Why Olympic medalist Omari Jones’ path to becoming ‘America’s next boxing superstar’ will be so difficult
LAS VEGAS — Eddie Hearn’s question was more loaded than he realized.
It seemed harmless in the moment, strictly for promotional purposes. Omari Jones answered Hearn’s inquiry on the afternoon of Jan. 24 the only way a confident, talented boxer should have replied.
“I definitely feel I can be America’s next boxing superstar,” Jones said during a press conference at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. “It’s something that I’ve grinded for and worked for my whole life.”
It will take much more, of course, than Jones’ commendable work ethic and Hearn’s heralded promotional chops to transform Jones into a superstar. Hearn more than understands that, the Brit’s bluster notwithstanding. Jones, still only 22, will learn the harsh realities of this complicated boxing business soon enough.
Matchmakers, managers, promoters and reporters all appear to agree that this 2024 Olympic bronze medalist has the ability, determination, intelligence, pedigree and team to reach boxing’s elite level. Most of them realize, however, that building an American boxing star takes much more than an Olympic medal.
Without assistance from network television conduits ABC, CBS, FOX and/or NBC, ESPN or premium cable partners HBO and Showtime, it’ll be difficult to build the next Errol Spence Jr. or Shakur Stevenson, let alone another “Sugar” Ray Leonard or Oscar De La Hoya.
“The Olympics certainly don’t matter as much in North America as much as they used to,” promoter Lou DiBella told Uncrowned. “I think in Great Britain, where there’s a thriving boxing industry, or in some other countries on other continents where boxing remains somewhat strong and where they don’t have good overall Olympic teams, but where boxing can bring home a medal, that kind of medalist in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan or Georgia or Chechnya, that guy means a lot to that country. That’s not the case here.”
Olympic boxing medals don’t resonate as much in the U.S. anymore in part because boxing has been marginalized as a niche sport in the land where the most money is available from multibillion-dollar media conglomerates. DAZN, the deep-pocketed platform that will stream Jones’ pro debut Saturday night from his hometown of Orlando, Florida, is still working to penetrate the American market enough to reach requisite mainstream sports fans who must become aware of Jones — and other boxers after him — for those athletes to truly burst out of boxing’s bubble.
Hearn nevertheless has taken the appropriate path from the very beginning of Jones’ career. Matchroom Boxing brought Jones to the outskirts of his hometown, where he will battle Italy’s Alessio Mastronunzio (14-5, 4 KOs) in a six-rounder on the Austin “Ammo” Williams-Patrice Volny undercard at Caribe Royale Orlando (6:30 p.m. ET).
Amaury Piedra, an Orlando-area promoter who runs the Caribe Royale resort, is committed to helping Hearn build Jones into an attraction there as Jones’ ascension in the junior middleweight division begins.
Jones — who is trained by Jason Galarza and his father, Carl Jones — informed Uncrowned that he chose Matchroom in part because Hearn assured him that he'd be very active. A disciplined, rangy boxer-puncher whose jab is among his best weapons, Jones also appreciates how Hearn has helped IBF welterweight champ Jaron “Boots” Ennis become a legitimate ticket-seller in Ennis’ hometown of Philadelphia and Atlantic City, where Ennis will box WBA champ Eimantas Stanionis in a 147-pound title unification fight April 12 at Boardwalk Hall.
“Orlando, Florida is somewhere that’s not always been a hotbed for talent,” said Hearn, whose company helped make 2012 Olympic gold medalist Anthony Joshua a superstar and two-time heavyweight champion in their home country of England. “You go back to [Antonio] Tarver and those kind of guys. But with our relationship with Caribe Royale, I think this young man has the ability to be America’s next boxing superstar. In the Olympics, he won bronze. We believe he should’ve gone on to win gold.
“That’s good news, because [he was] probably a little bit less expensive [to sign]. You know, if [he] would’ve won gold, [he] really would’ve gone to the bank for me, you know? But this young man has it all — exceptional individual, a great talent, and on March the 15th the hero returns at the Caribe Royale.”
Uzbekistan’s Asadkhuja Muydinkhujaev, the gold medalist in Jones' weight class, edged the American by split decision in the Olympic welterweight semifinals this past August in Paris.
