The Art of Matchmaking

This coming Saturday, Cowboys Stadium will play host to one of the biggest bouts of the year.

Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito will lock horns in the middle of the ring for the vacant WBC light middleweight title before an expected 70,000 fans in the famed football facility and a purported figure upwards of one million pay-per-viewers outside of it.

The payouts for the two fighters will be just as grandiose; Pacquiao, a former construction worker who sold stolen cigarettes in the streets as an adolescent, could haul in close to $25 million. Margarito, himself a former newspaper peddler in his pre-teen days, stands to make as much as $8 million.

The various subplots and storylines leading up to the fight are plenty. For Pacquiao, will an extra three pounds and a Filipino congressional seat finally make the best fighter in the world ripe for the taking? His opponent, meanwhile, has been surrounded by questions regarding his one-year suspension and his having jumped the supposed pecking order for a substantial payday.

While the casual eye will witness these known aspects of the event and soak them all in, one man enjoys his almost incognito yet indispensible role within Top Rank. The average fan is unaware of him and how he has played the behind-the-scenes architect for not only the fight in question but for the careers of both the principal characters who will take center stage this weekend.

I’m not talking about The Most Interesting Man in the World from the celebrated Dos Equis commercials, but I might as well be.

Rather, I’m referring to Bruce Trampler, who has forgotten more about boxing than most people will ever know.

LINK:
http://www.maxboxing.com/news/promo-lead/the-art-of-matchmaking