I wouldn't be surprised if Fury comes up with an "injury" like he did to get out of the Klitschko rematch.
Assuming Wilder is actually starting camp on Dec 31st, his team needs to put a couple potential opponents on the undercard to upgrade to the main event. I would suspect Joe Joyce or Kownacki. Though I suspect they would rather save Kownacki for a Barclays fight with Wilder as they would sell it out.
There's an interesting wrinkle if Wilder fights Joyce. As much as I hate discussing these sham belts, Joyce is WBA Gold champ. So Wilder could possibly leverage WBA Gold into a mandatory position for the Ruiz-Joshua winner.
Outside of PBC, most potential opponents are fighting Dec 7th, including much of the WBC top 15: Whyte assuming he wins Saturday, the Povetkin vs Hunter winner.
Fistianados podcast said that even at the highest estimate out there of 275k PPV buys, between PBC/Fox someone is taking an "eight-figure loss."
I'm a Wilder fan, but let's deal with facts. Wilder-Ortiz 2 wasn't a $75 PPV fight, especially after the first one was on Showtime. It lost a ton of money.
But say it got 250k PPV buys in the US, that's actually not bad for Wilder given the 325k for Wilder-Fury 1 a year ago and the fact that Ortiz has zero PPV draw. Wilder-Fury 2 will be a massive sporting event, probably the biggest sporting event that week in the US and UK. It will grab the attention of a lot of casual fans with major marketing push from ESPN and Fox.
I'm predicting it now. Wilder-Kownacki as a WBC-IBF unification at Barclays in summer/fall 2020.
If Ruiz beats Joshua, the IBF will strip him . There's no way Ruiz will defend against Pulev (if Joshua wins, he might possibly fight Pulev, but I doubt it). So, the belt will become vacant and the IBF will order Pulev-Kownacki (#1 and #3 in IBF rankings, with #2 vacant). Kownacki wins and PBC can schedule an in-house unification at Barclays with a massive gate driven by Kownacki's Polish fans.
take away wilders right hand and i think even charles martin would outbox him lol
Wilder does seem to have become increasingly reliant on his right hand, perhaps because he simply can get away with it. But his jab used to be quite effective.
For example, in the Arreola fight Wilder broke his right hand and tore his right bicep early in the fight, and still stopped Arreola basically entirely with his jab from round 4-8.
Also, people don't remember this but up until the first Fury fight, Wilder was actually #1 in jab connect % (like 33% according to CompuBox). Recently he mostly paws and blinds with his jab to set up the right, but there was a time when Wilder's jab was sharp and accurate.
He has a point. I don’t remember the last time a big boxing match was a combination of a good fight that lived up to the hype along with an ending that didn’t put people off. Matchmakers need to be careful from here on out.....fights like last night have a way of alienating the casuals and even putting off the fans
Among big time PPV level fights - Wilder-Fury in the last six months but other than that I guess Joshua-Klitschko which was two years ago?
Props to AJ if he takes on Ortiz. If they're really offering $6.5 million, Ortiz has to take the fight. That has to be literally 10x his biggest payday and it's a second title shot.
As for the lack of Twitter activity on his official account, Ortiz tweets like every three weeks. It's not like he's constantly on social media.
The only legit reason for Ortiz to not take this fight is if he's injured. Unless Eddie is just dropping his name...
The co-main events on Showtime in 2017 and 2018 were better on average than what PBC is putting on Fox and FS1 as main events. (And if you’re going to feature a main event mismatch on Fox, don’t put LSC on, he will bore you to death in a 12 round UD.) Off the top of my head, I recall that all Charlo and Gervonta fights until December 2018 were co-mains. And Mikey vs Zlaticanan in early 2017. I know there are others I’m forgetting.
When Thurman fought Porter and Danny on network TV they each did about 5 million households. Thurman-Josesito did about half that (which is a terrible number for Sat primetime on Fox flagship BTW). If they don’t start matching PBC A-sides on Fox, they’ll get booted to FS1 in future years.
