On Tuesday, billionaire Carl Icahn announced he had sold the unfinished Fontainebleau resort in Las Vegas for $600 million, quadrupling his money in seven years. Just up the Las Vegas strip a few weeks earlier, in June, Golden Entertainment said it had agreed to buy the Stratosphere resort for $850 million from Goldman Sachs.
These summer deals for the Fontainebleau and Stratosphere show Icahn at his best and are a reminder that while many people go to Las Vegas to gamble, Icahn has been enormously successful playing his own game, betting on the booms and busts of Las Vegas that have humbled other big players.
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One of the greatest deals Icahn ever made was for the Stratosphere resort, a hotel-casino that includes the nation’s tallest freestanding observation tower. The vision of Bob Stupak and located north of the Las Vegas Strip, the Stratosphere opened in 1996 and by the winter of 1997 it was in bankruptcy court.
Icahn took control of the situation by buying big chunks of the Stratosphere’s debt for pennies on the dollar, becoming its biggest creditor. He purchased the Stratosphere out of bankruptcy court in 1998 and eventually bought out the minority shareholders, too.
But he didn’t stop there. Icahn bought 17 acres of vacant land surrounding the hotel, tracking down the owners of individual homes and properties, many of them abandoned in what was then an economically depressed part of town. Some observers thought Icahn had lost his mind. After picking up some other casino assets like Las Vegas’ Arizona Charlie’s, Icahn’s Vegas bet all-in totaled about $300 million.
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As Bob Stupak had envisioned, Las Vegas boomed and tourists found their way up the Las Vegas Strip to the Stratosphere. With the credit markets flowing, Icahn sold the Stratosphere assets for $1.3 billion to Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Street Real Estate Fund in 2007 at the top of the market cycle. Goldman Sachs’ lending arm funded the deal with lots of debt and the land Icahn had purchased around the Stratosphere was the key to the deal that closed on the eve of the financial crisis. Icahn made $1 billion in profits. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Nathan Vardi</a>, FORBES STAFF

