If you’ve been a fan of boxing anytime in the last several decades, Bruce Trampler probably helped guide your favorite fighter’s career.
The chief matchmaker for Top Rank for 45 years and counting, Trampler had a hand in selecting opponents for Floyd Mayweather Jnr and Oscar De La Hoya, among many others. He also played an integral role in George Foreman’s legendary second career.
Trampler joined BoxingScene’s Kieran Mulvaney and VADA founder Margaret Goodman to share wisdom from his long career in the fight game.
Trampler didn’t come across his career by accident. He fought as an amateur, which perhaps gave him some additional empathy and sensitivity when making fights. Or maybe Trampler just knows boxing inside and out.
“I’ve trained fighters, managed fighters, been a cutman, a ring announcer, been a judge, a referee. I think I’ve done everything except fight professionally,” Trampler said.
His formula for identifying prospects is more complex than one might think.
“I think what we look for [...] would be someone with a chance to be special,” Trampler said. “And ‘special’ would include not only ability but marketability. There’s a lot of good fighters out there who are not very marketable; they aren’t very charismatic. They’re just good ring men. Good skills, but nobody cares.
“And then there’s guys who may not be as talented, but they draw crowds, they’re exciting, they’re good entertainment, good TV.
“But the special ones are the Ray Leonards of the world, the Chavez seniors, right now the Japanese fighter [Naoya] Inoue…he’s the complete package. It’s rare to find them, but they’re out there, and it’s our job to discover them and expose them.”
Then comes the task of matchmaking.
Trampler looks at a variety of factors: the prospect’s age (someone in their late teens is preferable to an unproven 11-to-14-year-old), their amateur pedigree, their trainer, and several others.
Audience is a factor, too. Trampler’s goal isn’t just to make a fight that makes sense for the A-side, but for the fighter to put on a performance that makes the audience want to see them again.
The boxing business doesn’t make it easy for Trampler to do his job.
Top Rank’s deal with ESPN is up in August, and with the demise of HBO and Showtime’s boxing platforms, boxing on TV is scarce. That means smaller audiences for boxers.
And boxers aren’t fighting as often as they used to. Trampler brought up the enormous purses lately as a disincentive for activity. (Rolly Romero, one of the few winners on an otherwise disastrous Times Square card on May 2, opined similarly afterwards that fighters were being overpaid.)
“They make so much money – generational, life-changing money,” Trampler said of heavyweights like Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder. “Which is good for them, but it almost works in a negative factor for the sport itself.”
“The phrase that they used to use decades ago was, ‘You need a hungry fighter,’ Trampler said.
Ideally, Trampler thinks prospects should fight five or six times a year, minimum.
“We’ve kept Keyshawn Davis busy. And now that he has a title, he wants to fight four times a year, which is admirable. He’s got the skill set, and a title, and the hometown of Norfolk where he can fight often. But there’s guys who aren’t box office favorites and don’t really have a hometown or a market.”
Of course, with more rounds in the ring comes an increased risk of head trauma. Trampler knows this well. “I’ve been at 13 ring deaths,” he said.
“I’ve had a fighter die in my arms in the dressing room. Right after he said, ‘Bruce, I’m not gonna die, am I?’” Trampler continued. “We know what kind of sport it is, and we have a feel for it. But we’re dictated to by less experienced people.”
Intensely familiar with the risks of the sport, Trampler encourages fighters to retire before it’s too late. He refers to low-risk fighters late in their careers as “survivors” rather than “stinkers.” And he has a different outlook than most on the warlike fights that fans adore.
“I’ve done a lot of research into ring deaths, and most of them, the great majority of ring deaths, take place around nine or 10 [rounds] or into the double digits.
“The greater the fight, the more the toll is taken on them eventually.”