Thoughts about what to expect from the Haymon PBC franchise

This started off as a reply to 2 other posters but I decided it needed its own thread. The Floyd/TMT/Haymon sycophants want us all to believe that Haymon is gonna start making good fights. "We only got Garcia-Salka because Al was running out guys contracts" ... etc, etc -- you guys know all the lines that are trotted out, I don't need to go through them. Here's a post that illustrates my point: i understand people hate haymon i do but honestly be honest with yourselves are u not tired of boxing with tr and gbp in charge? i mean they did the whole pr campaign that the cold war is over and were still waiting for them to make a card together besides the one or 2 that was forced. When was that over a year ago or more? that right there shows how full of **** the 2 promotions are. ^ If Webster's Unabridged Dictionary had an entry for Haymon knobslobbery, this guy's name, avvy, sig, and this post would appear there Firstly, TR & GBP clearly are cooperating. Herrera-Benavides (though a mandatory) never had to get delayed & go to purse bids because GBP & TR came to terms. This never would have happened 2 years ago. Second, Arum backing up Oscar's claims about how Cinco De Mayo weekend belongs to Mexicans -- that was a coordinated effort. Oscar put Canelo-Kirkland on that date and unless Floyd fights Pac (a TR fighter), then Floyd's PPV #s are gonna tank hard because fans, especially the all-important Mex-Am demographic, are going to watch Canelo for free, save $70, and catch a replay of Floyd-Cotto II on regular Showtime in a few days if they don't find one on YT first. Because we all know how that sh*t turns out anyway. Making more TR-GBP fights will happen in time but Oscar and Bob have clearly joined forces fighting the Haymon war machine. I'm happy Haymon is trying to bring boxing back to network TV but don't kid yourself, it's not going to be some return to the 1950's where the best fought the best 3 and 4 times on free television. We'll be lucky to see that happen once. Oscar tried to make a meaningful fight for Quacka Cruz and what happened? "Help me Señor Haymon, por favor" and of course Al did. Same sh*t when Stevenson was gonna have to face Kovalev. Same thing when Bob was guaranteeing a minimum of nearly $20 million for Chavez's next 3 fights, including $8 million for fighting Golovkin. We all were practically salivating for the action that fight would give us. Who killed that fight? You guessed it, Al Haymon. Al Haymon hates good fights, and even when he sets up half-decent ones, there's always BS involved: Garcia-Peterson is now a 10-round fight at 143 with no titles at stake so as to ensure that when Garcia (likely) wins, then moves up and vacates, 2 belts won't go vacant, only 1 will, and 1 belt will be guaranteed to stay in the Haymon stable because Peterson can't lose it. The only fight I'll actually give credit for is Thurman-Guerrero, but that's 1 good fight. The last good one I remember him making was Garcia-Matthysse but he made that using Floyd's PPV money. That wasn't Haymon ponying up the cash (or his investors' cash) to make it happen as will be required by the terms of this NBC deal. Ultimately, we have the following basis to go on: The notorious "output deal" days before HBO ousted Haymon's ass when freaking Andre Berto was getting millions to fight wasters for vacant titles in front of 800 person crowds (and in the process eating up HBO's entire budget so that they couldn't purchase meaningful fights). A 2013 whose decency as a year for Haymon boxing is at least 75% attributable to the Garcia-Matthysse fight (Al is still dining out on that 1 fight 18 months later) A 2014 that was perhaps the worst in boxing mostly because he signed a bunch of fighters and fed them all crap, and got them all overpaid by Showtime for these sparring sessions (once again eating up another network's budget and precluding said network from purchasing good, meaningful fights). And then the kicker is he stabbed Showtime in the back. They don't even have anything on the schedule for 2015 because the halfway decent fights are all going to NBC. Oh, but we're getting Thurman Guerrero now, so it's a new day. Everything Haymon gives fans from now on will be great. Really. Just forget the last 5 years happened. They're both garbage and are running out of good prime fighters. It's baffling to me how people want to hold onto the old and the common. Kind of how like when Showtime was destroying HBO in 2013 and people started hating on Showtime for it. If Haymons bad for the sport TR and GBP are the devil itself. ^ Another moron The guy who was keeping GBP & TR from working together was Schaefer -- remember him? The guy who teamed up with Haymon to try and rob GBP company of its assets (by not keeping any fighters under contract) so they could deliberately devalue it then buy the company themselves at a bargain-basement price. Now that Al's butt-buddy Schaefer is gone, TR & GBP cooperation is not an issue (see explanation above). Here's one for you: Make a list of the promoters TR has made fights with (I'll help: DiBella, Banner Promotions, SMS promotions, K2 promtions, Main Events, Don King -- his sworn enemy for decades -- Matchroom, Frank Warren) Now make a list of all the promoters (besides Schaefer-era GBP) that Haymon has worked with. Now make a list of all the promoters Al Haymon looks to be making fights with in the future. It may take you awhile but I'll wait ;) The Haymon plan has 100% to do with monopoly and control and 0% to do with empowering fighters or making great fights. It's that simple.

