Comments Thread For: Here's Why Lampley's Attack on PBC Amounts To HBO Hypocrisy

[SteveM]

I for one want it to succeed. I want boxing on free tv. Don't give a crap who gets it done or how it gets done.

Me too - but I do care that what has happened to a bunch of very promising fighters is many of them are fighting only once or max twice a year. Boxing is not in a great state in the USA because as a casual you can't follow a fighter ( or even maintain interest) in somebody who boxes once a year and when they do fight its often a mismatch or ends too quickly.

[KnockoutKings]

Don't have the probem with the piece but how did Haymon or his guys not know that putting up boxing against prime time college football would not work? even dumbasses behind computer screens know thats not a good idea.

the article is based on a lot of what ifs. its assuming that PBC got their crap together. we'll see but its just as much speculation as everything else

[Motorcity Cobra]

At least now we know who Keith Idec works for. Nice apologist article. Somehow Al Haymon is to be forgiven for ruining the all important first impression for new boxing fans with his PBC, and throwing away the first two years and a majority of his venture capital?

How does Boxingscene allow such a biased PBC cheerleading apologist to post his slander here?

Shake the haters off Keith!!!

My Lampley column has been up on @boxingscene but a couple hours. Been accused of working for Haymon. You can't fix stupid, I suppose

— Keith Idec (@Idecboxing) October 8, 2016

[Ake-Dawg]

Me too - but I do care that what has happened to a bunch of very promising fighters is many of them are fighting only once or max twice a year. Boxing is not in a great state in the USA because as a casual you can't follow a fighter ( or even maintain interest) in somebody who boxes once a year and when they do fight its often a mismatch or ends too quickly.

Agreed. The question is how much of that lies squarely on the shoulders of PBC? I mean how much of the lack of top match making and big fights has been due to GBP and Top Rank suing Haymon? How much of it is due to fighters being afraid to test themselves without receiving top dollar. That issue seems to run across the promotions and networks.

[KnockoutKings]

Agreed. The question is how much of that lies squarely on the shoulders of PBC? I mean how much of the lack of top match making and big fights has been due to GBP and Top Rank suing Haymon? How much of it is due to fighters being afraid to test themselves without receiving top dollar. That issue seems to run across the promotions and networks.

is that not due to haymon's relationship to them? he took all of oscar's fighters lol and bob and haymon didn't want to work together at the time. some people were saying he didn't need them with this huge roster.

as for fighters not wanting to test themselves without big money, is that not what PBC created? Guys making good money, taking safe fights? that's what the majority of PBC fights have been. As a fighter, you can't blame them for taking a good deal but sucks for fans.

[Ake-Dawg]

is that not due to haymon's relationship to them? he took all of oscar's fighters lol and bob and haymon didn't want to work together at the time. some people were saying he didn't need them with this huge roster.

as for fighters not wanting to test themselves without big money, is that not what PBC created? Guys making good money, taking safe fights? that's what the majority of PBC fights have been. As a fighter, you can't blame them for taking a good deal but sucks for fans.

I can't say that PBC solely created the lack of fighters desire to test themselves. In my few years of living I've learned that it's rarely just one person or entity's fault.

[OnePunch]

At least now we know who Keith Idec works for. Nice apologist article. Somehow Al Haymon is to be forgiven for ruining the all important first impression for new boxing fans with his PBC, and throwing away the first two years and a majority of his venture capital?

Keith honestly you seem to forget it's not even just the last two years of mismatches. Haymon operated the same way, giving an awful product, even before PBC, back when he had free reign at HBO and Showtime! He is on a five-year plus streak of ruining the sport and offering boxing fans awful value on every platform. His star client, Floyd Mayweather, is likewise known for manipulating the "business" to his own gain, at the expense of the sport, not for it. But you think Haymon deserves more benefit of the doubt in terms of growing the sport?

Haymon has been given free reign opportunities at every major channel, at every level, over the last decade. HBO. Showtime. HBO PPV. Showtime PPV. Fox. NBC. ESPN. CBS. Bounce. Spike. And for the better part of a decade, at every level, he has made mismatch after mismatch, tuneup after tuneup, soft touch after soft touch. He claims to care about fighter safety, but matches his hardest hitters, his most dangerous fighters like Wilder, with no-hopers who have no power to defend themselves with and get battered around the ring.

His star client, likewise, claims to care about boxer safety, but runs the "doghouse" in his own gym!

We've had the better part of a decade, and many different channels of work, and millions of dollars worth of his product, to judge. I'm done giving the man the benefit of the doubt. I think I know what he and Floyd Mayweather promotions are about: mismatches and hypocrisy.

Keith, your attitude seems to be to tell boxing fans, Haymon has stiffed you for over five years, but THIS year, it's going to be different! He understands now that competitive fights sell!

Why didn't he understand that from the beginning lol? And if he understands that, why have both Andre Berto and apparently John Molina been deemed too dangerous for Danny Garcia to fight next, let alone Keith Thurman? He just had a tuneup!

I remember when Sam Watson said last year would be the year everyone would have to fight each other. How did the work out lol?

Keith, if you want your journalistic reputation and credibility to go the same way as the majority of Al Haymon's venture capital trust fund, you can keep trying to sell more promises that have proved worthless in the past. But the truth is, Al Haymon and many of his star clients have a track record of avoiding and delaying good matchups. Until he proves that has changed with the actual product he puts forth, rather than more empty promises, he deserves the reputation he has earned. Until his "A-side" fighters start fighting his other "A-side" fighters not once every two years, not once a year, but at minimum twice a year, preferably in back-to-back fights to build momentum, his product will continue to deserve the reputation it has.