How Carl Icahn Made $1.4 Billion Playing The Booms And Busts Of Las Vegas

At dusk on this warm evening, Phillip ‘The Time Bomb’ Ndou was ready to go off.  In a red gown with white flowing frills, he felt like a king. He danced his way to the ring with the chutzpah of a boxer at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. But this was Thohoyandou, in rural Limpopo, in South Africa, 500 kilometers north of Johannesburg and a million miles from the rest of the world. Through a cacophony of ululations and chants in Tshivenda, Ndou stepped into the ring for the first time in his hometown after a lifetime as a professional.
Boxing fans journeyed from Johannesburg for this fight that is in the heart of the Venda people. People from these parts are accustomed to a different type of boxing, called musangwe, hosted by the Venda king in Gaba Village, near Thohoyandou, every December. Musangwe is tough bare-knuckle boxing with no weigh-in restrictions. This is where Ndou landed his first punch as a young boy growing up in Golgotha Section, a few kilometers from Thohoyandou.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4122" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Boxing-217-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“I have always wanted to fight at home but that never happened for almost 20 years. My manager and promoter, Promise [Moyo], made it possible for me to live my dream,”
says Ndou.
Moyo, a civil servant for 15 years, is now the director of Skylon Promotions that promotes Ndou and four other professional boxers.
“Here is the man with 40 fights but he never fought in front of his people as a professional. His mother, Margaret Nemukula, couldn’t believe it was really happening since there had been many speculations that Phillip is fighting at home but those ended up in disappointments,” says Moyo.
When it happened, it was worth it. The 38-year-old former South African WBA and international WBC junior lightweight champion sent the crowd into a frenzy, at Thohoyandou Town Hall, as he knocked down the Tanzanian slugger, Ramadhani Shauri, in the fourth round. Referee Grace Mahosi ended the eight-round bout when Ndou floored the 23-year-old Shauri for the second time, seconds later. All night, the visitor showed scant respect for Ndou. Against Ndou’s fervent supporters, Shauri had only his trainer Yassin Abaallaa and stablemate Lulu Kayage, a female fighter who won earlier against Lillian Mphahlele, for company.
On August 9, Women’s Day in South Africa to remember a march on parliament in 1956, Ndou’s win was a fitting celebration for his mother. She was in the crowd, with other women from their village. They dressed in colorful Venda traditional clothing to watch their son fighting at home for the first time.
It was a journey that led him in a wide circle. Ndou turned professional after boxing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, where he lost to Somluck Kamsing of Thailand, who won gold.
Another world title-holder, Ledwaba was in his corner. Ledwaba lost his IBF bantamweight belt to Manny Pacquiao, who stood in as a last minute replacement.
“It was not an easy fight, Ramadhani can crack… I didn’t struggle, but I didn&#8217;t know him so I had to read him first. I know my people don&#8217;t want to see me standing on the ropes, but when I&#8217;m on the ropes I&#8217;m more dangerous. From here, I am challenging for the IBF title. I want to say thank you very much to mothers, to the fans, to my promoter,” says Ndou.
This was Ndou’s fifth win on the trot. He is the only African to have fought undefeated world champion Floyd Mayweather. He lost to Mayweather in 2003, at Grand Rapids in Michigan, in the United States. That night, Ndou was ill advised by his trainer Nick Durandt that Mayweather was a coward who would run if hit.
This has been a long comeback from a brain injury Ndou sustained in 2004. It was so bad that a doctor, and Durandt, advised him to stop boxing. In 2009, Ndou was back, knocking out a Frenchman Rachid Drilzane in France. He lost to his cousin, Lovemore Ndou, who is now based in Australia, a few months later in Johannesburg.
Back in Thohoyandou, Abaallaa says his boxer’s loss was down to a lucky punch. He commended Ndou’s experience in surviving Ramadhani’s barrage of punches.
“I would like a rematch because I believe Ndou used his experience to win, he was out-performed – he is not a good boxer that can make us fear him, there’s nothing left in him&#8230; you were all quiet from round one to the third. But the lucky punch in the fourth round changed the course of the fight,” says Abaallaa.
But Abaallaa’s wish is unlikely. Ndou has set his sights on the International Boxing Federation Continental African title against Kenyan James Onyango Omogo, in December. Omogo is three years younger than Ndou and has battled through 30 fights.
Ndou may have danced into the ring, but he took many head and body blows from the youthful Ramadhani that he couldn’t dodge, at times he looked his age and a bit slow.
It’s been 12 years and scores of grueling fights since Ndou and Mayweather traded blows in Michigan. They have one thing in common. They both think they have one fight left in their wobbly legs.
Theirs is a story of how cruel the fight game is. Mayweather cruises through life on his millions, Ndou scrapes by at Thohoyandou Town Hall for his next pay check. It’s hard to believe they were both up and coming princes who once shared the same ring.

