Pacquiao vs. Mosley might be headed to Showtime (PPV)???

Sources: CBS/Showtime secures fight By Dan Rafael E S P N. com In a seismic shift in the boxing business landscape, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum closed a deal with Showtime and sister network CBS to handle the pay-per-view fight between pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley -- instead of HBO -- multiple sources told ESPN.com on Friday. Pacquiao, boxing's biggest star, defends his welterweight title against former champ Mosley on May 7 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 KOs) and Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KOs) have never fought with Showtime's involvement and both have fought all of their numerous significant fights on HBO or HBO PPV. While HBO spokesman Ray Stallone said he was unaware who was doing Pacquiao-Mosley, he acknowledged that Arum had informed the network that it would not be involved. "It's a business decision. We move on," Stallone said. Arum would not confirm that Showtime and CBS were handling the fight. "Top Rank has no comment at this time," Arum told ESPN.com through spokesman Lee Samuels. Showtime spokesman Chris DeBlasio also said the network also had no comment. Arum, however, has been enamored with the possibility of CBS' involvement in the bout because of its massive reach. According to sources, part of the deal will include CBS promoting the fight by running commercial spots advertising the pay-per-view during prime time programming. Also in the works is a series of preview shows that would run on CBS, or possibly Showtime, which would be similar to HBO's hit reality series "24/7," which it uses to stoke interest with weekly episodes during the month leading up to major pay-per-view fights. Pacquiao and Mosley have both had fights featured on "24/7." Perhaps it's only a coincidence, but Arum recently struck a deal with Showtime to handle the production and distribution of the March 12 pay-per-view fight he is promoting between junior middleweight titlist Miguel Cotto and former titleholder Ricardo Mayorga. Arum turned to Showtime to get involved with Cotto-Mayorga because he is angry at HBO for turning down a live network fight between Cotto, long a network staple, and 2004 U.S. Olympian Vanes Martirosyan, especially because Cotto's fight against Yuri Foreman last summer generated the network's highest boxing rating of the year. Arum met with HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg for dinner earlier this week to discuss HBO's possible involvement in Pacquiao-Mosley while he was in New York for Wednesday's kickoff news conference to announce Cotto-Mayorga. Within the next couple of days, he closed the deal with Showtime/CBS. At one time, Showtime was a major player in the pay-per-view boxing business. It produced and distributed several cards headlined by Mike Tyson and Julio Cesar Chavez. For many years, it held the record for the best-selling pay-per-view, nearly 2 million for the Evander Holyfield-Tyson ear bite rematch in 1997. However, Showtime has drastically cut back in recent years, doing only the occasional pay-per-view. Despite Arum going to Showtime/CBS with Pacquiao-Mosley, he and HBO are still doing business together. Top Rank has two "Boxing After Dark" cards booked on HBO so far this year -- the Feb. 19 show headlined by bantamweight titlist Fernando Montiel against Nonito Donaire and a March 26 show headlined by featherweight titlist Yuriorkis Gamboa against Jorge Solis.

I knew it, it will have a huge effect for boxing in general, I just don't know if it's for the positive, or the other way around. It's unfortunate that the first 2 responses from this thread don't have a clue on what would the implications be, all they thought of was that the Pacquiao/Mosley fight is a stinker. Here's a follow-up: Quick Jabs Dan Rafael and others have been reporting this week that Showtime might carry the Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley pay-per-view in May, which at first appeared to me like more saber-rattling by promoter Bob Arum, who has been extremely critical of Showtime's much larger rival, HBO. Rick Reeno has put more flesh on it -- as well as getting some on-the-record remarks from Pacquiao adviser Michael Koncz, who it must be said has been known to speak out of school at times -- that makes the likelihood of the shift significantly more seismic and realistic. Under the deal, Showtime's parent CBS would air a 24/7 or Fight Camp 360-style documentary series in advance of the fight, which would return boxing (if not actual fights) to network television in a way it hasn't been in a long, long time. I'm not kidding. This could be huge. There's more for us to learn here before getting a sense of how huge -- In what time slot would the series air? Is Koncz jumping the gun? How would the public feel about Mosley's recent poor showings and past steroid use? And would the broad disinterest-to-hostility toward this fight for many hardcore boxing fans bleed over to the general public? -- but the potential here is astounding, given CBS' audience (115 million) and HBO's (28 million)...

