Say whatever you like about the man and his capabilities, but he has promoted MMA and boxing at the highest level. So what does he think about this new partnership? Not much, incidentally:
The news of Affliction Fighting's new partnership with Golden Boy Promotions wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire around the boxing folks at the MGM Grand this weekend. They were in attendance for the Joel Casamayor-Juan Manuel Marquez fight. Affliction and Golden Boy are fooling themselves if they think ANY of the boxing media on hand was happy to learn that they may have to watch future cards featuring both boxing and mixed martial arts fights. There's simply no experience amongst the 'young' fellas in the boxing media with MMA and they view it as competition akin to taking bread off of their plates. And if you've seen much of the boxing media, you know not to mess with their plates.
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Shaw (pictured w/Kimbo Slice) described the MMA fans as a sort of cult who won't be open to the pacing of boxing. He also said there is no market in boxing for apparel. The apparel market in MMA has exploded because the fans live the sport's "lifestyle." Shaw thinks that boxing doesn't have fans that follow the sport with such loyalty to buy t-shirts and gear that runs $40+.
Even if Shaw has been poorly promoting both sports recently, one has to think through that error he's likely learned what makes both communities tick. He seems keen on the idea that the two sports are not just adversarial towards one another, but they fundamentally they mean different things to their respective fan bases. The question is whether any event can bridge that divide. We shall see.
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