That’s common sense. You should expect fox and espn to have more viewers than showtime
Fury-Schwartz will be on ESPN+. Viewership numbers will not be released.
The one time that ESPN+ released "numbers" was when they had a big UFC show (when Dillashaw lost) and they published the increase in subscriptions and total number of subscriptions (600k and 2M, respectively).
He's a big ticket seller
Like 4k people went from Baltimore to New York to watch him Vs pedraza
Is this true or just an estimate? A co-main challenger bringing 4k fans to another city would be hugely impressive.
Seriously, if Tank has a local following like that, he should be fighting in Baltimore at least once a year. I'm sure those hometown crowds (like Jose Ramirez in Fresno and Crawford in Omaha) are electric and they also make for great TV.
Interesting. I would assume he would be on PPV from then on and build on that.
First, Crawford-Postol PPV was a massive flop - 50-60k buys. Arum actually came out and said that he lost money.
Second, just because a boxer's biggest fight to date was on PPV doesn't mean that every fight will be. Just because Wilder-Fury is PPV doesn't mean Wilder-Brezeale will be.
PBC on Fox is serving up absolute trash in primetime. Mismatches, out of shape and washed up fighters, and a 6’7” super middleweight “prospect?” (1) If you’re going to serve up mismatches in showcase fights, at least choose KO artists. LSC is very skillful but boring unless he’s in a real fight. (2) Fat and awkward vs Washed up is not a good co feature. (3) Terrible commentating.
Some sports exec at Fox should be fired for paying for trash fights.
I will have to look at it again but I thought Bayless saw the towel
It isn't apparent that Bayless saw the towel before he started to step in. But when Wilder objected to the stoppage, Bayless immediately pointed to the towel. So it's likely that he did in fact see it. That said, the fight was seconds from being stopped either way.
As a Wilder fan (and with some money on Wilder), I was hoping Bayless would stop it. Yes, he has power, but his balance was gone and by that point he had nothing on his punches. No need for Deontay to take a even longer sustained beating and possibly suffer permanent damage. He's a warrior and stated that he wanted to go out on his shield, but he's also a dedicated family man and his kids need him around for more than just money. I respect Mark Breland for doing what he knew was right. I hope it doesn't cost him his job.
There were 13 seconds left in the round. Wood could have taken a knee to get to the bell and then be evaluated between round. Even with a 10-7 round it’s still a close fight. Why not?
I love that Tete admitted that he would rather face Payano in the first round. So used to hearing cliches about always wanting to fight the best.
The purses escalate quickly in WBSS so the softest opponents maximum your expected earnings. And if the favorites advance we get to see the biggest matchups in future rounds with the seeds fighting each other. Tete/Burnett or Tete/Inoue please
I think the Champions League numbers are only for Canada and Japan. Theyve got the rights for Champions League in Germany from next season, so theyll be going a lot higher then.
This is the key point: what is the population of the markets where the rights to the boxing and the UCL matches were held by DAZN.
As far as I know, DAZN has rights to the boxing in all nine markets (total population maybe 600 million), but they only have rights to UCL in Japan and I guess Canada (total population about 150 million).
Still I think it's pretty surprising that boxing could be getting 1/4 the viewership of UCL final and semifinal ties like Liverpool-Barcelona. The equivalent in the US would be a boxing event drawing something like 1/4 of the viewership of a college football national championship or semifinal game (for example, Clemson-OSU had 20 million viewers) and LSU-Clemson will probably have 30 million+.
If Mikey can unify with Easter, he should try to get the Lomachenko fight. If they can't work out a deal with Lomachenko, try to fight the winner of the 140 WBSS.
At times I think Mikey must have a death wish to want Spence. But, in reality, I suspect that Mikey doesn't love boxing and he needs a major challenge to motivate him day in/day out. (Similar to BJS, but Mikey is enough of a professional that he won't fake an injury when he can't motivate himself to train.)
