Boxing promoter LOU DIBELLA has been gearing up for his Premier Boxing Champions event at Barclays Center on Saturday night, one of many things the industry veteran has currently going on. With the event this weekend, the “big thing you’re trying to do the last week or two is really gearing up to try and sell tickets, promoting the event.” He is also currently the Managing Partner of the Double-A Eastern League Richmond Flying Squirrels and is “in the process to do a deal to acquire another team.” DiBella: “I try to do other stuff so you’re not immersed in boxing because you go a little crazy if you were. It’s an emotional sport. I have a love/hate with it.” This is a “crazy week” for him as several of his other fighters under contract have bouts. He said he will drive himself to the fight to have some downtime to listen to music -- oftentimes a GRATEFUL DEAD concert -- to relax and ready himself for a frenzied evening at the venue.
FIGHT NIGHT: On Saturday night at Barclays I’ll probably hobnob more with the Showtime people initially. My staff has an office in the back where the dressing rooms are for the fighters, so my administrative staff will be there doing what they have to do. I generally walk around the back and say hi to the fighters, wish them luck, do all that kind of stuff. The day of the fight usually I’m sort of chilling out because the week’s been crazy so it won’t be an early Saturday morning because it will be a late night Saturday night. By the time the fights are done and the post-fight press conferences and then you leave the arena, there’s a little place across from the Barclays Center called Broccolino that we use if we’re not in the building itself and use that as our headquarters for fight week. We’ll sit there with espressos and work and eat and do what we’ve got to do when we’re not in the building.
WORK THE ROOM: Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment CEO BRETT YORMARK has a chairman’s room that I’ll usually stop in a few times during the course of the night, but I’ll watch the majority of the fights. When it gets on in terms of televised fights, I’m sitting in my seat like everybody else. I want the seats filled for TV purposes. I don’t want the great seats being empty. You’re available in case there’s a business issue that has to be attended to but for the most part at that point you’ve done what you can do.
DOWN TIME: I attempt to find pockets to get away from the boxing for a couple of hours. Generally I’ll go out to suburbia the night before the fight just to chill out because I know the next night is going to be 3:00, 4:00 in the morning and after the fight, by the time you leave the building it’s hours after the show has really ended and then your adrenaline is rushing. When I do have an off-weekend, it’s a huge problem to turn off the phone and totally relax. It can be a burden on the people you care about. But if you don’t learn how to do it you’re going to have a miserable personal life. Spending time on my boat is where I will turn the phone off for an hour or two to be surrounded by the Long Island Sound and zip around with a couple of buddies and relax.
