Richard Schaefer is a Swiss professional boxing promoter who is the current president of Anthem Sports Group. He was the former CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, which he left in 2014.
In 2016 he founded his own boxing promotional company Ringstar Sports.
Schaefer grew up in Switzerland. He is a Swiss national who began his career in 1983 at Swiss Volksbank (now Credit Suisse). Upon graduation from the Swiss Banking School, a division of the Swiss Finance Institute, he became manager of the Swiss Bank office in Los Angeles in 1994. Two years later, Swiss Bank took over UBS (the largest bank in Switzerland). The surviving entity was UBS. Schaefer was placed in charge of operations for the western United States. In 1997, he was named deputy CEO of all UBS private banking operations in the United States. At the time, UBS oversaw two trillion dollars in assets with private banking at the core. [1]
He stunned his wife and three kids and gave up banking in 2000 to join Oscar De La Hoya's fledgling business organization, to help the young boxer "build up a business empire." Schaefer first focused on the business of managing fighters, but soon switched tracks to the more lucrative event promotion business, lining up deals for several major boxing matches for the past 15 years.
More recently, Schaefer has branched out into real estate. Schaefer has other links to Hispanic culture as well: His wife is from Mexico. [2]
In 2016, Schaefer founded his own boxing promotional company called Ringstar Sports. In January 2017, Ringstar merged with David Haye’s Hayemaker Promotions to form Hayemaker Ringstar. [3] Schaefer announced the World Boxing Super Series in March 2017. [4] [5]
In 2021, Schaefer launched Probellum, a boxing promotion and media company. [6]
In 2023, Schaefer joined Anthem Sports Group, parent company of Invicta Fighting Championships and TNA Wrestling, as its new president. [7]
The Ring is an American boxing magazine that was first published in 1922 as a boxing and wrestling magazine. As the sporting legitimacy of professional wrestling came more into question, The Ring shifted to becoming exclusively a boxing-oriented publication. The magazine is currently owned by Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Enterprises division of Golden Boy Promotions, which acquired it in 2007. Ring began publishing annual ratings of boxers in 1924. With its November/December 2022 issue, the magazine stopped publication of its regular monthly print issues and will remain a digital publication, offering occasional special interest print issues.
Oscar De La Hoya is an American boxing promoter and former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. His accolades include winning 11 world titles in six weight classes, including the lineal championship in three weight classes. De La Hoya was nicknamed "The Golden Boy of boxing" by the media when he represented the United States at the 1992 Summer Olympics where, shortly after having graduated from James A. Garfield High School, he won a gold medal in the lightweight division, and reportedly "set a sport back on its feet."
Floyd Joy Mayweather Jr. is an American boxing promoter and former professional boxer who competed between 1996 and 2017. He retired with an undefeated record and won 15 major world championships from super featherweight to light middleweight. This includes the Ring magazine title in three weight classes and the lineal championship in four weight classes. As an amateur, he won a bronze medal in the featherweight division at the 1996 Olympics, three U.S. Golden Gloves championships, and the U.S. national championship at featherweight.
David Deron Haye is a British former professional boxer who competed between 2002 and 2018. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, and was the first British boxer to reach the final of the World Amateur Boxing Championships, where he won a silver medal in 2001.
Juan Manuel Márquez Méndez is a Mexican former professional boxer who competed from 1993 to 2014. He is the third Mexican boxer to become a world champion in four weight classes, having held five world major titles from featherweight to light welterweight, including the lineal championship at lightweight.
Golden Boy Promotions, Inc. is an American boxing promotional firm based in Los Angeles, California. The company was established in 2002 by eight-time world champion Oscar De La Hoya, borrowing his nickname "Golden Boy."
Jorge Luis Linares Palencia is a Venezuelan retired professional boxer. He has held world championships in three weight classes, including the WBC featherweight title from 2007 to 2008; the WBA super featherweight title from 2008 to 2009; and the WBA, WBC and Ring magazine lightweight titles between 2014 and 2018.
Francisco Javier Vargas Peláez is a Mexican professional boxer, also known for his nickname "El Bandido." As an amateur, Vargas represented Mexico at the 2008 Olympics as a lightweight. He held the WBC super featherweight title between 2015 and 2017.
Hayemaker Promotions is a promotional company operated by former WBA heavyweight and undisputed cruiserweight champion David Haye. The company held their first boxing promotional event in Sheffield on 20 September 2008.
Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, also billed as The Dream Match, was a professional boxing welterweight superfight. The bout took place on December 6, 2008 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. Pacquiao defeated De La Hoya via technical knockout when De La Hoya decided not to continue with the fight before the start of the ninth round. The card was a co-production of Bob Arum's Top Rank Boxing and De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions and was aired live on pay-per-view (PPV) on HBO PPV. The fight is notable for propelling Manny Pacquiao to full-blown superstar status in much of the western world, as Oscar De La Hoya symbolically "passed the torch", so to speak, to Pacquiao.
Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán, commonly known as Canelo, is a Mexican professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in four weight classes from light middleweight to light heavyweight, including unified titles in three of those weight classes and lineal titles in two. Álvarez is the first and only boxer in history to become undisputed champion at super middleweight, having held the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC) and Ring magazine titles since 2020, and the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) titles since 2021.
UBS Group AG is a multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres as the largest Swiss banking institution and the largest private bank in the world. UBS client services are known for their strict bank–client confidentiality and culture of banking secrecy. Because of the bank's large positions in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific markets, the Financial Stability Board considers it a global systemically important bank.
Sergio Pietro Ermotti is a Swiss manager and investment banker. In April 2021, Ermotti was elected Chairman of Swiss Re, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, succeeding Walter Kielholz. He was the Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UBS Group AG from November 2011 to October 2020 and regained that position in 2023. He is also a board member of the Institute of International Finance.
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Diego de la Hoya Villegas is a Mexican professional boxer who held the WBC-NABF and WBO-NABO super bantamweight titles between 2017 and 2019. As an amateur he represented Mexico, winning the 2011 Mexican National Championships and competing at the 2012 Youth World Championships. He is the cousin of former boxer Oscar De La Hoya.
Joe Joyce is a British professional boxer. He held the World Boxing Organization (WBO) interim heavyweight title from 2022 to 2023. At regional level, he has held multiple heavyweight championships, including the Commonwealth title twice between 2018 and 2021; the British title from 2020 to 2022; and the European title from 2020 to 2021.
Qais Ashfaq is a British professional boxer. As an amateur, Ashfaq competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics as well as winning a silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Ryan Garcia is an American professional boxer. He held the World Boxing Council (WBC) interim lightweight title in 2021. As of May 2023, he is ranked as the world's fourth-best active lightweight by The Ring magazine, seventh-best by BoxRec, eighth-best by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and the sixth-best active junior welterweight by ESPN..
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