Professional boxing courting cheerleaders as part of a dubious future
Many of those asking questions are unfamiliar to reporters on the boxing beat. It seems that some press passes were given to some influencers and fans with YouTube channels with a tiny reach.
Anthony Fitzpatrick stands out in the world of professional boxing. In a world of loudmouths, he is as quiet as a Trappist monk.
He doesn't sit on the top table at press conferences. There are no interviews with him around. Not many photographs of him, either.
But go on to social media and you'll find plenty of boxers thanking him. Some describe him as their manager, others as an adviser.
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Who is Anthony Fitzpatrick? He had a key managerial role in MTK Global, the company that was owned by cartel leader Daniel Kinahan.
Two years ago, the High Court approved a bid to sell a mansion in Saggart that was owned by Kinahan and had been seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau. It was revealed that Fitzpatrick had lived rent free in the mansion for a number of years.
There is no suggestion that Fitzpatrick has ever had any involvement with criminality.
He has been at ringside for various big boxing nights in the UK over the past couple of years, and was also in Abu Dhabi for Chantelle Cameron's defeat of Jessica McCaskill on November 5, 2022.
After the verdict, Cameron posed for a photograph with her team inside the ring. At the far left of the pic which she posted publicly on Instagram is a Dubliner, Anthony Fitzpatrick.
Cameron, of course, took on Katie Taylor twice in Dublin last year, and this newspaper contacted her camp to ask about her connection to Fitzpatrick. There was no response.
The two main promotion outfits in this part of the world are Eddie Hearn's Matchroom and Frank Warren's Queensberry. Last February, we got in touch with both of them with two questions concerning Fitzpatrick.
They were asked if they'd ever negotiated with Fitzpatrick, and whether they had an issue with any of their fighters working with him, given his past association with Kinahan. There was no response to the queries from either Matchroom or Queensberry.
Coming up against brick walls has become par for the course when trying to cover professional boxing. Just over a week ago, Cork's Callum Walsh topped the bill on a night of boxing in Dublin's 3Arena, a collaboration between UFC's Dan White and promoter Tom Loeffler.
This writer applied for accreditation to cover the fight but, for the first time in 33 years covering sport, was turned down. No official explanation was given.
A person connected to the promotion said that perhaps my coverage of Kinahan's involvement in boxing and criticism of Conor McGregor's ties to the sport hadn't gone down well.
There are video clips of the post-fight press conference online. Many of those asking questions are unfamiliar to reporters on the boxing beat. It seems that some press passes were given to some influencers and fans with YouTube channels with a tiny reach.
A day later, there was a far bigger night of boxing in Wembley - a Saudi Arabia-backed Riyadh Season promotion, with the headline bout being a huge heavyweight contest between Daniel Dubois and Anthony Joshua.
Oliver Brown is the award-winning chief sports writer of the Daily Telegraph. He applied for accreditation and was approved but, when he turned up at Wembley, he was told it was revoked and wasn't allowed in. That was due to an article critical of Saudi Arabia and sportswashing which had appeared a day earlier.
"I'd written about Saudi and sportswashing for a number of years. I've been to Saudi three times in the last five years to cover fights and never had any issues there,'' said Brown. "I'd grown kind of fatalistic about it all, there was a feeling that Saudi had won, really.
"But the Wembley version seemed even more brazen than the ones in Saudi. It became like an Expo for Saudi in the heart of London. Huge Saudi billboards, the taking over of Trafalgar Square, Saudi branding all over iconic London landmarks like the Guildhall and Leicester Square. I found it grotesque, in all honesty."
Warren got in touch with Brown to apologise, but the journalist stresses that the issue was on the Saudi side of the promotion, and he wasn't impressed with Hearn's response, either.
"I found Hearn frustrating because, in an interview with IFL TV - he seems to do one with them every day - he was basically trying to spin a line saying that they were massively oversubscribed,'' he said.
"That is a total misdirection. I had my credential confirmed in writing by two different people. I know they didn't like the piece but there was no suggestion of my credential being revoked. I have the paper trail, it was all confirmed, so it was a shock when I turned up at Wembley."
It says it all about the lack of proper governance in boxing that it was the FA - a football body - that made the most decisive intervention.
"There doesn't seem to be anyone taking responsibility in boxing. I've had issues with the FA at different times but they were decent about this,'' said Brown.
"They were essentially saying that, if any journalists have any problems at our national stadium, they will deal with them. They've promised to act in the wake of this.
"A football organisation trying to ride to the rescue of boxing's self-inflicted chaos shows how ludicrous it has become." That's where pro boxing is now. It can sell enough tickets to pack out Wembley but avoids questions, and sidelines anyone who asks awkward questions.
Rewind to Taylor/Cameron II a year ago. Hearn cut the post-fight press conference short when the journalist Sean McGoldrick asked about McGregor's controversial sponsorship of the bill.
“You had to do it, didn’t you,” said Hearn to McGoldrick. “I have to tell you this, I’m so bored of talking about it. All you ever do is look for a negative. Conor McGregor is Conor McGregor. I don’t represent him. I don’t talk about his comments.
“He has a brand that has backed the sport of boxing and it has nothing to do with Katie Taylor, the show, the company. His opinions are his opinions.''
McGoldrick retired a few weeks ago. Another awkward customer leaves the stage. Pro boxing will surely fill the seat with another influencer.
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