Markus Sundman has found out that there is no room for blue eyes in the boxing business.
- Markus Sundman had no experience in boxing management at all when he was asked to join Helenius’ team.
- The first big match went down for ridiculous reasons.
- Sundman says that in the boxing business you have to trust people, but you can’t be careless.
The phone had been hot for half a year. In the end, everything seemed to be okay.
Markus Sundman had negotiated the first big match of his managerial career to Robert Helenius.
– Seven days before the match, I went fishing with my children. Then the call came that the match had been cancelled. The reasons were ridiculous.
– As a novice, I hadn’t considered negotiating collateral. We were already ready to fight. The camps had cost tens of thousands of euros, and the sparring participants were still in Åland. They were sent home the next day, Sundman recalls.
It was a hard lesson.
Sundman, who was quite successful in business life, jumped into the unknown in 2016 when he became the manager of Helenius.
He had no previous experience in boxing management.
Sundman has to arrange his words a little carefully, and cannot bring up names. But when the first big fight was cancelled, he noticed exactly why there are so many warnings about the behind-the-scenes game in professional boxing.
– You can’t afford to be blue-eyed, and you can’t trust all the talk.
Night calls
Markus Sundman (left), Robert Helenius’ confidant, jumped into the unknown when he started working as a boxing manager in 2016. Jussi Eskola
Sundman, who is from Sipoo, has lived in Åland for twenty years. He got to know Helenius for the first time at the wrestling gym.
Sundman started with Thai boxing and added freestyle and lock wrestling to his range of sports. In the first two, amateur matches were also accumulated for the belt.
Also Helenius’ coach With Johan Lindström has a freestyle background, and Sundman knew him even better.
– “Robba” and Johan started to have too much work to do alone, so they asked me to join them.
The 41-year-old Sundman describes himself as a multitasker in the business world. He has run a restaurant business, owns a grocery store and works behind the scenes at the Rockoff festival.
Boxing management is not done from eight in the morning until the afternoon.
– Of course, I had time to do a lot more than just boxing. Management takes only certain hours of the day. The work is often such that after one message or phone call, you only expect the conversation to continue for hours or even days.
– Sometimes you have to be on the phone late into the night. The conversation is often quite heated, and it requires patience. You can’t react every time the way you want, but you have to be a little calm. Fortunately, I can actually sleep whenever I want, Sundman laughs.
Raw business
Helenius’ team is personified by three people: the boxer himself, manager Markus Sundman and coach Johan Lindström (front). Jussi Eskola
Sleep will be needed. You can’t manage with dim lights.
When dealing with a name like Helenius, there are huge sums of money involved in negotiations. The athlete trusts his entire career in the hands of the Manager.
At the same time, the professional boxing business is raw at the top. Millionaire promoters, TV companies and the sports power federations only pursue their own financial interests at the negotiation table.
– The head has to be really sharp in this job. If something goes wrong, you have to remember to calm down and wait a quarter of an hour before continuing to fix it.
Can you even trust anyone at the top of professional boxing?
– Yes, you can, you really have to. But you have to be careful. Negotiations are even easier when it comes to a name as well-known as Helenius. You just have to find the people you can trust.
That’s what Sundman has done. He picked up the phone and over the years has created his contacts himself. In the beginning, he also received help from a few more experienced Finnish managers.
– Yes, the world probably knows me somehow. I have talked with all the big promoters at least at some point. After all, the circles are quite small.