Season 5: #9 Eric Bottjer

Boxing Life Stories

Tris Dixon

Sports

5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2023

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matchmaker Eric Bottjer has worked for a who's who of promoters, including Dan Goosen, Lou DiBella, Don King and Matchroom, but he's not a man who has seen things just at the highest level, but at fight club level, too.

Eric is a boxing historian and was influenced by the late Johnny Bos and Bottjer's helped in the careers of the likes of Evander Holyfield, Felix Trinidad, James Toney and he also made the 2001 Fight of the Year between Micky Ward and Emanuel Burton (Augustus).

Here, Bottjer talks about the roles of being a matchmaker, and how it took him into the ring against one of his own fighters, working with some of the biggest names in boxing and the state of the game today.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And he took me to the Blarney stone. I still remember this and he bought me a hamburger and he said you got to get out of writing and I said what are you talking about he goes you're never going to make any money and writing you have to get out of writing.
0:13.0	And he said well I drove all the way down here I'm going to fight somebody so I think it was 30 years old and I was his size I'm like oh you can fight me pay me so we fought.
0:25.0	Yeah, you're fucking really good at what you do, Tris.
0:32.0	Yeah, I do. However, I don't regret how my path has gone.
0:40.0	Hello and welcome to Boxing Life Stories with me, Kristix.
0:43.0	What happened in the ring after the Tyson only good was his child's play compared to that.
0:48.0	Still they've moved from to this day.
0:49.0	Just you couldn't take the tears from his eyes or the smile of his face could you.
0:55.0	I know.
0:56.0	I didn't think he made it. He said well let's bow you back.
0:59.0	And the baby didn't make me look like alcohol bomb.
1:01.0	And if he's going to beat you all night.
1:03.0	There's a winning and there's nothing else.
1:08.0	Hello and welcome back to Boxing Life Stories.
1:10.0	This week's podcast is with the matchmaker Eric Botcher.
1:13.0	You can go into the archives of Boxing Life Stories and find the episode with Hall of Famer Bruce Trampler
1:17.0	who we refer to plenty of times during this conversation.
1:20.0	But it was great to spend some time talking to Eric, who's worked with Don King,
1:23.0	Cedric Kushner, Lou Debeller, Dan Grousson, Kristi Martin, Matt Shroom,
1:27.0	and many other huge Boxing promotional banners and some of the smaller ones too.
1:32.0	Eric has helped with the careers of the likes of Felix Trinodout,
1:35.0	Amanda Holyfield and Mickey Ward, work with Hall of Famers,
	...

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