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 When The ‘Bling’ Meets The Ring: Dash and DiBella Look to Change The Game
 By Thomas Gerbasi (January 27, 2005) Photo © Teddy Blackburn
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NEW YORK, January 26 – Damon Dash remembers what boxing was like.
He remembers how he and his Roc-A-Fella Records partners, Jay-Z and Kareem “Biggs” Burke, got a few bucks in their pockets and flew coach to Las Vegas, shared a room, and got ready for a big fight night.
“I had a linen suit on, they were saying it was a zoot suit,” said Dash. “Biggs had on a Versace shirt, Jay was all dressed up. We really thought we was doin’ something. It was a big deal; it was a Mike Tyson fight. We weren’t even sitting ringside. I remember sitting next to Dr. Dre, and he wasn’t ringside, but we were excited to be there – just the electricity and the energy.”
That was boxing; a sport promoter Lou DiBella said, “dominated most of the 20th century. If you really want to be truthful, it was the second most significant sport of the 20th century.”
Not anymore, other than brief flashes in time when the glory days of packed arenas become a reality for a night or two, only to fade away to half-empty halls, apathy from the mainstream media, and a dwindling fan base.
Dash saw the change as well.
“For some reason, when you go to a fight, people don’t get dressed up anymore,” he said. “It’s not the event that it used to be. Back in the day, it was like an event; regardless of whether you liked boxing or not, you still went. And then I notice that faded over the years. There were good fighters, but it just didn’t have the energy.”
Dash and DiBella want to change that, and at a press conference held in Manhattan’s Na club, the two unlikely allies announced their promotional partnership – not as Rock-a-DiBella* – but as Dash-DiBella Promotions, an entity designed to market the sport and it’s fighters the way it should have been done for years. Fight fans’ fingers have to be crossed that they can get it right.
 “Dash-DiBella is going to be something historical for boxing,” said DiBella. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but we’re gonna change the game; we’re gonna change the way things are viewed and the way fighters are presented. We’re gonna make a difference.”
Hopefully he’s right, because boxing has been missing an entire demographic in terms of marketing for a long time, and if you cut out the entire generation of younger fans, where will the sport be in 20-30 years if it’s already perceived as a niche sport now?
“African-American fighters and English speaking fighters haven’t been promoted the way they need to be and we’re not building enough fans among young people, particularly in inner cities and major urban areas,” agrees DiBella. “Our fan base is getting older – it’s got to get younger. I’ve thought that we’ve needed to make changes for a while and I think that there’s a much greater possibility that Dash and myself together can invigorate the way these kids are marketed and make changes more than I ever could have done myself.”
DiBella couldn’t have picked a better partner for this venture than the 34-year-old Dash, who has made gold (or is it platinum these days?) with everything he has touched, from record companies and clothing lines to film production, sneakers, and vodka. In the process, the self-made multi-millionaire has achieved icon status among teenagers and 20-somethings, including one of Dash-DiBella’s first signees, 19-year-old super middleweight ‘Chin Checker’ Curtis Stevens.
 “Signing with Dame, I’m very happy because growing up I used to look up to him - he made excellent music, excellent clothes,” said Stevens. “So signing with him was a privilege and my honor.”
Dash’s first exposure to boxing came as a teenager himself, when he picked up the sport at the local Boys’ Club.
“I didn’t really appreciate or understand how much work it was and how strategic you had to be to be a boxer until I started boxing,” said Dash. “That practicing for a fight meant getting in a ring and fighting someone else and getting hit, and practicing getting hit, every day; plus the emotional and physical strain of training, and all the sacrifices that you have to make. So I’ve always watched it and had a passion for it.”
A chance meeting with DiBella on a plane flight led to a dialogue between the two, and when Dash was seriously considering a jump into the boxing business, the two again met up and found that their goals were similar in terms of trying to rejuvenate the sport. DiBella, who has seen his ups and downs in his tenure as a promoter, knew that it was time to take a chance on a new venture.
“When I got out of HBO and I started my own thing, I wanted to make a difference and I wanted to change the way fighters were perceived, the way fighters were treated, and the way fighters were presented to the public,” said DiBella. “Frankly, I haven’t been able to do it alone, and I had to find the right partnership, particularly to market and promote African-American fighters and inner city fighters to try to create some buzz in urban areas and in the inner cities, where the future fans are.”
And luckily for fight fans, Dash is coming into the sport with a plan, not just a checkbook.
