Main Events and the gravity of Bakhram Murtazaliev-Tim Tszyu

In the modern, and increasingly corporate, landscape of boxing promotion, Main Events continues to exist largely like a relic to what is often recognised as a golden era and a fondly remembered past.

The late Dan Duva, for so long its figurehead, died in 1996, having become an influential promoter as the son of a former fighter, manager and trainer. Evander Holyfield, Main Events’ marquee fighter when they were at their most powerful, left his prime behind in the 1990s, when he was involved in two of the richest of fights with Mike Tyson. HBO, the broadcaster Main Events worked with throughout, ended its king-making interest in boxing in 2018.

In addition to Holyfield, the promoter’s association with fighters of the calibre of Pernell Whitaker, Arturo Gatti and Sergey Kovalev kept them relevant, albeit decreasingly. But if unlike in the 1980s when they promoted Ray Leonard-Tommy Hearns and recruited Meldrick Taylor, Whitaker, Mark Breland, Holyfield and Tyrell Biggs of the US’s 1984 Olympics team – the rivalry that existed between Bob Arum and Don King means that the similarly successful Main Events are often wrongly overlooked when reflections are made on that period – they have had little choice but to focus on and operate within only the short term.

For a period in the previous decade, the revival of Zab Judah’s career complemented Kovalev’s destructive ascent, but in 2024 there is only Bakhram Murtazaliev, the non-English speaking Russian  who, even as the defending champion at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida, has a profile that is dwarfed by his challenger, Australia’s marketable Tim Tszyu.

More than ever, for Main Events – not unlike as with HBO Boxing and Showtime – the end of a fine near-half century in the most thankless of professions could be imminent. If Murtazaliev – making the first defence of the vacant IBF junior-middleweight title he won in victory over Jack Culcay in Germany in April – wins, then Kathy Duva will continue to relish her involvement in the sport that has defined her family’s lives. If he doesn’t, she may be forced to recognise that the end – after being threatened on so many previous occasions – has finally come.

“We’ve been in business now for 46 years, and I can tell you about the time when my daughters were young, five or six, and my husband [Lou] said, ‘If Vinny Pazienza doesn’t win this fight tonight we’re out of business,’” she told BoxingScene. “It’s the first time I remember him saying it – that had to be in the mid-to-late eighties. I can’t tell you how many fights we’ve had where if we didn’t win we’re out of business, but somehow, something happens.

“Covid came; everything stopped. It was very frustrating; you couldn’t get anything done. HBO had left the business – I could tell it was only a matter of time before Showtime would too. It always seemed the only reason Showtime had boxing was because HBO did – that was always the attitude at Showtime. HBO was all about, ‘We want to be the best.’ They got defeated by DAZN, PBC, all coming out and offering huge amounts of money for fights that HBO couldn’t compete with anymore. 

“It became, ’If we can’t be the best, we don’t want to do this.’ Showtime had always been, ‘We spend the same amount every year; it doesn’t matter who fights; we get the same ratings.’ You could see these big corporations had to start cutting back, so I was thinking, not just that Main Events were done, but that boxing [was]. ‘Where does it go? What have we got?’ So I didn’t have any expectations. ‘Next stage of your life then – you did it.’

“If you didn’t already have a TV deal, you weren’t going to get one. It was always HBO that kept us alive. They were gone. I couldn’t see what was coming.

“But you know something? Every single promoter – today might be different – up until fairly recently, including Top Rank, including Don King, including Main Events in its heyday, we were all being propped up by one fighter. Always. Manny Pacquiao carried Top Rank for I don’t know how many years. First [Mike] Tyson carried King; then Julio Cesar Chavez. 

“There’s always one guy that’s propping you up, so it’s kind of been our history. The one guy – maybe two; two tops – that are bringing in all the money. For a while it was Fernando Vargas, or Arturo Gatti. It’s always somebody. [Murtazaliev] became the next iteration of that – that I did not see coming.”

It was none other than Kovalev who made Main Events aware of Murtazaliev’s existence.

“[Murtazaliev] was working with Virgil Hunter for a while – I don’t think it was a very good match,” Duva continued. 

“I didn’t like the way he looked in some of those fights. When we first signed him, we had very high hopes for him. The first time I laid eyes on him, ‘Oh my god, yeah – we want this one.’