If he really wanted to deliver a good product, this is what he would have done from the beginning:

- "A-sides" fight "A-sides" in January and February
- Winners who take little damage fight in May-June. Winners who take damage fight tuneup in May-June. Losers take tuneups on undercards in May-June.

- Double-winning "A-side" fighters fight each other in matchups that have built up that year with momentum in September-October. Double-winning A-side-then-tuneup "A-side" fighters fight each other, or the double-winning A-side fights "A-side" fighters who don't have a respective dance partner. Losers who got back in winning bracket with tuneups mid-year fight each other.

Then the next year:

- In January-February, triple-winning "A-side" fighters fight big new names on the scene like Errol Spence or Artur Beterbiev types, or fight other triple-winners, or whoever is hot. Winners of the prior year's fall loser bracket fights can likewise earn another shot, while the double losers from the year before need to go back to the drawing board and actually get better in order to be capable of fighting in high level matchups, otherwise they should be replaced on the TV cards by new names who can, rather than carried along on TV and hyped up for main event after main event like Robert Guerrero has been, even though he hasn't won a single big fight in like five years and therefore is not an interesting opponent for fans at the top level.

That's been a big problem with Al Haymon.

Anyway, you just keep going like that. Everyone fights three times a year. So long as you don't take big punishment in one fight, you keep fighting top names in your next fight immediately until you do take punishment. Then you take a tuneup next to recover, or take a break, before going back to fighting a big opponent. You fight three fights a year, either 1. big fight, 2. big fight, 3. big fight (if no punishment), or 1. big fight, 2. tuneup, 3. big fight, or you fight twice, 1. big fight, then rest (if punishment), then 2. big fight. Some years your big fights are beginning of year and end of year, sometimes you only have one in a given calender year mid-year, but then you have another in January or February, and then again in May or in the fall, so you always have two fights vs top opponents within any 12 month period, and at least three within a 15-18 month period, sometimes even four if you're so good you can avoid punishment in every big fight.

That is the way to do it. It's more taxing on the fighters, but that's why you schedule based on whether they take punishment or not, not just arbitrarily. And in exchange, much more momentum is created, the purses and interest will start to go up with that momentum, and eventually the money will be worth the extra tax on the fighters once it's built up, but you can't build something up simply through avoidance. You have to do it, you have to build it, and the rewards don't always come at the beginning, sometimes you have to do it first, then the rewards come as you're building it, not before.

But again, Haymon and most of his spoiled staple have shown no track record of doing this in the past, and no interest in doing this in the future, so until they prove they actually care about the fans, about fighting the best, and about growing the sport, I can only go by their actions, which have been the opposite. So far most of them only seem to care about getting paid to fight the easiest opposition possible that the networks will accept and the sanctioning bodies with sanction, at the direct expense of the sport, rather than growing it. It's like Floyd Mayweather said, he doesn't care that he waited too long to make Mayweather-Pacquiao and that the resulting subpar product turned off many fans from boxing for an entire generation.

All he cares about is that ducking the fight for so long increased his personal purse, and made the competition much easier for him. And that seems to be the secret goal of most of these PBC fighters, doing what is best for them at the direct expense of the sport and the fans.

That's why these biased PBC fans aren't living in reality when they talk about growing the sport. PBC fighters or trainers like Angel Garcia have come out directly and said it. Why fight Keith Thurman, which the fans want, and grow the sport, when you can fight Rod Salka and get paid for it? Does that sound like the attitude of someone who cares about growing the sport?

No, it's someone who cares about themselves. Not that you can blame Angel for that, but it's supposed to be Haymon's job, by following supply and demand, to not offer them money to fight opponents no one wants to see them fight. But Haymon has continued to do that which suggests he does not care about growing the sport, either.

The only thing PBC fans can say is that he cares about the fighters at least, but if you watched Rod Salka's head get spun backwards in that fight, then you know Haymon's strategy is not protecting the fighters, either, just his fighters, which comes as a result of exponential danger to his fighters' opponents. The only way to completely protect one fighter, with power, using matchmaking is to match them with someone who is too soft-punching to adequately protect themselves. And that's what most Haymon matches seem to amount to.

Until that five-year-plus track record of Al Haymon changes, I have no reason to believe the promises of Keith Idec any more than people were right to believe Sam Watson's promise of great matchmaking in 2015. In this case, seeing is believing, especially when everything we've seen from Haymon for over five years is the exact opposite of what Keith Idec promises for 2017 in this article.

This post is brilliant and you should email it to BPP and have him run it as a feature story........

[Ray*]

Shake the haters off Keith!!!

My Lampley column has been up on @boxingscene but a couple hours. Been accused of working for Haymon. You can't fix stupid, I suppose

— Keith Idec (@Idecboxing) October 8, 2016

Lmaooooooooooooooo.

[JASON SHAW]

This alcoholic woman beater is bitter because pbc destroyed hbo hahahahha! Hbold is on its last legs and this drunk woman beater cant stand it hahahahahah........

[JASON SHAW]

they're still doing much better than the competition. Showtime ratings are shocking. Lampley has always been a company man, that's his role, of course he'll gloat some

pbc has had the highest watched fight in 2016! So hbo is not doing better! Hbo's budget has gone down every year since haymon left that rat ship