Jones still emerged from the 2024 Olympics as the most promising prospect among the four American males who competed. Jahmal Harvey, a featherweight from Oxon Hill, Maryland, was believed to be the top pro prospect within that group, yet he wasn’t as dominant as Jones before Kyrgyzstan’s Munarbek Seitbek Uulu eliminated Harvey from the 125-pound quarterfinals.
While Jones’ loss to Muydinkhujaev meant he couldn’t capitalize financially as much from his Olympic experience as he hoped, the bad news for Hearn is it is “incredibly expensive” in boxing, according to DiBella, to develop young prospects.
DiBella learned that very costly lesson when he paid Ricardo Williams, a 2000 Olympic silver medalist from Cincinnati, a $1.4 million signing bonus to sign with the company he formed, DiBella Entertainment, with part of the compensation package DiBella received when he left HBO Sports more than 20 years ago. Williams went 22-3 (12 KOs, 1 NC) as a pro, but the junior welterweight served 31 months of his physical prime in prison for his role in a cocaine-trafficking operation.
Twenty-four years after Williams made his pro debut at Madison Square Garden’s Theater, DiBella tells anyone who will listen that amateur success oftentimes doesn’t translate into professional prosperity.
A good example of that is Stevenson, the southpaw from Newark, New Jersey, who lost a split decision to Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez in the bantamweight final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Ramirez eventually won the WBO featherweight title, though only after he shockingly lost his pro debut. Ramirez has been inconsistent as a pro, whereas Stevenson (23-0, 11 KOs) owns the WBC lightweight title, is a three-weight world champion, is one of Uncrowned's top-10 pound-for-pound fighters and one of the sport’s most effective defensive fighters.
“I definitely feel I can be America’s next boxing superstar. It’s something that I’ve grinded for and worked for my whole life.”Omari Jones
Keyshawn Davis (13-0, 9 KOs, 1 NC), another silver medalist for the U.S. in 2021, won the WBO lightweight title last month. The Norfolk, Virginia, native is also much more advanced than his amateur nemesis, Andy Cruz. Cuba’s Cruz, who defeated Davis by split decision in the lightweight final in the 2020 Summer Games, is 5-0 (2 KOs) since he turned pro.
Yet the profiles of Stevenson and Davis were strengthened by ESPN’s expansive reach, available because promoter Bob Arum’s company, Top Rank Inc., has had an exclusive content partnership with the Disney-owned network since July 2017. That deal will not be renewed at the end of July, which means live boxing and important shoulder programming won’t be available regularly on the most-watched sports cable channel in the United States.
That could change if TKO’s boxing division, which launched last week, secures a rights deal with ESPN through Dana White. The UFC CEO partnered with Saudi fight financier Turki Alalshikh, who also owns The Ring magazine and website — which employs this writer — as well as WWE president and TKO board member Nick Khan to spearhead TKO’s boxing venture.
DiBella believes they have quite an opportunity to change the boxing industry. They face a considerable challenge as well, particularly as they try to build prospects into contenders and champions in the promotional company’s infancy.
Only one of Jones’ Olympic bouts was televised in the United States. That fight was broadcast by USA Network, not NBC, which reaches a much larger audience.
“Honestly, most people in America don’t give a f*** about boxing, forget Olympic boxing, which we struggle to find a way to see on TV,” DiBella said. “People are paying way less attention to boxing in the Olympics. And you don’t even know if boxing’s going to be in the 2028 Olympics [in Los Angeles]. It’s back and forth as to whether boxing is going to be sanctioned as an Olympic sport. It’s certainly been a big subject of debate in recent years. And boxing decisions in the Olympics are even stinkier or just as stinky as they are in the pros. And the sport in the Olympics has as little or less credibility than the pro sport has.
“So, I mean, in a weird way everything is tied together. The state of boxing in general, well, that’s one of the reasons why an Olympic medal doesn’t mean as much. If boxing gets resuscitated or revived in the United States in [2028], would it mean more than when Omari Jones won a medal? If boxing is in a way different situation in 2028, and there’s an Olympic medalist from the United States, maybe that could mean that a medalist that emerges in 2028 could be more warmly received.”
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