The Hero  Who Danced With Mayweather And Death Returns Home

A few weeks before Floyd Mayweather swaggered into the ring in Las Vegas, a forgotten centenary slipped by that lends context to the struggle of the black man.
On April 5, 1915, the first ever black heavyweight champion of the world lost his title after 26 brutal rounds at a racetrack in Havana, Cuba. It was the end of a remarkable story of pride, skill and refusal to back down in the face of cruel and repulsive racism. Each of his stirring fights was punctuated by a torrent of vile abuse – mostly in the United States, the self-proclaimed land of the free – that would have made a neo-Nazi blush.
They called Jack Johnson, the son of a slave from Texas, the Galveston Giant, for he was every inch so. He was over six foot, with a broad chest that looked chiselled out of mahogany; he bowed for no man and boxed into his 60s. Out of the ring, Johnson was a flamboyant man about town who smoked huge cigars, drank champagne, dressed in the finest suits and drove expensive cars at a time when most of the world was walking.
In the ring, Johnson was a supreme mover and technical genius that few could lay a glove on. He started each fight with beguiling ease, as if he was kidding his opponent to death, in the words of his biographer Geoffrey C. Ward in his book Unforgivable Blackness. As the rounds went by the punching power would grow steadily, with lurking devastating uppercuts that threatened to rip off a boxer’s head.
This was how Johnson won his world title in Sydney, Australia, the day after Christmas in 1908. The fact there was an unofficial color bar in boxing makes the title win ever more remarkable. For two years, Johnson haunted the corner of the heavyweight title holder Canadian Tommy Burns. As corner men towelled Burns down, after another victory, Johnson shouted from ringside that Burns was no champion until he had fought him. Yes, these things happened before Don King was even thought of.
Money twisted the arm of Burns, who said many times he would never fight a black man. Greed and money had always ruled boxing.
Round after round, in Sydney, Burns, who had power but little sense, insulted Johnson’s race and called him a coward as he charged. Johnson smiled and taunted back.
“Poor little Tommy, who told you you were a fighter?” joked Johnson.
“This is what is known as a left hook, Tommy,” before stepping and letting fly with a bone-shuddering left.
In the 14th round, as Johnson hammered Burns to the floor, there came press censorship. Legend has it that the police ordered the camera to stop filming during the knockout. Certainly, the edited footage cuts out the moment when Burns hit the canvas; it was deemed unseemly to show a black man victorious over a white.
Despite this, Johnson landed a resounding blow for the black man in Sydney. Sadly, in the United States (US), angry lynch mobs murdered more than 20 innocent black men, in racial retribution.
Johnson defended his title eight times in six and a half years. The tirade against him grew as the newspapers made a meal of his lavish lifestyle and relationships with white women. The man himself, one of the greatest boxers ever to lace up a pair of gloves, didn’t give a damn.
The great man’s reign also gave rise to the phrase: the ‘great white hope’ for any boxer attempting to wrest the title back from black hands. One of them, former heavyweight champion James J Jeffries, came out of retirement on US Independence Day, July 4, 1910. Trains carried thousands to the fight, in Reno, Nevada, that could have doubled as a Nuremburg rally. Guns weren’t allowed because the organizers thought someone was going to shoot Johnson. The crowd satisfied itself by firing racist insults throughout.
Johnson had the last laugh, pummelling Jeffries to the floor, earning $121,000, in modern money a sum near the amount for the Mayweather fight. He drove to pick up the money, in cash, from a nearby diner on the way home.
The end came in Havana just over 100 years ago. A hard right hand from Jess Willard, the Pottawatomie Giant, in the 26th round knocked Johnson to the canvas. Age, heat and exhaustion had caught up; there were whispers Johnson had thrown the fight for money. Maybe, maybe not?
Either way, Johnson never wore the crown again and his life ended on a sad note of bathos; the Galveston Giant died, aged 67, when his car hit a telegraph pole. He had driven away angrily from a North Carolina diner after yet more discrimination against the color of his skin.
The centenary is maybe time to pause and think. One hundred years on, from Johnson to Mayweather, the world of boxing may have cleaned up its act, but has the world?

