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Phil Baroni’s next fight

By Zach Arnold | January 14, 2008

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I saw this post by Luke Thomas talking about the politics behind Phil Baroni’s next fight. The long and the short of it – Sengoku announced Baroni vs. Kikuta last week for their 3/5 Tokyo show (as we noted on the site), Ken Pavia said Baroni was fielding a number of offers, and now there’s a report that American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose brokered the Japanese fight.

Luke responds to the report above with this comment:

I love how Phil Baroni’s manager and AKA management team aren’t even on the same sheet of music for Phil’s next fight. That’s great foreshadowing, no?

Say what you will about Ken Pavia, but the fact is that he’s trying to do the best he can to represent his client. If his client has a non-exclusive deal for representation, then I suppose this incident could be fodder for the hardcores. However, if Pavia has an exclusive deal to represent Baroni, then the focus should be on Baroni.

It’s easy to rail on the various agents in the MMA business and to stress that fighter representation is behind the curve in terms of dealing with promoters and contracts. However, clients have to show just as good judgment as their appointed managers. If a fighter is reportedly screwing around his agent’s back to get fights booked, what’s the point of having the agent representing you in the first place?

If Pavia has an exclusive deal to manage Baroni, then the heat should be on both AKA and Baroni.

It is curious that Baroni would allegedly have AKA book the match for him, considering that Ken Pavia stood by him during his CSAC appeals hearing on the failed drug test.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

3 Responses to “Phil Baroni’s next fight”

  1. Mike David (Euthyphro) says:

    I wonder if quite a few of Pavia’s clients are annoyed with their manager after the debacle that was the WCO show this past weekend. He seemed to be tightly aligned with the promoters, and steered quite a few of his clients to the card.

  2. Tom Pistone says:

    Between the cancelled San Fran show a few months ago and this WCO debaucle this past weekend, I don’t blame Pavia’s fighters for being pissed. You train your butt off and your manager books you on shows that not only don’t happen, but you don’t get paid.

    I think Baroni used Pavia to try and beat the steroid rap with the CSAC, but Phil knows Pavia cannot get him the fights he needs. I am sure Phil will let Pavia keep trying to get him sponsors, and that Phil does not mind that Pavia ball washes him on the MMA Forums, but that Phil want to make money and fight and it is obvious that Pavia cannot make that happen.

  3. Dave2 says:

    I’m a bit confused by this. Say Ken Pavia is his exclusive agent. Couldn’t Baroni fire Pavia or relieve him of his booking duties (and kept him just for media representation and getting sponsors)? That way he wouldn’t have gotten into trouble for getting AKA to book him a fight in Japan.

Comments to Mike David (Euthyphro)

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