“Then there was this period – everything got derailed with Covid; long layoffs; he was working with Hunter; it just wasn’t a good match and I didn’t like the way he looked at all. He started working with Roman [Kalantaryan, his trainer] for the title fight, and we went to Germany [to fight Culcay] and thought, ‘He has a good enough chance.’ I knew it’d be a tough fight. But for the first time I saw somebody different in that fight for the first time – I really saw somebody different. ‘Now we’ve got what I saw back when we signed him, and now he’s learned some things.’

“The most important fight is the next one, but in this case he’s our only champion now. We’d kind of reached a peak – they did the Hall of Fame [Kathy joined Dan and Dan’s father Lou as an inductee in 2020], and I felt like, ‘Okay, I’m done – that’s a nice cap,’ and then, I’ll be damned, he did it [Murtazaliev became champion]. So we’re starting all over again. It’s kind of fun.”

It can become common for survivors like Duva to reflect on the positives and to play down the obstacles they have long been forced to encounter. Even with her acknowledgments of the 31-year-old Murtazaliev’s slow progress, there exists considerably more layers to him receiving a title fight he ultimately won. Within the wider picture of Main Events was the particularly damaging rise of Premier Boxing Champions – overseeing, with Amazon Prime, Saturday’s fight with the 29-year-old Tszyu – at the cost of Main Events’ broadcast agreement with NBC in 2014.

“[Kovalev] picked us back up – and prior to that it was [Tomasz] Adamek that did it. I was about to shut down in 2008, and Adamek suddenly wins a world title. ‘Where did that come from?’

“Kovalev recruited [Murtazaliev] for us. He’s the one that said, ‘Have a look at this guy.’

“[Murtazaliev] had just become the number-one contender [to Jermell Charlo when the pandemic happened]. We’re literally negotiating his next fight, and this happened. The stepping aside really was the only thing that made sense at that point. ‘Why not take this opportunity and let him become a better fighter?’ So that’s the decision that was made. ‘Charlo will be the next fight.’ Then the next fight came along. ‘[Charlo] doesn’t really want to fight him next.’ 

“[Murtazaliev is] making more money than most the guys in boxing, because of [step-aside agreements], and to be candid, he was kind of propping up Main Events, too. Sometimes God hands you a solution and there’s really no point in fighting it – so we didn’t fight it.

“[Later] the fight [with Tszyu] was offered, but they wanted us to go to Australia. After talking to Egis [Klimas, Murtazaliev’s manager], ‘No, turn that down – we’re not going to do it in Australia, we’re going to do it here.’ 

‘Guys, I’d like to make this a perfect world for you but I just don’t know how.’ 

“It came around for us full circle, and then we got offered the fight in the United States. ‘You know what? I’m just not going to worry anymore, because apparently he gets what he wants, so here we are – we’re in Florida.’”

Murtazaliev’s stoicism – not unlike that of Kovalev and perhaps Tomasz Adamek – may even reassure Duva ahead of what is to come. The reality remains that she had already made her peace with Main Events reaching the end of its journey in boxing, and that in Murtazaliev they are enjoying, like so many of the fighters she has previously helped to guide, one last run.

“[Me and Kovalev] knew each other from the same city [of Grozny],” Murtazaliev told BoxingScene. “We knew each other at the gym, and how good I am – ‘Why don’t I talk to the promoters and the managers – maybe they’ll want to work with you?’ They kind of got together and they all wanted to work together and it worked out – they got me over. 

“Nothing’s scary,” he responded when asked about Main Events’ reliance on him. “All you need is one good one.”

Murtazaliev and his manager Egis Klimas exude a quiet confidence – one that, particularly in the case of Klimas with Kovalev before defining fights with Nathan Cleverly and Bernard Hopkins, has been seen before. 

The dignified Duva, similarly, has the air of a veteran who even in the era of DAZN and Amazon Prime – her fighter perhaps excluded – is seeing little, if anything, new.

“It’s funny, in some respects Bakhram’s career – all this stuff has happened,” she said. “His attitude has always been, ‘Be patient – it’ll work out,’ and that’s very unlike a fighter. 

“[But] he wanted a title fight – he was pissed every time he was told he wasn’t going to get it next.”