Just so you guys know, and I see so many misguided posts on this: HBO and Showtime don't pay hardly anything to broadcast a PPV. It's not like a Berto fight on HBO or Showtime paying Bute 7 figures to fight some random guy. They do pay some but it's much less than the cost of a standard card. I doubt there is some bidding war for this fight. Arum likely wants HBO to devote a 24/7 to the fight and they probably aren't interested. Arum is also pissed off at HBO about the April 12th date. Who you kidding? Bob Arum wouldn't even need to open his piehole for this Pacquiao-Mosley 24/7 to happen. Please stop spewing speculations here unless you can back it up, some hater might take it as the truth and run with it like it was the sh*t...

HBO dropped the best Heavyweights in the world. HBO forced a Martinez-Dzinzuruk fight, Dzin isn't known by any one out side of hardcore boxing fans. And Martinez is not some big star. They are airing Alexander-Bradley who are slow on tickets and are not big stars either. They rejected Berto-Gomez. HBO doesn't care about Pacquiao vs Mosley for good reasons. They are going by what the real boxing fans want. They are changing the way they do things and which fights they support. Just set aside your hate for Pacquiao(?) or Bob Arum(?) for a second, Bob Arum is the one threatening to bolt out of their camp. HBO does NOT want to lose Pacquiao to their rival, you could put that to the bank. You could throw a stiff there against Pacquiao and HBO will still embrace it with open arms. It's not about the fight nowadays, it's about the product (Pacquiao) that Bob Arum patiently built, and it's now paying off. Look at Bradley vs. Alexander, a match made in heaven, a hardcore boxing fan's dream fight, how many tickets have they sold so far?

Just so you guys know, and I see so many misguided posts on this: HBO and Showtime don't pay hardly anything to broadcast a PPV. It's not like a Berto fight on HBO or Showtime paying Bute 7 figures to fight some random guy. They do pay some but it's much less than the cost of a standard card. I doubt there is some bidding war for this fight. Arum likely wants HBO to devote a 24/7 to the fight and they probably aren't interested. Arum is also pissed off at HBO about the April 12th date.

Aww man you should get Showtime. And, I'm not saying that cuz' of this Pac BS. I could careless where is at I'm not paying for it. But, showtime puts on better fights on a consistent basis over HBO. Even though HBO has the bigger budget...When it comes to exciting fights, and just good fights for hardcore fans is Showtime>HBO. I agree, Showtime makes quality matches on a consistent basis. Plus, the Showtime shows are worth it alone (Shameless is going to be a hit by the end of the season). Boxing is replayed on Showtime all the time where as HBO only replays fights like 3 times a year. I'm watching the Hopkins/Pascal replay as we speak. Arum can do what he wants because he knows that HBO only gets a big piece of Pac profits when it's a PPV event (because that's all Pac fights on). Just because it's HBO PPV, doesn't mean it comes on HBO. It comes on some PPV channel with HBO commentators.....it's just channel 459 or whatever except now it will be the Showtime commentators instead. Arum is used to putting together his own PPV's anyways so he could roll solo if he wanted to.

i like hbo and their style,but there commentating has been poor of late. i think i prefer showtimes comentating at the moment. and ide be glad for them to get big fights and make things a bit more competitive between showtime and hbo. even get fights back on free to air channel/s that everyone has,thats how you will really bring boxing back!.

The **** are you talking about? Go do your homework on Johnny Gonzalez Kev is such a pathetic no life having faggot that he takes the internet so damm seriously. Kev is just a little female who's on her period right now throwing a hissy fit. that's way too harsh on my boy Kev but... you guys are fighting back against e-bullies , I support that

Is English your first language? Do you understand what hopping off some one's dick is? I'd be pleased if you do that. You're riding me so hard dude, not even your girlfriend can ride me that hard if she tried. Mexican fighters other than JMM don't interest me. Look, your 30 years old, stop trying to engage in e-fights on a boxing forum. I'll leave it at this for now, gotta go out. I'll be back to this thread later to see if you say anything worth replying to. Hey busta, why don't you stfu and stop picking e-fights with everyone who disagrees with you. I'll report your crap to BPP.