LOL, Eddie tried to push Abdullaev out using Ramadan as his excuse. Now wait for the WBC to release their new rankings just in time to move either Haney or Teofimo Lopez up to the #2 spot before they order the fight for the vacant belt. Bigger purses, more money for the WBC.
Dazn is trying to conquer the American market
This fight was always slated to be in the US
This is all bullchit from Hearn , but he won’t get his wish
Plus , i think this looks good for AJ , win or lose , at least some redemption
Obviously correct. DAZN stumbled into a major US event that will get wall-to-wall media coverage during US football season. They want it to be Saturday night US Eastern time. DAZN would never let this be an afternoon event competing with the big college football games. That would be leaving so many subscriptions on the table.
They will market the hell out of this and try to avoid clashing with any really big college football night games.
Much as I wanted Jacobs to win, it was Canelo's fight. I have a really hard time finding 6 rounds for Jacobs, I guess if you give him the no action round 1 and rounds 10-12.
I'm not a Canelo fan and I subscribe to DAZN. I'm not happy to see Canelo's head movement/defense improve. He already has a great chin and it's not going to make for exciting fights if he's that elusive. He will be very tough to beat and we're much more likely to see 12 round decisions with very few cases of anyone getting buzzed, much less knocked down.
He's a lock. All three in the opponents backyards too. Briedis unbeaten WBC champion, Gassiev unbeaten WBA/IBF coming off a great win and to become undisputed and Bellew who's coming off some high profile big event wins.
If he's not FOTY then that's bogus. It's the most impressive single calendar year probably since Martinez in 2010.
If Usyk wins, I agree that he' a lock for FOTY. The only scenario in which he could have finished second was if Mikey/Spence was somehow made for December and Mikey somehow pulled out a win. I can't think of any other top guys that could have three legit wins in 2018 except Dogboe (Frampton v Jackson doesn't count IMHO).
If Bellew wins by KO, he would certainly get support for FOTY with Haye/Usyk. Otherwise, probably Wilder (if KOs vs. Ortiz and Fury) or Joshua (if KO vs Povetkin). If Dogboe won a 4th legit fight, he would have an outside chance (especially if he won a unification vs. Danny Roman).
As a Prograis fan, I have no problem with the narrow decision for Taylor. But how could anyone possibly give Round 12 to Taylor? That was as clear a Prograis round as any of the middle rounds were for Taylor.
It makes you wonder if he didn’t want to score the fight a draw given Taylor’s overall superiority.
Theres only one reason someone who's career high pay day is 500k turns down 5 million plus at this late stage of his career. He ain't gonna pass the VADA.
We have no proof but this is a great point and makes a lot of sense. No time to cycle off when VADA would start as soon as he signed the contract.
Really interesting quantitative approach. Obviously you can quibble with some aspects, like how to handle robberies and narrow decisions, how to adjust for a weak division, etc. But it's refreshing to see an objective system applied to boxing rankings.
It might be useful to apply some adjustment for beating pound-for-pound ranked opponents to partially compensate for weak divisions. For example, Mikey probably got more points for beating Lipinets (who was TBRB #2 at the time) than anyone would get for beating Crawford (TBRB #3 welterweight) right now. Obviously, there's no comparison between the quality of those wins.
Obviously I'm thrilled to see this fight scheduled, but this article doesn't make me more optimistic about the future of the WBSS. The co-main of Taylor-Barancyk when it was first announced was supposedly Prograis-Relikh. I heard Prograis hasn't been paid his QF win bonus and was also thinking of backing out of the WBSS. So now they announce a different co-main and there's no mention of Prograis-Relikh.
Inoue-Rodriguez should be headlining a card at a large indoor arena, maybe in Japan. If necessary, make Tete-Donaire the co-main. Or put it in the Philippines and reverse the order.
I hope I'm wrong, but I would be surprised if the WBSS finishes season 2 in any weight division.