Molitor signs with (yet) another manager...yawn

The lede can almost write itself:

IBF 122-pound champion Steve (The Canadian Kid) Molitor has signed a contract with (insert manager/promoter) -- namely, American Cameron Dunkin, who now has 60 days to find Molitor a promoter.

If you feel like you've heard that story before, it's because you have.

You heard it in June 2008, when New Jersey-based promoter Murad Muhammad lured Molitor away from Orion Sports Management with a promises of a fat contract even though Muhammad owed money to just about everybody in boxing. That deal collapsed quickly and by August Molitor was back at Casino Rama, fighting under Orion's banner.

You heard the story again this past July, when Molitor signed a managerial contract with Toronto-based Misho Jovicevic.

Who?

Exactly. 

It never was clear how Jovicevic would advance Molitor's career, given that he had only one other client (Canadian heavyweight champ Neven Pajkic) and given Molitor had a world title and an experienced promoter and no need for a manager to find fights for him.

And we may never find out now that Molitor has hired yet another manager.

Nevertheless Molitor's promoter, Allan Tremblay, insists that the star of his stable isn't jumping ship, and that Orion is on-side with Dunkin's plan to find Molitor a promoter in the U.S.

Why?

Molitor-Ndlovu III, that's why.

In July 2007 Molitor scored an emphatic ninth-round knockout over South Africa's Takalani Ndlovu at Rama, defending his IBF title for the first time and kicking off a run of 10 straight bouts at Casino Rama.

In March Molitor met Ndlovu again and decisioned him over 12 rounds to reclaim the vacant IBF crown.

After those two wins -- the first dramatic and the second exponentially less so -- few people have much interest in one more Molitor-Ndlovu showdown.

Not the boxing public, who would rather see Molitor tackle new challenges.

Not Casino Rama, who will host their second-straight Molitor-free card Oct. 30.

And not Tremblay, who wants to arrange at least one more big payday for the 30-year-old Molitor. The idea of another Ndlovu bout doesn't excite him.

"It's an exceptionally difficult promotional sell," Tremblay said. "I can't put that fight on here for a third time. It's not the Vazquez-Marquez trilogy."

But Ndlovu won't go away. In September he won yet another IBF title eliminator, putting him in line for yet another shot at Molitor's title. As much as Molitor and his team would rather move on, he has to face Ndlovu first or or be stripped of his IBF title.

And where does Dunkin fit in?

Because this fight is virtually unsellable in Canada, Molitor's team has two options:

FIght in Ndlovu's hometown or hope a U.S. promoter wants to stage the fight.

And because Molitor has little interest in fighting in South Africa, the U.S. option rockets to the top of his management team's list, and Dunkin's job is to locate a promoter who wants to stage Molitor-Ndlovu III.

Tough sell.

The promoter wouldn't just have to pay the fighters -- Molitor pocketed roughly $100,000 for his title defenses at Rama -- but they would have to pay Tremblay for the right to promote a Molitor fight. That's a lot of cash to drop on a bout between boxers who are virtually anonymous to U.S. viewers. And the fight doesn't figure to provide much action, further damaging either fighter's chance to win new fans and diminishing any promoter's desire to bankroll the fight.

Dunkin's job, essentially, is to sell this fight to a skeptical promoter who must in turn sell it to an indifferent boxing public.

Good luck.

 

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Comments

[Mike N]

Molitor is a solid but not elite level fighter. Now...if he was to get into the ring again with Caballero, I'd be interested in seeing that one happen.