Championship Parties
True story: Jeremy Williams had his championship comeback fight called off at the last minute over a variety of venue and purse disagreements. The sanctioning body then gave his camp a time limit to make a new, approvable title fight happen. To reorganize and pull things off in the small amount of time was a long shot. Something fantastical had to happen fast.
Searching for a unique angle: It was determined that as long as all the official fight criteria were met, the bout didn't necessarily have to take place in a public arena or stadium. And it wasn't necessary for individuals to pay $s per ticket. If someone wanted to cover the whole thing, they could theoretically host the event in their back yard and pay the purse themselves.
Timing-wise: It was Hollywood at holiday time. Thought was to create something exciting & memorable for big-shot actors, agents or visiting royalty to serve up at their over the top parties.
Making it happen: Had access to the top-tier fighters and boxing insiders who could get all the licenses and title accreditations necessary.
The idea -
From ridiculous to real: To help make people believe this was really a thing, felt the Championship Parties concept needed some sort of official endorsement.
An extra degree of weird: Owned the Website NicholsonEntertainment.com and occasionally used the email JACQUES for random digital outreaches.
Jacque'd it like it's hot: Hit the Send button on my promotional thoughts about 1am with the hope they'd check it out because the Subject Line: 'Championship Parties' coming from Jacques@NicholsonEntertainment might seem oddly interesting. As luck would have it, Thrillist had just started a series called Skeptical Investigational intended to expose Online fakery.
Early the next morning: Danced the dance (💯 as Jacques) for an in-depth phone call to discuss the 'real-ness' of Championship Parties with the Thrillist investigative reporter.
The real deal: Next day, Thrillist published their report (below) and deemed Championship Parties credible.