McClain bucking the odds

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Jan. 2, 2003 | 9:07 a.m.

Each and every year Las Vegas sees two or three men emerge who believe they can make a living promoting fights in the city. But as they soon discover, this is a roadside littered with bodies and good intentions.

The exception to the rule happens so infrequently that it can almost be argued there are no exceptions.

Until now. Until Johnny McClain.

"It's not easy for me either," he said this week, "but I'm not going to go away. I'm going to make this work."

McClain promoted four local cards in 2002 (two at the Aladdin and one each at the Venetian and Stratosphere) plus another in Memphis, and he has one scheduled for Feb. 14 in Louisville. Among the relative newcomers to the business of promoting fights in Las Vegas, he is the only one who can look back on a successful debut and safely say he's positioned to do even better in 2003.

"Oh, I've had doors (figuratively) slammed in my face," he said. "Sometimes I can walk out of a (casino) executive's office and it seems that nothing is happening, but this is the business I chose even if there are times when it's frustrating."

McClain, 35, is a former professional boxer with lengthy ties to the city. Born in New York, he was in the ninth grade when his family moved to Las Vegas and he later graduated from Eldorado High School.

He beat Joey DeGrandis in his first pro fight and finished his career, fought largely as a cruiserweight, with a record of 23-7-2.

But even greater achievements were to follow.

Having moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and modeling desires, McClain met a daughter of Muhammad Ali at the latter's 57th birthday party in 1999. His life was almost immediately transformed and he and Laila Ali later married.

"I always liked acting and comedy and the entertainment lifestyle," McClain said. "I was still fighting when I first moved to California, but I realized (during a fight with Ramon Garbey) that I no longer had the desire to suck it up in a fight.

"When I fought Garbey, my mind was on an audition I had that was coming up."

McClain made some inroads in Hollywood, appearing in five national TV commercials and getting some work in made-for-TV movies. But with Laila starting her boxing career, McClain found himself being spread too thin.

"I was managing her career and trying to promote some fights down there and trying to do some acting, but I had too much going on," he said. "I realized Laila was my hottest commodity and that if I really wanted to be a promoter I needed to go back to Las Vegas, which is the fight capital of the world, and that she needed to be seen in Las Vegas.

"I always wanted my own gym and my own stable of fighters, so that's what we decided to do."

He owns the Absoloot Gym and also runs the nonprofit Absoloot Awareness Foundation out of it. (The first beneficiaries of his amateur boxing program will take part in a tournament Jan. 15 at the Golden Gloves Gym.)

"This is the best place to be in the world for acquiring fighters that know and understand the game," McClain said. "There are guys fighting all over the country, but most of them don't have a clue as to the business of the sport. In Las Vegas, you get fighters who know the game."

He says "fighters call me every day from all over the place" and the repetitive ringing of his cell phone supports that claim. Beyond the details he's tending to that pertain to his upcoming card in Louisville (that will be televised on ESPN2 and has Laila as its headliner) was a Tuesday trip to Los Angeles "to see if I can line up some real money."

Ah, money. The lack of it is a shortcoming that has cost many a Las Vegas promoter his dream, if not his bank account and his sanity.

But McClain looks to be in good shape in that regard and his prospects are bright.

"I started out promoting using money out of my own pocket that I had from acting and from my percentage as Laila's manager and her endorsement deals," he said. "But once I promoted Laila's (2001) fight with Jacque Frazier, I was on my way."

Ali won that fight in Verona, N.Y., by majority decision over Frazier-Lyde, and McClain was among those who reaped the dividends as the pay-per-view card exceeded its financial expectations and drew 6,500 fans.

It also allowed him to begin promoting cards in Las Vegas, the most recent of which (at the Stratosphere) drew the third-highest rating of any on the ESPN2 series for the year.

"Vegas is a 'big' fight town, it's not a 'small' fight town," McClain said, emphasizing the "big" as in De La Hoya vs. Vargas and the "small" as in the club shows that routinely struggle. "The fans here are knowledgeable yet spoiled. Anything less than a great show and they're not going to support it.

"It's a hard sell for me, too. The fans are smart, and because I always have a women's fight or two it's tough because women's boxing is a tough sell."

Asked the importance of TV money to a promoter -- ESPN2, for instance, pays a relatively standard fee of $52,000 -- McClain was succinct.

"The money's very crucial, but you're really not making money on an ESPN card," he said. "It's not like the money HBO (or Showtime) or pay-per-view brings in.

"But what the ESPN shows do is give exposure to the fighters you're trying to make into a household name. They might not pay a lot, but they have a built-in audience that fighters and a promoter like myself needs."

He said he makes a special effort to have his cards appear distinctive.

"I'm not the orthodox promoter," he said. "I try to make my shows creative, even by getting Al Green or En Vogue to do the national anthem. I go beyond the average, but that's not guesswork for me.

"I know what I can do."

Yet this isn't as easy as it may seem and McClain has felt the sting of indifference in various meetings with casino executives. He doesn't seem to be complaining about it, but he has felt slighted at times.

"Some people say I'm hard to deal with," he said. "But I'm legit and when I come into a business meeting, I have my business face on.

"Now I don't want to say race is an issue, but it is what it is. I'm a big, black man who's an ex-fighter and a lot of times there isn't much respect there.

"I'm friendly, but I don't kiss butt and I have a short tolerance for b.s. and for anyone who doesn't have a 100-percent business attitude. So there are times when I don't see the guy across the table treating me fairly.

"I just want my fair shake. I want to be treated the same way they would treat Don King or Bob Arum."

King and Arum are hardly inseparable on a personal level but they are inseparable when citing the sport's top promoters. Yet someday, years from now, they will pass from the scene and be replaced by newer blood.

"That's the goal," McClain said, when asked if he might be one to rise to international prominence.

"I'm not going anywhere and I'm going to keep coming back," he said. "I have a plan. I need some additional backing and I need to sign some marque names, but it's coming.

"I was never a crowd favorite as a fighter and I felt kind of blackballed and used as a fighter, but that's an experience that can only help me. I'm always going to treat fighters fairly and pay them fairly, especially the women.

"I want to be a promoter not only for myself, but for the good of the game."

That's an approach that fighters and fans may welcome, yet McClain realizes he's in a position that can invite jealousy from skeptics and rivals alike.

"A lot of people are happy for me, I know that," he said. "But a lot of people are just waiting for me to fail."

But the new year opens with failure nowhere in sight for a man who bucked the odds in 2002 and broke a trend that was seemingly decades in the making. He's actually doing OK as a fight promoter, as unusual as that seems.

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