By Rick Reeno

In one of the more eye-opening stories to circulate the wagons among insiders, numerous sources have told MaxBoxing/BoxingScene.com that HBO is whispering in the ear of Roy Jones Jr. to bring on Golden Boy Promotions as his partner for the proposed September 20th pay-per-view against Joe Calzaghe.

While some UK media outlets have issued reports that Golden Boy will be involved with the show, sources close to Square Ring [Jones' promotional company] have denied Golden Boy's involvement with the event, but refused to comment when asked about HBO maneuvering to get Golden Boy involved with the show.

Most promoters are already convinced that HBO's playing field is one-sided in the direction of Oscar De La Hoya's promotional company. Many insiders find the information disturbing. One writer called it a "sign of things to come in the industry."  

Several weeks ago, Thomas Hauser penned a revealing feature on the long-term output deal that HBO is on the verge of signing with Golden Boy. Basically, the deal would guarantee for Golden Boy that HBO will buy a certain number of fights for a certain number of dates. The multi-year deal would give Golden Boy a significant advantage over their competition. The deal would certainly influence fighters to sign with Golden Boy.

HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg defended the proposed deal to Hauser. 

“There’s no advantage given to Golden Boy here. None. We expect to do a lot of business with them in the future because they’ve given us plenty of quality over the years. But it’s ridiculous to say that we’d sacrifice the quality of HBO boxing by giving too much power to one promoter or enter into an agreement that would interfere with the ability of other promoters to bring their best fighters to HBO.”

One promoter who conducts regular business with HBO, and also heard the rumors of the network steering to involve Golden Boy with Jones-Calzaghe, was not surprised with industry chatter.

"It's the same bullsh*t with Ross kissing up to Oscar De La Hoya. Golden Boy has a pay-per-view one week before the Jones-Calzaghe date. Two pay-per-views in such a short window is going to hurt both shows, but the Marquez-Casamayor card will take the bigger hit. The economy is bad. People are not going to purchase two $50 dollar pay-per-views. What better way to stay on Oscar's good side than getting his company involved with the other guy's event."

The proposed back-to-back pay-per-view layout makes absolutely no business sense from a marketing and scheduling standpoint. If HBO wanted to make a safe play, they would redirect one of the shows to another date or make one event a non-pay-per-view attraction. I have a hunch that one of those cards will not step on the pay-per-view platform, at least on HBO. It's going to be tough to keep either event from landing on pay-per-view unless HBO puts up the right kind of money. Getting the right kind of money is going to be tough for the network when considering the numbers they spent on De La Hoya-Forbes, which became a total loss [in the opinion of many] when Mayweather announced his retirement.

One well-known manager doesn't see Golden Boy's event being pulled off the network's pay-per-view arm. It wouldn't surprise him, or anyone else, if Jones-Calzaghe became an independent pay-per-view or migrated over to Showtime.

"Who are they going to say no to, De La Hoya or Jones? It's no secret, what Golden Boy wants at HBO, Golden Boy gets at HBO. A prime example is the Kelly Pavlik-Jermain Taylor rematch. HBO refused to put up enough money to keep it off pay-per-view. Lou DiBella and Top Rank were forced to put it on pay-per-view, but they [HBO] throw money to Golden Boy for a mismatch between Oscar De La Hoya and Steve Forbes. They spent millions to buy a tuneup for a [Mayweather] rematch that wasn't even signed. And they got burned in the end. They got burned. HBO would never agree to such a deal with any other promoter."