“When I decided to seriously get into the boxing world, I noticed that there were people that had tried before me and were losing their shirts,” said Dash. “They were investing a lot of money and losing it, and I felt that I’m not going to be that guy. I’m not gonna be the guy that gets into the business and I’m just gonna be cutting checks just so I can be at the fight. If I do something I want to do it well; I want to do it where people can make a profit, and I also want to do something for the culture to change it.”
As with anything in this sport, the first step begins with the fighters, and the first four signees to Dash-DiBella are very possibly four future world champions and crossover stars.
2004 Haitian Olympian Andre Berto (2-0, 1 KO) is a big junior middleweight – not fat, or tall – but solid, as in he can knock you out. Equally adept at boxing as well as banging, Berto will be fighting for the second time in a week this Friday, and he’s excited about his new promotional deal.
“It’s gonna be lovely,” said Berto. “With a lot of boxers, they’re just into the boxing, so that’s why I wanted to get on with Damon Dash and Lou DiBella. Lou DiBella is one of the promoters out there; he does a wonderful job with Jermain Taylor, and Dame Dash is the best entrepreneur around, so it just opens doors for a lot of things, and that’s basically what I want to do.”
Featherweight Gary Stark Jr. (10-0, 5 KOs) is one of the more underrated fighters in the New York area, a kid who can box your ears off and who has fought solid competition virtually every fight out. The former baseball player from Staten Island also has a long history with Dash.
“I’ve been with Dame for like four, five years now, being in the gym, and I’m like his little son almost,” said Stark, who has also sparred with the hip-hop mogul.
Of course, to the New York faithful that has already adopted them as the saviors of the local fight scene, there is little introduction needed for the “Chin Checkers” from the Starrett City Boxing Gym, Jaidon Codrington and Curtis Stevens.
Blessed with concussive power, the Chris Gotti-managed Codrington (6-0, 6 KOs) and Stevens (4-0, 4 KOs) have bonafide star potential and practically celebrate the art of the knockout.
Said Stevens of this coming year, “2005 is like it’s gonna rain in hell. Hell is hot but we are hotter than hell. We’re gonna do what we do every day, check chins. And for this year, we’re spreading love. Not the kind of love your girl gives you, the kind of love a chin checker gives you.”
Want more? When Stevens asked DiBella if he had found an opponent for him for Friday night’s fight, DiBella answered, “Yes.”
Stevens’ response?
“You got an ambulance ready?”
It’s this type of take no prisoners attitude that has made them not only fighters to watch, but fighters you must see. Needless to say, the buzz has reached their ears.
“It lets you know where me and Curtis are at as athletes and as fighters,” said Codrington. “To even be involved with people of such stature, we gotta be giving off not only a good vibe, but we’ve got to be real skillful fighters. Just being involved with certain people, we’re guaranteed certain things like fame and so on. It means a lot.”
And while boxing is a full-time job now, Codrington and Stevens both know that it’s no sin to prepare for life after the final bell rings.
“We can’t box for the rest of our lives,” said Codrington. “After boxing we’ve got to do something else. And we want to do other things in the entertainment business.”
The in the ring entertainment for this new venture begins Friday at Manhattan Center, when all four members of the Dash-DiBella stable are in action as part of the “Broadway Boxing” series. And since this is boxing, there are bound to be snide remarks made and cynicism about this latest effort to re-build boxing’s image, but hey, doesn’t someone have to take a chance?
“There’s always gonna be haters, there’s always going to be backlash,” said DiBella. “I view this as there are really no negatives here for the fighters that are with Damon and myself – there are only potential possibilities. Will we realize all those potential possibilities? Time will tell. I don’t have - despite all the haters – a particularly good track record for failure. Damon Dash doesn’t have a track record for failure. I think together we’re likely to make this succeed and I think certainly we’re going to invigorate the sport in the inner city. I really believe that, and not just New York in the inner city, but across the country. And I believe that when you have kids that are exciting, that can punch, that can knock people out, I think it’s fairly easy to get a following. Curtis and Jaidon and Berto can all knock people’s heads off, and we’re going to bring those kids to the people.”
Or as Dash so succinctly puts it, “These are upstanding young gentlemen who have committed their lives to the sport, but at the same time they’re cool cats. And the world needs cool cats.”
* A phrase penned by our esteemed editor Doug Fischer.
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E-Mail Thomas Gerbasi at tgerbasi@mindspring.com
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