(SEPT 12) WBAN had a chance to talk with Marcel Niessen of MatchBox this week. Niessen is currently living in Germany, and has been involved in women’s boxing since the 1990’s. Niessen’s wife is former world champion Marischa Sjauw.

WBAN asked Niessen where he got the idea to develop MatchBox. He told WBAN, “At the beginning of Marischa’s boxing career, (late) Rod Mahaffey, made a lot of her matches. As you know, we moved to the states, and there I was lucky enough to build up a lot of good contacts and look over Rod’s shoulder. Rod WAS the, “Women’s Boxing Professor” at that point. Later on Rod and I started to work together a bit more. He would teach me how to deal with promoters and also the inner workings of making matches. The second person who taught me a great deal about matchmaking was former top manager (late) David Gorman. He had a golden team of male boxers at one point and a ton of knowledge about boxing, promoting and matchmaking. We used to talk for hours and hours about the business end of boxing. Then after some years, we moved back to Europe. Jurgen Lutz of the WIBF is a friend of mine from early on in Marischa's career. Jurgen would ask me about female fighters on a regular basis, since I had lived in the United States, and got to see a lot of different fighters. After a while, he asked me if I could find opponents for Regina Halmich --and that is how it all started.”

Niessen said that Universum took a lot of female boxers on board, and that I started to match them up also. Niessen said, “The word spread around and other European promoters would ask if I could help them out to match their female fighters. It was all great fun and I was doing it as a hobby. I was able to go to the fights and travel often. After I made a quite a few fights, I decided to start MatchBox.”

Before Niessen knew it, MatchBox was making the majority of the women’s matches in Europe, and the more matches that were made, the higher the bills accumulated. Niessen said, “So doing matchmaking as only a hobby didn't cut it anymore. It was very time-consuming, and of course…I
needed help also. So I started to work with a small group of
trustworthy people from all around the globe.”

“Recently, I asked Laura Serrano to help me out on finding fighters from the latino countries---that worked out really well. Also, Alex Ramos of the Retired Boxers Foundation helps me out. He has a ton of contacts and is very well respected. He was our advisor during Marischa's career. Because of his help, I am able to give a part of the matchmaking fee to the RBF and indirectly do something back for the game.”, added Niessen.

Niessen has been able to get some very decent purses for the women boxers, and of what WBAN has heard of what MatchBox charges to make the matches sounds reasonable.

Niessen told WBAN that there are boxers who ask MatchBox to manage them. Niessen said about managing, "In my opinion charging 33.3% in women's boxing was always too much. The girls would have hardly anything
left after they paid the manager, the trainer and corner people---Let alone after taxes!”

“So we didn't really want to "manage" girls. Instead we started to act as an "agent". We mostly do the same work a manager does, but only charge 10%. We build them up and for the non-title fights we don't charge the fighter at all----only the promoter,” said Niessen.

Right now MatchBox has close to 20 female fighters under contract. There are also managers who ask MatchBox to find fights. In that case, MatchBox asks the manager to pay them out of their share. Niessen added, “This is how we try to make a difference.”

 

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