They can find a new heavy hitter to knock out 15 guys and call him the “next Berlanga.” They can find a slick boxer and market him as the “next Hitchins.”
By doing this in-house, they control the narrative and, more importantly, the costs. DiBella is saying that if the Zuffa model works, the days of a fighter like Berlanga commanding “overpaid” purses are over, because the system will simply manufacture a cheaper version of that same “asset.”
“I gotta be honest with you, I don’t think it really matters. If they’re [Zuffa Boxing] doing things the right way, those guys are largely irrelevant,” DiBella said to Ariel Helwani.
“No offense to Richardson. He’s a good fighter. In five years, no one is going to give a f*** about Richardson Hitchins or Berlanga. It doesn’t matter.”
Berlanga drew the sharpest criticism. DiBella pointed to how his early run was built and how that shaped perception.
“Maybe no fighter in the history of boxing, and this is a tribute to Keith Connolly, a little bit of a tribute to Berlanga, and a little bit of a tribute to Top Rank, understood that you can take a mediocre fighter and feed him 15 ham sandwiches to knock out. After the 15 ham sandwiches, he’s 15-0 with 15 knockouts.”
When talking about Berlanga, Dibella describes a guy whose entire reputation was built on a padded record designed to look spectacular on paper.
“So, a little bit of a tribute to everybody there. Berlanga is the most overpaid fighter, one of the most overpaid fighters in the history of boxing,” said DiBella.
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