Although Golden Boy Promotions CEO RICHARD SCHAEFER is a Switzerland native, Cinco de Mayo is one of his favorite holidays -- no doubt helped by the fact that his wife hails from Mexico. But it also is one of his busiest days of the year, as the company views it as the “Super Bowl of Boxing.” After a long career in finance, Schaefer joined Golden Boy in '00. He now makes at least 10 trips annually from his L.A. home to Las Vegas, leading Schaefer to call Sin City his “home away from home.” He will be there once again for Saturday night's highly-anticipated FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR.-ROBERT GUERRERO fight slated for the MGM Grand.
STRIP-TASTIC: Friday being the day before the big fight, it’s extremely hectic. It starts in the morning with a meeting with Showtime executives to discuss our full schedule of fights and lock in dates. From there, we are going to the traditional weigh in at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. We expect about 10,000 people just to be at the weigh in and it’s always a very festive environment. We somewhat make a show out of it. There’s music. Mariachis will play. From there, I’m going to have meetings right after. We are discussing locking in our big fight for the AT&T Center in San Antonio for July 27. From there -- not much time -- I’m going to have to rush over to the Cosmopolitan Hotel where at 6:30 we will have a Fox Sports boxing event. So I’ll be sitting ringside there, then rushing back to the MGM because by now my family will be arriving.
FIRESIDE CHAT: My wife and my three boys will arrive and I’ll be able to shut off my phone and have a nice dinner Friday night and relax a bit. They like Shibuya, which is a Japanese restaurant. They have two sections where they have the sushi section then they have the teppanyaki section where they cook in front of you. We like the teppanyaki section where we can all sit there, we can talk, I can tell them how crazy of a week it has been and they can tell me how school was. We haven’t seen each other for a week or so and it’s always a nice time to catch up on everything.
CIGAR AFICIONADO: One of my ways to relax is I love to smoke cigars. Whenever I can, I try to sneak in a little cigar. So staying at the MGM Garden, they provide me with a room which actually has an outdoor balcony. So I can go outside from my room and I can sit there and just smoke a cigar. No question about it, after dinner I'm going to be right there on the balcony smoking my cigar and maybe have a glass of champagne with my wife.
BUSY DAY: Saturday morning we will have a press conference for a lot of our upcoming fights. Before that, I’m going to have a quick breakfast in the room and read the Saturday papers. I get N.Y. papers, I get Texas, Vegas, the L.A. paper, USA Today and I’m always looking at the kind of exposure the fight gets. I’ll read up on the papers, have my coffee and host the press conference at 11:30am. That will probably be over around 1:00pm. Then I’ll have something to eat, usually down at the MGM at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant. It’s going to be a long day and I won’t be able to have something to eat again until probably 1:00am or so. Then I go and smoke my pre-fight cigar.
MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO: I always wear my lucky cuff links. Most of the time they work, but not always. When OSCAR DE LA HOYA fought FERNANDO VARGAS -- that was his big rival -- my wife gave me these cuff links, which look like a monkey. I like to wear animal cuff links. She gave me those cuff links for good luck. Oscar knocked out Vargas out and ever since, they’ve been my lucky cuff links. They’re like a little monkey head, silver -- really cute.
AWAY FROM SIN (CITY): Sunday I really like to get back home as soon as possible, because now I’ve been in Las Vegas for a week. So usually we have an early wake-up call. Usually me, my wife and my boys leave Las Vegas early morning so that we arrive back in L.A. somewhere around 10:00am or 11:00am. We go home and then have a relaxing weekend in my home and just unwind because I know on Monday, I’ll be back in the office and work starts all over again!