Arum may feel like he stuck it to HBO and all that, but if this fight ends up on Showtime the PPV #s are gonna take a big hit I'll bet. If I was Pacquiao, I'd claim I got injured in training camp and pull out of the fight and tell Arum that I want the winner in the fight between Alexander and Bradley or Berto. If it's on Showtime it might or might not hurt the PPV numbers. You don't have to be subscribed to a network to order the PPV. However, what I hope that happens is that the rival network(HBO or Showtime) counter programs with a free televised fights. And, I also hope that UFC does it big on that date. Just so the PPV numbers can suffer. It would be great if the bold happens. But, lets face it Pac is on the whole cherrypicking mismatch low risk/high reward type of fights.

Just hop off my dick. I'll leave it that. And Rab shut your midget ass up and shove a Burrito up your ass. I was told you're still in the chat talking about girls rejecting through texts and how excited you get over holding hands with girls :lol1: The **** are you talking about? Go do your homework on Johnny Gonzalez

Kev is such a pathetic no life having faggot that he takes the internet so damm seriously. Kev is just a little female who's on her period right now throwing a hissy fit.

Arum may feel like he stuck it to HBO and all that, but if this fight ends up on Showtime the PPV #s are gonna take a big hit I'll bet. If I was Pacquiao, I'd claim I got injured in training camp and pull out of the fight and tell Arum that I want the winner in the fight between Alexander and Bradley or Berto.

If i'm an idiot that knows nothing about boxing, and only knows about JS and Baseball then why are you always replying to me? Why don't you get off my back then? When I see retarded posters saying something to me, or even something that I don't agree with something they said, I ignore them, I don't even bother with them. So i'm such an idiot, hop off my dick then Or is that hard to do faggot? Unless you're afraid of heights, you should have no problem jumping off my dick. Lol a fucking Pactard talking about "stop trying to talk boxing" you mean boxing business? Pactards just a couple of years ago were in to "great fights" and didn't care about business in boxing. Now all of a sudden, including your fake ass, Pactards are now Businessmen, just like Flomos are PED experts, and Cotto fans know all about plaster. Just hop off my dick and we won't don't have to debate over anything anymore. If you're gonna debate with me, come correct and don't be giving no little smart ass disses at the end of your posts. "Can we use common sense". You talk to me normally, i'll do the same. You wanna give out little insults, i'll insult you back. I don't even care about this discussion anymore. Go fuck yourself. Shut your sensitive ass up then and leave the thread.

yes...HBO has now used that 'saved' money to present you: *drumroll* Andy Lee vs Graig McEwan At the end of the day Pac-Mosley will happen on HBO. Ross Greenburg will not turn down that PPV. Even though it is a BS fight that PPV will sell. HBO knows that. Is just Arum making a threat that he has no problem taking Pac across the street. Is all due to the March 12 date. Arum is just being a dick right now. But, at the end I see it being HBO PPV. If it goes to Showtime then that just means that Arum is more pissed off at Greenburg than I thought.

Wtf? :lol1: Maybe if you stop hanging off Pacquiao's balls, and wipe his cum off of your eyes, you'll see that is exactly where i'm trying to get at. HBO seems to not be caring about who brings what, they want to make the best fights whether the fighters bring any big "profit or ratings" or not. Can we stop sucking fighters dicks. Kev you're an idiot go watch baseball or the Jersey shore stop trying to talk boxing. One HBO is in the Pacquiao business, two HBO cares about making money, three HBO wants Pac-Mosley it is Arum who is making the threat due to the March 12 situation. Is not HBO who's balking at Pac-Mosley. They will welcome it with open arms. It makes them the most money out of any fight that has proposed or signed.

If Top Rank and the Pacquiao-Mosley Fight will be moved to Showtime, Floyd might come out of his "Hibernation" and float an idea to GBP to fight the "green" Saul "Canelo" Alvarez for a HBO PPV fight?! That will be the day HBO officials will shoot themselves in the head?!

I'd support this because then HBO can spend more money on something more entertaining like prospects. This is a garbage fight and most of us don't want to see it. Actually HBO would get more money off Pac PPV's even garbage ones like this one which in return give HBO more money to spend on something more entertaining. Your reasoning would only work if it was on regular HBO. But, since it's on PPV and Pac is a legit PPV star HBO would lose more money if it didn't host this fight.

Good, I don't have Showtime nor do I care to pay extra for it. I only pay for HBO. Fuk Arum and Showtime. I hope this means we will no longer see those crap of Top Rank cards anymore, on HBO. You obviously need to get showtime, HBO may have the bigger names but showtime has the better fights.

Dan Rafael always posts bullshit. It doesn't matter either way though