The Giant  Who Laughed  In The Face Of Racism

As Floyd Mayweather earned a massive $41.5 million from his most recent fight against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in Las Vegas, South African Phillip Ndou, who fought him a decade ago, was preparing to fight a nobody in Namibia for $4,544. One fighter on the crest of a triumphant wave; the other beached and struggling with a painful comeback. Both connected, and divided, by the outcome of one fight.
Rarely in sport has there been such a yawning gap in fortunes. Mayweather and Ndou, both 36, stand at opposite ends of the boxing scale. Mayweather has fought 45 times with 26 knockouts and remains undefeated. He is a world champion in five divisions and holds eight titles.
<div id="attachment_2342" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2342" class="size-medium wp-image-2342" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/119037604-300x223.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="223" />Floyd Mayweather throws a right hand at Phillip Ndou early in the WBC lightweight championship fight. (Photo by Matthew Mitchell/Getty Images)</div>
Ndou, known as ‘Time Bomb’, has been sidelined by a brain injury he suffered in 2004. He is now trying to scrape his way back to his former glory.
On November 1, 2003, Ndou and Mayweather stood as equals, toe-to-toe for a WBC lightweight title fight in Michigan, United States. Big puncher Ndou was the hope of Africa that night, but Mayweather knocked him out in the seventh round. Mayweather earned $3 million and Ndou $250,000.
On the night Mayweather beat Alvarez for the WBC and WBA light-middleweight titles, Ndou was watching on television. The South African knew Mayweather would win.
“When I fought him he was not this experienced. Our mistake was we went out to prove a point, which is the weakness Mayweather capitalized on,” says Ndou.
The loss to Mayweather resulted in fading fortunes for Ndou. Seven months later, Ndou lost again to fellow countryman Isaac Hlatshwayo. He collapsed minutes after the fight.
Doctors ruled Ndou unfit to box after a brain scan. The former South African and WBA International featherweight champion, and WBU and WBC international junior lightweight champion, was forced to retire at the young age of 27.
The years after that defeat were spent in the wilderness of television commentary and a cameo in a local soap opera Muvhango. In a role scripted for him, Ndou played a boxing trainer in a club named after him—Time Bomb. That was as near to acclaim as it got for him.
Television brought instant money but a return to the ring took five years.
“I appreciated what people offered to keep me going and [help me] earn a living. But, I am an entertainer in the boxing ring; I missed my days of boxing.”
Ndou returned to the sport in February, 2009, defeating Frenchman, Rachid Drilzane, on a technical knockout in Saint-Quentin, France.
Under a new trainer, Bernie Pailman, Ndou is pursuing a strong comeback. He beat Pius Dipheko in June, climbing to fourth place in the South African welterweight ranking.
“I remain the only pound-for-pound titlist in Africa. I am on a mission to claim my former glory back. I will be a world champion again. I know I have it in me. Thirty six is just a number. I still have many more years [left in the ring],” Ndou says.
“I have never been operated on or taken medication, but here I am. I am grateful to God. He has been there for me.”
In boxing, female managers are rare. Promise Moyo, who manages Ndou, is not going to let her gender get in her, or Ndou’s, way. She was previously a deputy director at a municipality before acquiring her boxing promotion license late last year.
Namibia’s HS Okungo Promotions contracted Ndou for two fights in Windhoek, one against little-known Pohamba Mandume, which he won in eight rounds. Ndou will return to the country in November to fight a contender that is yet to be announced.
“In the few months I have been with Phillip, we secured the Namibian contract and he is in line to challenge for the title. Things are shaping up,” says an upbeat Moyo.
Moyo says the amount of money Ndou earns for a fight is not that important, all they want is to secure more fights and then get him back to the level required for top-notch international bouts.
“The fight against Pius earned him R25,000 ($2,499) and now he is going to Namibia for R45,000 ($4,499), we don’t see things in money terms but the leverage he’s getting day-by-day,” says Moyo.
“Phillip is so disciplined. You can’t believe he is a three-time former champion. Since he’s joined the gym, he’s been consistent and behaved like a hungry student. He has shown commitment to my ground rules,” says Pailman.
Ndou has spent six months training with Pailman, who is known as one of the quietest, yet wisest men in the business.
“We come a long way. We both know what is expected of each other. I am here to learn and he’s the teacher. If you want to work with me, I am not a child anymore and should not be treated like one. I respect trainers who show respect to their boxers,” says Ndou.
“The Namibians can be a clean-up on our front door before going to look outside. But my benchmark for him is Kaizer Mabuza,” says Pailman.
Mabuza is a highly ranked South African who put up a good fight against American and former undisputed world champion, Zab Judah, two years ago. Mabuza lost by a technical knockout.
If Lady Luck smiles on Ndou, the former champion’s dream of fighting before his own people in Thohoyandou, in northern South Africa, for the first time since he turned professional in 1996, could be realized.
You could argue Ndou has done his fair share of the drudgery in the scullery of the fight game, through a beating from Mayweather and recovery from brain damage. If ever there was an African Cinderella, Ndou should surely go to the ball.

