{"id":205964,"date":"2025-10-17T06:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/205964\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T06:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:49:11","slug":"the-art-of-the-deal-how-boxings-biggest-fights-get-made-including-anthony-joshua-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/205964\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of the deal: how boxing’s biggest fights get made including Anthony Joshua negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boxing is a complicated and convoluted business, just ask fast-rising boxing manager Sal Jobe.<\/p>\n

During his 14 years in the sport, Jobe has experienced every single emotion boxing can inflict on an individual.<\/p>\n

\"Jobe<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Jobe helped secure a major fight deal between Joshua and FranklinCredit: Sal Jobe<\/p>\n

From the highs of striking a major fight deal between Anthony Joshua<\/a> and Jermaine Franklin, to the lows of seeing Michael Hunter vs Hughie Fury<\/a> fall by the wayside, not once, but twice.<\/p>\n

Boxing has a habit of breaking people and building them back up again.<\/p>\n

It’s a cutthroat industry that many claim to understand, but few will ever truly grasp.<\/p>\n

Through a series of exclusive features with talkSPORT.com, Jobe will be lifting the lid on the inner workings of boxing, starting with how the sport’s biggest fights get made.<\/p>\n

How do boxing fights get made?<\/p>\n

There is a misconception among portions of the boxing fanbase that bouts are arranged with a click of the fingers.<\/p>\n

A date is put forward, both sides agree on their purses, and contracts are signed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But as Jobe lays out in considerable detail, there are multiple moving parts in the process. <\/p>\n

“The job of a good manager is to bring the fight to the table,” Jobe told talkSPORT.com.<\/p>\n

“So, in the case of Jermaine Franklin, I contacted Joshua’s team.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, Joshua has a promoter and a management team, so they will go back and forth and come to a collective decision over the fight.<\/p>\n

\"Jobe<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Jobe also worked on a fight deal for Miller with JoshuaCredit: Sal Jobe <\/p>\n

“Then it is a case of communicating with your legal teams and drafting the paperwork.<\/p>\n

“They will send you the heads of terms or a draft contract. From there, both sides can highlight terms they are happy or not happy with, and you go back and forth.<\/p>\n

“Once everyone is happy, you sign the contract and the fight is announced. <\/p>\n

“And before you know it, you are working towards a fight. But it isn’t always that simple.<\/p>\n

“Often negotiations can be held up by small things that seem irrelevant. I didn’t get this so much with Joshua as his team were very on point.<\/p>\n

“But I’ve had it where there have been squabbles about who walks to the ring first. When there is no clear A side, this will often happen.<\/p>\n

\"His<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

His hardest negotiation was Hunter vs FuryCredit: Sal Jobe <\/p>\n

“Gloves are a big talking point. What gloves can or can’t be used? There are always issues with gloves.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you have fighters who want to have gloves that have been made by a friend of theirs or a company that provides gloves for them for sponsorship.<\/p>\n

“Some people want to use used gloves. And then there is horsehair, which can be very divisive.”<\/p>\n

What is the most highlighted term?<\/p>\n

Besides gloves, Jobe insists the most highlighted terms are often the ones you wouldn’t expect to be included in a fight contract.<\/p>\n

“Usually it is flights and tickets, whether that is business class or first class,” Jobe added. “How many flights can a fighter get paid for them.<\/p>\n

“Can I get five flights? Can I get six? Tickets are also a hot topic because fighters often want to bring their family.<\/p>\n

“There are only so many ringside tickets to a fight. So fighters are often asking how many of those they can get and how many people they can have in their changing room. A contract is all-encompassing.<\/p>\n

Never happening! Anthony Joshua urged to abandon comeback and retire from boxing by ex-world champion <\/p>\n

“Some fighters even want to change when they get paid. Some want to be paid a maximum of a week after their fight, some say up to a month.<\/p>\n

“Some fighters want a percentage of the purse up front for camp contributions, but some promoters don’t want to do that because what if the fight doesn’t go ahead?”<\/p>\n

The easiest and hardest fights to make <\/p>\n

Jobe insists Joshua’s team was the easiest to deal with after working alongside them on fight deals for Jarrell Miller<\/a> and Franklin.<\/p>\n

However, it isn’t always smooth sailing.<\/p>\n

“One of the most difficult negotiations was when I was negotiating for Michael Hunter to fight Hughie Fury in a WBA eliminator,” Jobe remarked.<\/p>\n

“Those negotiations were with Ben Shalom, and they were not easy.<\/p>\n

“At the time, Hughie was a priority to them, and they wanted a large split [of the purse].<\/p>\n

“We were trying to convince them that although Hughie was their A-side, he’s not the overall A-side against someone like Michael Hunter.<\/p>\n

“Because Michael Hunter has got far more pedigree, both in the amateurs and in the pros.<\/p>\n

“He had only ever lost to Usyk. So it was a case of trying to convince them that your definition of the A-side in this situation is different because Michael was the WBA number one at the time.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boxing is a complicated and convoluted business, just ask fast-rising boxing manager Sal Jobe. During his 14 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[6565,2560,6102,88945,32864,37607,30846,88946,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-205964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-anthony-joshua","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-hughie-fury","tag-jarrell-miller","tag-jermaine-franklin","tag-michael-hunter","tag-sal-jobe","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}