Author Tony Shultz on Fight Promoting, UFC, Boxing

Fred Richani of TSC News. I’m joined today by a combat sports, expert. He is the Author available now in kindle amazon.com the official fighter promoter playbook. He is Tony Shultz, how are you doing sir. I’m good. Thanks, how are you Fred doing quite well. Now, mixed martial arts boxing on the surface it seems somewhat easy to promote a fight if you have the right resources. Although time and time again for every one or two guys that do it quite well, you see a number of others that. Well, they flop what made you decide to not only tweet things out not only Facebook things, not only write about it on the internet, but actually come out with a book that guys could use as their go to God to promote fights main reason and a lot of Fighters, I know weren’t getting quality fights and the fights that they were getting the promoters just weren’t putting on good events.

So, I did it initially just as a way to fully understand the behind the scenes, the business quote-unquote of boxing and from there. I just realized that there’s just so much information that’s not available to anybody. It’s really a who you know, and kind of get lucky type of business. So I wanted to put a definitive guide together a blueprint if you would of how to actually put together a combat sport of it. Not only from a fighter’s perspective. So that they can get quality fights, but also from a promoters perspective because there’s a lot of things that especially local regional guys are doing that they’re missing a lot of not only profit centers, but they’re not putting on quality events to, you know, to get press involved.

They’re not putting on quality events to where sanctioning bodies are happy with their personnelles treatment. So I wanted to put it all together, and one easy to follow playbook if you would very cool. Very cool. Now, how long was the process as far as writing each book? Well, the fish to fight promoter, playbook took two and a half years there was a lot of contracts there were a lot of checklists forms getting in contact with different governing councils finding out different medical procedures things of that nature. So that one took the longest as far as the other four books. That was probably about a six-month process that had a lot more to do with strategies marketing branding you basically overall overall arc of growth, you know depending on where you wanted to be on the food chain as far as a fight promoter and how did you get involved in combat sports.

I understand you started getting into boxing at a very early age. I did I’m from ohio. And so boxing and football basically the two primary sports least. They were when I was growing up. So my grandfather was a boxer. He was still doing road work at 80 years old. My father box my uncle’s box that it was sort of a family tradition. I was actually talking to CJ ross who’s at nevada boxing judge about that. And we were discussing how boxing just is kind of in everybody’s blood in ohio. So I started at eight years old in dayton kind of moved up through the ranks was actually a sparring partner and good friend to a two-time national go Gloves champion.

And then, you know, Dayton got a little too small. So I had to start branching out and you know, worked out of crunch gym for a while and exploit Gleason’s in Brooklyn then wild-card in Los Angeles and just kept trying to find that elusive pot of gold under the rainbow if you would and with boxing and mixed martial arts right now, particularly mixed martial arts. I mean, you still see on pay-per-view they quite a bit money with the right fights if promoted correctly, but I feel like there’s also so many fights out there these days now. I’d imagine somebody could read your book and learn a lot.

And if it apply it correctly can be very successful, but do you think that mixed martial arts in particular and even boxing to an extent need to pull back as far as the number of events based on oversaturation lower ratings and lower live gates, I wouldn’t say they need to pull back. I think that a as far as MMA goes, UFC has done a brilliant job as Brandon UFC as MMA. And so when you think of MMA fights you automatically tune into UFC is in regard to the UFC their deal where they move from Spike to Fox Sports 1. I think hurt him a lot because you had a certain clientele that, you know, knew when you want just watch the MMA.

You were tuned in to spike you got to see the ultimate fighter reality series, you got to, you know, there wasn’t any thinking involved, you know, exactly where it was now with her move to Fox Sports 1, you know, if you’re not really paying attention to, you know, the changing environment you’re not going to be able to see it as far as on the lower end though as you know, local and regional fights. I don’t think they need to pull back. I mean, there’s tons of fighters in gyms all around the country who need fights, but working with local press regional press building a brand name getting the community involved, building a good mailing list building.

You know, a text list. The people letting people know when fights are happening in the community, getting some your fighters who have good reputation, but not just using those fighters to sell tickets to their friends and their current fan base. But adding your own community fan base to it, whether it’s local city regional. I think that there just needs to be more effort put behind press marketing and branding than just getting some fighters who have a local fan base. And then having them sell tickets for you. And do you think in regards with the UFC they do a great job as far as their shows go.

But the one complained a lot of people have is that a lot of them feel like they’re the same way there’s nothing that separates them for example. If they ran in Mexico City you wouldn’t exactly see shots of downtown Mexico City there wouldn’t be any kind of special entrance if they’re in Canada the Octagon the set everything looks exactly. The same as it would if they were running and New Jersey. Do you think they kind of got to maybe take even more of a debut we approach and maybe diversify these events a little bit more make them feel a little bit more significant at least for the casual fan.

So maybe don’t follow sports closely. Oh, yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, everything has to evolve everything has to have a certain flair to it a theme rumble in the jungle through Manila, you know, the one, you know, every every event needs a storyline, you know, Brady vs manning if you would from the NFL. So, yeah, absolutely. There has to be time effort thought and energy put into a promotion. It’s not just about two fighters, but it’s about the backstories like you were just talking about and what’s I’m sure you go over this in your book, but what is the worst mistake you’ve ever seen a promoter make or well, at least one that just glaringly comes to mind right now treating the press without any respect.

Not having press passes. Not having a press seating, you know, when the press shows up not even having them on the list to get in to talk about the fight worst mistake I’ve ever seen made but I’ve seen it done time and time again where promoters don’t court the press don’t invite the press to come talk about the fighters, they just depend strictly on, you know, word of mouth that they’re holding the fighted like a local holiday inn or something of that effect I’ve seen so many promotions die because they didn’t respect the press. Hey, well said. Luckily, I’m not run into that myself, but I have heard stories about that as well.

And yeah, you wouldn’t believe it in 2013 2014 there’s still guys that don’t understand the benefit of press. And if people write about you and tweet about you? That’s a novella buzz, but hey, well, they can read the official fight promoter, play book on amazon.com and on Kindle. Before we let you go Tony we really do appreciate the time. Where can fans find you online? They can find me on twitter at twitter.com slash fight town. They can find me on facebook facebook.com slash fight town and instagram instagram.com / fight town. And then they can always email me Tony at fight town net. Excellent. Tony, thank you so much for your time.

Appreciate it. That thing’s Fred really appreciate your time to.