Cinderella Man and the  $41.5 Million Slugger

When he was young, Evander Holyfield’s dream was to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Considered too small for a heavyweight, some gave him no chance against the big guys of the time. So Holyfield went about it the correct way.
<div id="attachment_215" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-215" class="size-full wp-image-215" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/RTR1J8AF.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="1003" />Evander Holyfield</div>
First, he unified the Cruiserweight division by defeating the likes of Dwight Muhammad Qawi (WBA), Carlos De Leon (WBC) and Ossie Ocasio (IBF). That was when only the WBA, WBC and IBF world belts mattered. Nowadays, of course, we are talking about the alphabet soup; IBF, WBC, WBA, WBO, IBO, IBC, WBU, WBF and goodness knows what other titles are yet to emerge. The result is that in this day and age, it is pointless and meaningless for boxers to even think about being called undisputed world champions.
Holyfield then went about chasing his dream right from his first fight—a six-round victory over unknown journeyman, Lionel Byarm, at Madison Square Garden, New York in November 1984. He proved his worth as a heavyweight and earned his right to fight for the world heavyweight championship by defeating James Tillis, Pinklon Thomas, Michael Dokes, Adilson Rodrigues, Alex Stewart and Seamus McDonagh. He could and should have then faced the undefeated, undisputed heavyweight king of the time, Mike Tyson.
The only problem was James Buster Douglas knocked out Tyson in the 10th round in Tokyo to claim his title.
So it was Douglas that Holyfield faced and knocked out in the third round at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in October 1990 to be crowned the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world.
So then, what is Evander Holyfield talking about when he says he is still boxing because his goal is to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world? He is telling anybody and everybody who will listen, including me, that he continues to fight at the ripe age of 48 because he hasn’t reached his goal of being called “undisputed” champion. He says for as long as it takes to become the undisputed champion, he will continue to box. I gave up continuing this line of questioning when I realized I was not going to get anywhere.
Moving quickly along, next question: Do people ask him a lot about the infamous ear biting courtesy of Mike Tyson? This happened in June 1997 at the MGM Grand Las Vegas when Tyson, facing certain back-to-back defeat at the hands of Holyfield, took the easy way out when he got himself disqualified by biting off a piece of Evander’s ear, not once but twice. Holyfield’s answer to this question was a terse NO; no one asks him anymore about that fateful night these days, he says. Holyfield had to be rushed to hospital that night for doctors to attach a piece of his ear. Holyfield does say, though, he has forgiven Tyson and the two last met and spoke a year ago at a function.
Holyfield says he has no connections with Africa but has ambitions of fighting on the continent before finally hanging up his gloves. He thinks given resources and time, African boxing could be great.
In his twilight years, Holyfield has travelled the globe, fighting in Moscow in 2007, Switzerland in 2008, and Denmark in 2011. All his other fights, 57 in total, happened in the USA.
Without revealing much, Holyfield says he has enough business outside boxing and like most people, has lost money in the past in bad investments. He earns a lot from speeches and celebrity appearances.
Holyfield says sometimes he feels like boxing takes too much of his business time. But he loves who he is and still enjoys boxing, and wouldn’t swap careers for anything.
Another pugilist who appears to have had no problem leaving the ring and going into business is George Foreman, the man who lost his title to Muhammad Ali in the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa in 1974. Foreman has since made a fortune selling grills.
Holyfield says whereas he is happy for Foreman, he will still remain Evander Holyfield and does not wish to trade places with Big George. Holyfield beat Foreman on points in April 1999 when he defended his three titles.
All said and done, the man they call the Real Deal, despite fighting way past his sell-by date, will always have his place in boxing’s hall of fame. The only man to have won the biggest prize in boxing, the world heavyweight championship an unprecedented four times, he remains humble and professional. He never enters the ring less than 100% fit and always gives more than 100%.
For one so fit, incredibly, Holyfield was struck down by a heart attack in his mid-30s. He was told by the doctors he would never fight again.
Miraculously, his heart healed completely and he has boxed on, undeterred, for more than a decade.
Fighting spirit has driven Holyfield on. He hopes that big money deal to fight in Africa will come one day, but even for the tenacious Real Deal, time is surely running out.

Tag: Las Vegas

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

How Carl Icahn Made $1.4 Billion Playing The Booms And Busts Of Las Vegas

The Hero Who Danced With Mayweather And Death Returns Home

The Giant Who Laughed In The Face Of Racism

Cinderella Man and the $41.5 Million Slugger

The Real Deal — I Will Box In Africa Before The Final Bell