Comments (20)

The 5 primetime NBC shows will basically be at the level of what would be expected of a major Showtime Championship Boxing telecast. Thurman-Guerrero, Garcia-Peterson are good starts. Wilder-Fury and Khan-Maidana 2 are also fights to consider. Get folks familiar with certain faces, and then use the familiar faces to introduce other new faces.

11y ago

Ham_Porter

The only reason to believe Big Gay Al has good intentions in this instance is that he's personally forked out the money from his and his investors own wallets to actually secure these dates on NBC.

11y ago

The_Ninth_Layer

Haymon's starting this series off strong but I think he'll soon run into the problem every promoter does: once your top names start losing consistently, they're no longer top names. For example after this March, the Thurman-Guerrero winner may be positioned for a Big Fight against say Amir Khan, but the loser will invariably be seen as a stepping stone. The real test of Haymon's efforts will be in the new blood he can get to replace the fighters who fall off. I'm not convinced he'll be able to develop his fighters fast enough to replace the ones that suffered losses for him. With that said the fact that Haymon already has B-tier cards planned for Spike TV and other networks tells me that he does have some kind of long-term plan. He has, what, around 200 signed fighters? so if he can match them consistently in good fights there's plenty of reasons for thinking he'll be successful. I wish him the best. I'm not crazy about Haymon for having nixed a lot of fights I'm interested in, but at least he's trying something bold to somewhat make up for it. Keeping in mind that I don't think NBC Saturdays get anything worse than Guerrero-Thurman in matchups. The primetime exposure is too valuable for Haymon to put anything besides good fights there. If his NBC platform fails, then the whole thing will collapse from under him imo.

11y ago

PacDuran

I expect to see none of the top to guys to fight.

11y ago

sicko

When people posted last year "HAYMON IS NOT GIVING GBP GOOD MATCH UPS BECAUSE HE IS SAVING THEM FOR HIS OWN SITUATION" people replied with the typical childish "OH YOU'RE JUST DEFENDING HAYMON!". The man clearly been working on something MAJOR for the last year or so I think he purposely gave GBP sh1t fights to close out to the 2014 Year and we got Danny Garcia vs Rod Salka:sad: Now that his plan is in place...IT IS NOTHING TO HOLD BACK! So I think we will get a lot of good match ups, now of course not every event is going to be a big match up, you will still get the showcase fights for the up and coming prospect vs Guys Off The Street it is not REALISTIC to expect every event to be just big fights for every network. I think Haymon and his Group knows WTF they're doing and will deliver to the fans what they want to see and you won't have to Pay For It or Subscribe to a Channel that is USELESS!

11y ago

North_Star

It's one of those things where a certain portion of the population likes to cheer for the villains. Haymon has burned bridges wherever he ventures. It's amazing that people actually enjoy what he is doing, and going so far to say that the ACTUAL promoters in the sport are the real crooks. It's quite extraordinary.

11y ago

PK3434

^^^^^^So True

11y ago

djt117

You are essentially complaining about nothing. Haymon is going to build his boxers the same way boxers have been built for years. WHy would you have a problem now? HBO is building GGG into a star by feeding him a string of named fighters who don't have a chance to beat him until they can make a PPV fight with him as the b side to see if he becomes a star attraction. You don't have a problem with this but will complain if Haymon does this with a one of his fighters. As PBP posted in another thread Haymon has a plan and is trying to execute it to his advantage. If you are really a boxing fan, you should only care that the fights are good. Its clear from the language you use is that you want the old establishment to stay in charge. News flash-it's a new day and age. Fighters do not need to pay promoters (up to 25% in some cases) to make them stars if they are signed to a manager who has TV deals and the power to sign off on fights. Al is making more and putting more in the pockets of the fighters and the promoters are being phased out. Deal with it. If Bob had planned this out and executed it you probably wouldn't care. Golovkin is becoming a star despite the fact that no big names want to fight him (and before you start crying "Ward" realize that until last month Ward was not even able to fight, and while I believe Ward will call out GGG soon, at present he is not looking to come and fight Golovkin straight away after 14 months out of the ring). Outside of Ward, you can't name one other top-tier fighter from 154-168 who is willing to fight Gennady Golovkin despite the fact, as you noted, his star power is growing and would make an attractive B-side vs. all the big names in that weight range. This stands is stark contrast to the way Haymon is building numerous fighters in his stable (and is not AT ALL comparable to the way K2/HBO is building Golovkin). Stevenson, Chavez, Santa Cruz and others are FIGHTING GARBAGE BY CHOICE. Haymon facilitates this. Everyone who isn't on TMT's nuts knows this. What prompted Stevenson to look Al Haymon's way? Kovalev. What prompted LSC to have Haymon execute the buyout? Rigo. They have the most powerful advisor / power broker in boxing and are using Haymon's power to run away from the fire rather than towards it.

