Is the Golden Boy-HBO split the best thing that could have happened for us fans?

It's the beginning of the attitude era in boxing. I always knew it would be a good thing.

I may have agreed if it didn't seem like you believed that it's only golden boy putting on some suspect fights. Pacman/Margarito was top rank. I still don't see your problem with this fight. I mean there's all the extra curricular stuff, alright, but as a fight it was good and memorable. Marg is no cherrypick for any guy 15lbs smaller, that's obvious. It was Pac's most physically taxing fight in a long time. But that was ages ago, way before the split anyway.

I may have agreed if it didn't seem like you believed that it's only golden boy putting on some suspect fights. Pacman/Margarito was top rank.

Golden Boy is sodomising Top Rank. No Top Rank in Dubai, guess they'll have to settle for camels

Golden Boy is sodomising Top Rank.

I don't think it is good for the long term of the sport but I think it has helped the short term and I like the analogy of the WCW and WWF. The WCW was kicking the WWF's butt for a while but over time regained its status as the long reigning and premier wrestling organization. I think that is what could happen with HBO and Showtime. Right now I think Showtime has the upper hand but eventually I don't think Showtime can pay Mayweather, Canelo, Khan, Broner, and etc. so they will have to go back to HBO and HBO will show that it is the premier boxing provider. But as of right now they will continue to compete with each other and we will get the Maidana's and Lopez cards and the Cleverly cards and so on.

Haymon handcuffing HBO is a little bit of an over statement. He doesnt have a huge stable of fighters to accomplish that. I thought he was doing his job building up Berto the right way. Haymon did give us Berto vs Guerrero and Ortiz on HBO. He also did match up Berto vs Mosley after Mosley beat Margarito, although that fight didnt happen. They had that multi year GBP output deal, that pretty much froze out all grade B promoters from HBO, other than for marquee guys like LDB's Martinez. Now the roles are flipped: Hershman is after bang for the buck guys like GGG, making b grade promoters put their top guys in vs each other, like Cleverly Kovalev and Barker Geale (and GGG Macklin, that took pressure). Meanwhile SHO took it a step farther with output deals, it's pretty much all GBP all the time. Which is not bad, they have a great roster, but constraining. It's also very expensive, GBP and Haymon's guys

It's temporary. There will come a time where another Mayweather/Pacquiao situation arises.

You're not getting the most competitive fights. You're getting the most popular fights. It's not necessarily network competition that is driving this. It's business! Viewership! GGG against any star would be highly competitive. But would that sell? Not right now! Same for Matthysse.

It is the worst thing that could happen. The networks now control boxing. It's always been like that, duh. Who do you think built up GBP?

It is the worst thing that could happen. The networks now control boxing.

This reminds me alot of the wrestling wars of the late 90's between wwf and wcw.... The competition made both companies work harder and put on alot of great events like nwo and goldberg and rock, dx, stonecold, etc... Competition really does make people go out, as they have to go all out to please their core audience. When the competition doesn't exist, they know they have to nothing for their core audience and focus primarily on the casuals so you get more smoke and mirrors.

This reminds me alot of the wrestling wars of the late 90's between wwf and wcw.... The competition made both companies work harder and put on alot of great events like nwo and goldberg and rock, dx, stonecold, etc... Same is happening to boxing right now... Showtime has given their network to GBP and its up to GBP to produce huge ratings... This has forced HBO to buddy up with Top Rank and some other promoters and really trying to get the swagger back after they lost floyd, canelo, broner, khan, lucas, danny, mares, hopkins And with donaire losing to rigo, manny getting iced and being in the twilight of his career, jmm and serg nearing the end, Chavez Jr being unprofessional, Bradley and rigo failing to garner huge fan bases,, ward always being injured, pavlik retiring This has forced HBO to carry fights they wouldnt have 10-15 years ago... Guys like GGG, cleverly, kolovc, stevenson, froch-kessler, Geale-barker, etc are now getting a chance to show the world on hbo how good they are.... Grant it the best thing that could happen to boxing would be one unified sanctioning body like NBA, NFL, UFC to make the fights we all want to see... Thats not going to happen anytime soon.... But i do like where the sport is heading with this HBO vs SHowtime war... p.s.. Thuggery said that unifications will be harder to make, and grant it he is correct but its not like we were seeing any before this all started.. So i dont think its that big of a deal. we didnt see khan-bradley, manny-floyd, mares-donaire, hell GBP cant even make the lucas-danny fight....

This is just another road block in making fights.... although the competition between the two could be good. Now not only do we have to worry about them being GBP or TR, but HBO or Showtime as well

It's going to be literally impossible to see unification and no.1 fight no.2 guys in a lot of cases. But they are upping the quality of the fights I guess you could say