ESPN could return for more boxing
bouts in Marksville

By Randy Benson
(318) 487-6431

Taylor Smith/For The Town Talk
Louisiana College student Jeremy Treme holds a boom mike ringside Friday night during the ESPN2 telecast of Friday Night Fights from the Paragon Casino in Marksville. ESPN officials said they could look to Marksville to host future telecasts.

MARKSVILLE -- Boxing from Central Louisiana could become regular feature on ESPN.

Officials from the cable network raved over the weekend about the facilities at Paragon Casino Resort, which was the host of ESPN2's live broadcast of "Friday Night Fights."

"This could become a destination of choice for us," said Wayne Nelson, technical operations producer for the series.

A sold-out crowd of 2,200 watched Friday night's bouts in The Mari Showroom.

"I promote fights all over the world. This is as nice a venue as I have ever seen," said Leon Margules, executive director of Seminole Warriors Boxing, which was the co-promoter of Friday's event along with Keep Punching Entertainment of Lafayette.

"The size of the room is perfect," Margules said. "It's a great atmosphere and it films well. It films like it is a bigger room.

"The guy in the last row here has a seat that would cost $1,000 at a Las Vegas Casino."

"This is a great facility," said Rob Beiner, producer of Friday Night Fights. "It's configured perfectly for boxing."

That is not by accident.

"I knew we were going to be doing boxing," said Mark Jeffers, director of entertainment at Paragon. "That was taken into account when the room was designed."

Friday's boxing show was the first televised boxing card from the Mari Showroom, which opened in March 2007 as part of a $100 million expansion project at the casino.

Boxing always has been in the casino's marketing and entertainment plans, Jeffers said. ESPN and USA Network each had televised one show from the old Mari Center, which was replaced by the showroom when the Tunica-Biloxi tribe expanded the facility.

"The Tunica-Biloxi tribe is pleased to provide quality sporting events in Paragon's new Mari Showroom," tribal chairman Earl Barbry said. "We look forward to a continuation or our productive relationship with ESPN2 in hosting future Friday Night Fights at Paragon."

Promoter Mickey Daigle and her husband, Kerry, director of boxing for Keep Punching Entertainment, have had a long relationship with Paragon.

"We wanted to take it to another level with this (Friday's) show," Kerry Daigle said. "I think we did that."

Daigle and Margules spent weeks negotiating the complicated deal that brought ESPN to Marksville. It will be an easier sale in the future, Margules said.

"The main thing is that ESPN has been here now," Margules said. "If we want to do an ESPN show in, say June, we can call them up and they will know exactly what they're getting into. Their only concern will be who is fighting."

In the end, who's fighting matters most of all, Beiner said. It is the quality of the fights that attract the network.

"We're going to make things happen," Daigle said. "We're going to give them the right fights. We're just starting to warm up."

ESPN's Beiner will be happy to return.

"The only thing this place has against it is that it is in the middle of nowhere," he said. "We don't mind going to nowhere as long as when we get there it's somewhere."