Just a few years ago, the state’s professional fight scene was virtually nonexistent.
A boxing world that brought Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston together in Lewiston for their famous “phantom punch” heavyweight title rematch on May 25, 1965, and later brought world championship bouts featuring favorite son Joey Gamache to Portland during the early 1990s had turned elsewhere.
By 2005 there were no more professional bouts on the horizon, leaving the Maine State Boxing Commission so little work that it was disbanded in 2007 in a cost-cutting move — rendering professional boxing illegal in the state.
Mixed martial arts, meanwhile, wasn’t legalized in Maine until 2009, and not until the newly created New England Fights promotion established roots in Lewiston three years later was there any consistent schedule of events in that sport.
But times — and the state’s fight scene — have changed somewhat dramatically.
NEF now is one of the larger regional promotions in New England, averaging five MMA shows a year and adding a boxing card to its resume earlier this fall, and the popularity of mixed martial arts in the state helped draw its two premier promotions, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Bellator MMA, to the Pine Tree State for internationally televised cards.
Pro boxing also has returned in a major way under the auspices of the Combat Sports Authority of Maine, which originally was created to regulate mixed martial arts but subsequently added boxing to its responsibilities.
Trainer Ken “Skeet” Wyman of Stockton Springs and junior welterweight prospect Brandon “The Cannon” Berry of West Forks teamed up to stage the state’s first pro boxing match in eight years in May 2013 at Skowhegan Area High School.
That show sparked a proliferation of pro boxing in Maine during the 18 months since then, not only with the NEF event in Lewiston but the re-establishment of the sport’s presence in Portland via Maine Sports Hall of Fame trainer-promoter Bobby Russo and his Portland Boxing Club.
Crowds ranging from to 2,000 to 3,500 have gathered to witness the recent boxing and mixed martial arts events held in Maine, indicating a fairly thriving combat sports market.
But just how deep is that market?
A clue may come Saturday with competing boxing and MMA cards scheduled on the same night for the first time barely 40 minutes apart in Portland and Lewiston.
NEF will stage “NEF XIV,” an MMA show at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston featuring the promotion’s lightweight champion, Bruce “Pretty Boy” Boyington of Brewer, defending his belt against Jesse “The Viking” Erickson of Auburn.
The opening bell is scheduled for 7 p.m.
Thirty minutes later and 35 miles down the Maine Turnpike at the Portland Exposition Building will be the 100th career boxing show promoted by Russo, an eight-fight card headlined by undefeated New England middleweight champion Russell Lamour Jr. of Portland fighting for the vacant IBA Americas crown against Ahsandi Gibbs of Tampa, Florida.
“It will be an interesting night for everyone,” said Matt Peterson of Rumford, co-owner and matchmaker for New England Fights. “It’s a free market and I respect that and what comes with that. Even if it was a concert or something else unrelated to combat sports there’s always going to be events that you’re going to be competing with for ticket buyers.
“At the end of the day, fans will vote with their dollars as to what event they will attend, but I think it’s two distinct sports with two distinct audiences, and hopefully we’ll both do well this weekend.”
Scheduling coincidence?
With NEF staging six shows this year — five MMA and one boxing — and less than a handful of other boxing cards around the state promoted by Russo and Wyman, seemingly the calendar provides enough Saturday nights so there is no need for overlap no matter how distinct or similar the fan bases are for the respective fighting disciplines.
“It’s not that big of a deal and I really don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but it’s not like we’ve got 700 shows a year,” said Russo, whose shows over the last two decades have been primarily amateur boxing events held at the Portland Boxing Club or Stevens Avenue Armory, also in Portland. “There’s only a few put on by both of us and it seems it would behoove both of us not to do shows at the same time.
“I don’t think [Peterson] is worried about it because he thinks he’s drawing from a different crowd. I’m not really worried about it, either, but I do think at the end of the day both of us will suffer some loss. There are definitely some crossover fans who would have been happy to come here and watch boxing that are also MMA fans.”
Both promoters have a history of scheduling shows shortly before Thanksgiving. New England Fights staged MMA events during each of the previous two Novembers, Nov. 17, 2012, and Nov. 9, 2013, while Russo promoted his first professional boxing card at the Expo in 21 years last Nov. 16 and indicated in April during a boxing show featuring Berry in North Anson that he planned to have additional Portland shows in June and November of this year.
“I do think it was coincidental, that’s my assumption,” Peterson said. “You look back at the dates and that’s just when they fall. It could have been a week one way or the other for either one of us, but it just happened to be on the same night and we’ll let the market determine if it’s there to support multiple combat sports events on the same night in the same state or not. We’ll leave it up to the fans to decide.”
Peterson’s belief in the relative uniqueness of the fan bases for MMA and boxing was buoyed by his experience on Oct. 11, when New England Fights staged a boxing card in Lewiston headlined by the unbeaten Berry winning the promotion’s junior welterweight title and the return of Gamache’s son, Steven Gamache, to the ring after a two-year absence.
“If I heard one thing from folks more than anything that night it was, ‘Wow, this is a different audience,’” said Peterson. “There were a lot of faces that I had never seen at an NEF show before.
“Even in the same area we were pulling different people to the two sports, boxing and MMA, so I think most of the folks that would show up to our show are going to show up regardless of the fact there’s a boxing event happening 45 minutes down the road.”
Thom Farr, chair of the Combat Sports Authority of Maine, agrees with that assessment.
“I’m a huge MMA fan and I’m also a boxing fan, and to me they’re night and day,” he said. “You’ve got two distinct sets of fans, so I don’t think you’re going to have an issue. Bobby Russo puts on a great show and I think he’ll have a full house, and I also think Matt Peterson does an unbelievable job and he’ll do his regular numbers. I don’t think you’ll see a dip in his numbers.”
Farr said the CSAM had no concern with sanctioning separate MMA and boxing cards on the same evening in the same region.
“It’s a free market, they both can do it,” he said. “I wouldn’t put two MMA events on in Maine on the same night because you’re drawing off the same crowd. But a boxing show and an MMA event? We didn’t have an issue when it came before the commission.”
Farr estimated between 10 and 12 CSAM officials are required for each event but said there is a sufficient pool of commissioners, inspectors and judges to handle the dual workloads.
