Ryan Randazzo RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 6/26/2005 10:37 pm:
A group of four local men with various connections to the adult entertainment industry say they know how to get guys interested in the boxing match they are producing Saturday — show more skin.
And not on the boxers.
Reno Ring LLC is promoting the “Fists and Fireworks” card that includes Samuel Peter of Las Vegas facing Taurus Sykes of Brooklyn, N.Y., with a sexed-up campaign that tourism officials said could help attract younger tourists to Northern Nevada.
“We are trying to get sizzle,” said Kent Wallace, one of the partners. “We tried to create an event around the boxing match with added value. It’s not only a great night of fighting, but people will be entertained by the thing.”
Part of that added value is the contest for a fourth ring girl the night before the fight at the Silver Legacy Resort Casino.
Hotel-casinos, the mayor and tourism officials embrace boxing at the new Reno Events Center, saying it could help Reno regain its status as a boxing mecca, but were cautious about the marketing.
The event being promoted in a sexy manner could help tourism officials with their goal of lowering the average age of Washoe County tourists, they said.
“This event is great for our destination in two ways — one, it fulfills the promise that the Reno Events Center will have a diversity of entertainment,” said Erin Wallace, spokeswoman for the Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority, and unrelated to Kent Wallace.
“Second, the TV exposure from Showtime will help facilitate to the nation that this is ‘America’s Adventure Place,’ and that Reno can accommodate heavyweight boxing.”
Not to mention, she added, boxing fans “tend to have a strong gaming profile,” which likely explains why casinos have bought hundreds of tickets for the event.
“It is extraordinary how the casinos have come together,” Kent Wallace said. “They have been promoting this over the hill in California, created postcards and sent them to VIP guests. From a business standpoint, it has been unparalleled in their cooperation.”
Reno Mayor Bob Cashell said it is great to see boxing return to the area, but cautioned that the bout should remain the focus of the event.
“It is going to be tremendous for tourism,” he said. “I remember when Sugar Ray Leonard came here — people came from Sacramento, San Francisco, all over. I’m hoping they will get a fight or two a year.”
He said that the marketing he has seen for the fight is not out of line, but that if it gets too over the top, he would encourage the producers to tone it down and make sure they do “what’s good for Reno.”
Adult entertainment
Kent Wallace has worked as a publicist for adult film star Sunset Thomas, a ring girl for the event and one of the new owners of the Spice House topless cabaret. She bought the club with Jack Caramella, another partner in Reno Ring, and whose family owned Reno Disposal.
The other partners are Frank Leonardi, who owns the Kit Kat Ranch brothel near Carson City, and Chuck Travella, who just sold the Spice House.
“It’s certainly a colorful cast of characters,” Kent Wallace said. “But boxing has a colorful past and present, and is the colorful side of America.”
Reno Ring teamed with Duva Boxing, the promoter of record.
Reno Ring enrolled Thomas, as well as adult magazine and movie star Rebecca Love and local exotic dancer and tanning salon owner Heidi Cortez as ring girls.
Tourism officials said they would not typically advertise the region with adult film stars, but that Reno Ring’s methods should create a buzz.
“We’re not working with them to promote the risque side of Nevada,” said Deanna Ashby, executive marketing director for the tourism authority. “With that said, in marketing, sex sells. You can’t deny that having hot ring girls will bring in guys.”
Others agreed.
“Vegas has sex appeal in their boxing matches, and Reno is trying to put a little sex appeal in their boxing matches,” Eldorado Hotel Casino Vice President of Sales and Marketing Rick Murdock said.
“It is good for the sport. It is part of the entertainment.”
And getting the event helps build the region up to attract other boxing events, such as the U.S. Olympic team, which will fight Korea’s Olympic team in Reno on July 28, he said.
Reno boxing history
Tourism experts said they hope the fight will help Reno regain its status in boxing.
“Boxing has a big history in Reno, not just back to the days of Jack Johnson-James Jeffries (who had a historic fight in Reno in 1910),” said Glenn Carano, executive marketing director at the Silver Legacy.
“Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini, Sugar Ray Leonard, we’ve had some real big names come through and box here.”
The last significant fight in Reno was 2003, an elimination fight between Ben Tackie and Sharmba Mitchell.
Before that the last top-drawing fight was a George Foreman match in 1993.
“That is how big of a drought we’ve had,” Carano said.
Putting Reno back on the boxing map is important enough that tourism officials gave Reno Ring a break on renting the Reno Events Center, charging them $10,000 plus 10 percent of ticket sales for everything in excess of $125,000, said Joe Kelley, general manager of the center for the tourism authority.
“I’m venturing it will fill half to a little more,” of the more than 7,000 seats, Kelley said.
“There’s not going to be a bad seat. Over half the house is on risers on cushion seats.”
Besides what Reno Ring’s Wallace called a “sweetheart” deal on the center, Mayor Cashell got involved in the event by convincing the tourism authority to relocate events for the Volleyball Tournament convention out of the facility to allow Showtime to set up for the television broadcast.
Cashell said everyone was accommodated.
“That’s what happens when we all communicate and work together,” Cashell said.
“Everybody was facilitated, so nobody was a loser,” Wallace said.
Reno Ring officials are holding out to see if they sell enough tickets to stay in the boxing business, he said. If they do, they’ll start planning their next Reno event.
In addition to their own marketing and what the casinos have paid for in California, Wallace said Reno Ring heavily marketed the event to the Hispanic and Filipino people.
“We’ve put this together to be inclusive of everybody,” he said.
He expects good turnout Saturday.
“I think people will want to be downtown Saturday night at the fight,” he said.
“It is either go to Fists and Fireworks, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and those two don’t have a lot of overlap.”