11y ago

Luilun

Sh1tcrap fights that match A level vs C level

11y ago

The_Big_Dunn

You ever voted in a national election & feel that a candidate doesn't share your values or care about you or the things you care about? As a boxing fan I value inter-promoter cooperation to make big fights. Haymon doesn't care about that. Ergo ... Promoters are a dying breed and are being phased out. Why pay a huge percentage of your income when you can use tools like social media to promote your event.

11y ago

The_Big_Dunn

I preemptively addressed everything you just said in the OP and explained why it's not just about 2014. That's the whole F'ing point of the thread. You are essentially complaining about nothing. Haymon is going to build his boxers the same way boxers have been built for years. WHy would you have a problem now? HBO is building GGG into a star by feeding him a string of named fighters who don't have a chance to beat him until they can make a PPV fight with him as the b side to see if he becomes a star attraction. You don't have a problem with this but will complain if Haymon does this with a one of his fighters. As PBP posted in another thread Haymon has a plan and is trying to execute it to his advantage. If you are really a boxing fan, you should only care that the fights are good. Its clear from the language you use is that you want the old establishment to stay in charge. News flash-it's a new day and age. Fighters do not need to pay promoters (up to 25% in some cases) to make them stars if they are signed to a manager who has TV deals and the power to sign off on fights. Al is making more and putting more in the pockets of the fighters and the promoters are being phased out. Deal with it. If Bob had planned this out and executed it you probably wouldn't care.

11y ago

djt117

How do you not like somebody you don't know? You ever voted in a national election & feel that a candidate doesn't share your values or care about you or the things you care about? As a boxing fan I value inter-promoter cooperation to make big fights. Haymon doesn't care about that. Ergo ...

11y ago

djt117

posters need to move on from 2014. Everything we've seen so far is that this series is going to be good matchups. He stalled fights last year because of the ODH lawsuit and because he was saving them for this series. WHy are posters so hypocritical? If HBO took a fighter and gave him 1 tough fight and 2 tuneups in a year or bankrolled a fighter and gave him all easily winnable fight (GGG) posters wouldn't complain. I preemptively addressed everything you just said in the OP and explained why it's not just about 2014. That's the whole F'ing point of the thread.

11y ago

PBP

I hope it succeeds. I know so many people who want to get into boxing but can never find out where to watch it.

11y ago

The_Big_Dunn

11y ago

PK3434

My question is if these shows are going to basically be infomercials? Can an announcer criticize a Haymon fighter? Can an announcer say something like "Gary Russell was brought along against very easy competition which backfired when he faced lomachenko" or "quillin is a solid guy at middleweight but the question is will he ever take on the best in the division, being Golovkin" ?

11y ago

Daddy_T

i don't like haymon but I guess you gotta get behind him in this and hope that it works. boxing is bigger than disliking a particular guy.

11y ago

soul_survivor

It's not a bad start, not great but not bad either. I hope he keeps these types of fights coming and then builds on them.

11y ago

CANELOLUJAH

he running with the ufc business model to be honest.

11y ago

elgranluchadore

i dont follow boxing as much, i think the whole supersix tournament showed me what a joke boxing had become. but i still watch from time to time, and it's interesting how haymon has pretty much build his empire by leeching of oscar and quietly signing everyone, all while tricking showtime and hbo to pay his fighters huge amounts of money and build a good reputation amongst them. Once haymon is established and has a lot of power he will start making good fights because he no longer needs to protect all of his stable. But how will he make his money? this nbc deal is a time buy, without hbo and showtime paying him he can forget about paying santa cruz 1 million to fight jose the taxi driver.

11y ago