“Fighting Words” - Deconstructing the PBC on NBC Debut

by David P. Greisman

“Premiere Boxing Champions” was never going to change the sport overnight.

What this past weekend instead brought was the beginning of a venture. If Al Haymon’s time buys on NBC, CBS and multiple cable channels are going to work, then the shows will need to make money from advertisers and sponsors. To do that, “PBC” will need to grow boxing back beyond the niche sport it has become in the United States, attracting an audience beyond the current group of hardcore and casual followers.

And so the PBC debut brought a lot to unpack — not only with Keith Thurman’s decision win over Robert Guerrero in the main event and Adrien Broner’s easy points victory over John Molina Jr. in the co-feature — but also with how the broadcast looked and unfolded.

There are some conclusions that can be reached after this past Saturday’s broadcast, while it is too soon to speculate about many more topics. We need to see how this goes in order to have a firmer grasp on where and how far it can go.

Here, then, is a deconstruction of the debut via a sometimes sardonic, sometimes analytic review. With a nod to syndicated columnist Norman Chad, I took notes:

8:32 p.m. Eastern Time: Al Michaels introduces the broadcast, soon telling viewers that Premiere Boxing Champions will have “less of an emphasis on jockeying for belts and more of a focus on competitive fights.”

That’s interesting, as Haymon’s fighters have 13 of the 68 major world titles (and another 3 of the WBA’s “regular” belts in divisions with a WBA “Super” champion). It’s also interesting because Haymon made so much money from HBO and Showtime in the past by putting off, not putting on, competitive fights. Now that it’s his money and his investors’ money involved, the product will need to be better.

The world titles don’t always reflect who the best boxers are, but Haymon does have many of the top names in several divisions, both with the belts and in contention.

8:37 p.m.: Because this isn’t a journalistic enterprise, we can expect the broadcast to write around inconvenient truths. And so John Molina Jr.’s backstage interview is accompanied by a graphic noting that he’s knocked out three of his last six opponents, glossing over the fact that he’d lost in the other three bouts, including two in a row just before this.

8:38 p.m.: Michaels describes Molina as “always aggressive,” jinxing what unfortunately is to come, or rather not to come, from Molina.

8:43 p.m.: The last truly major boxing broadcast on network TV was Larry Holmes vs. Carl “The Truth” Williams, as called by Marv Albert. He’s back for this one, which is fitting, given that one of the most famous boxers of the past generation, like Albert, was a biter, and given that another one of the most famous boxers of the past generation, like Albert, was caught in a scandal that involved wearing women’s underwear.

Albert has long since left that case behind and, like Michaels and Sugar Ray Leonard and even “sideline reporter” Laila Ali, lends some mainstream credibility to this broadcast.

8:45 p.m.: The talk has been that the focus will be on the fighters and the fights, and we see that with Molina’s and Broner’s ring walks, which are done solo, lacking entourages and with the members of their corners already in the ring. A graphic comes up showing Molina’s two losses, which includes his “Fight of the Year” against Lucas Matthysse. Of course, the two-fight limit also means a graphic will omit Broner’s loss to Marcos Maidana (Maidana will end up being mentioned in the 11th round).

8:51 p.m.: Nobody brushes Broner’s hair.

8:51 p.m.: A tiny bit of the credibility Albert has with casual viewers is lost with boxing fans when he mispronounces Matthysse’s name. My mother chimes in, correcting Albert's pronunciation. "And you think I don't pay attention," she says.

8:53 p.m.: The audio drops for a few seconds, presumably because of cursing in the background. If so, it’s a necessary evil that comes with broadcast television, though it would mean the loss of such great moments as Joe Goossen telling Diego Corrales, “You gotta’ f***ing get inside on him now.”

8:56 p.m.: Albert notes that Molina only landed one punch in the first round. “Sideline reporters” B.J. Flores and Ali chime in with what was said by the trainers between rounds, which is necessary given that broadcast television will mean commercial breaks. Broner continues to walk Molina down, while Molina too rarely opens up with his own attacks. The crowd sounds mic’d up well, which is refreshing, except that they’re booing — at least until Molina gets a good right hand in toward the end of the third. Molina misses with a few more overhand rights.

9:07 p.m.: A quick spot on Floyd Mayweather airs. This is part of the cross-promotional power that comes with network television. The biggest fight in years will happen on May 2 with Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, and there will be plenty of televised reminders between now and then. Meanwhile, Goossen can be heard yelling for Molina to do more, though Molina still isn’t doing too much, even when he comes forward, and he often isn’t effective. What does land clean, Broner takes well.

The next commercial break advertises the April 11 PBC show on NBC, and as we return, a graphic shows the PBC broadcasts on March 13 on Spike, on April 4 on CBS, and the April 11 card, trying to take the audience from one show to the next, and from one network to another, creating an episodic feel to go along with this destination programming. The question remains as to whether people will indeed tune in.

Other fighters get the spotlight throughout the evening, including Leo Santa Cruz, Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson, Deontay Wilder and Peter Quillin.

9:31 p.m.: More of the same for a while, with Broner landing easily, blocking easily, dodging easily, and winning the fight easily. And as we finish Round 10, Albert informs us that the rest of the bout will be without commercial interruptions, thanks to sponsor Corona. Never mind that the commercials in my area throughout this first fight have been about nothing but Corona or NBC programs.

9:42 p.m.: Broner gets the decision win, one in which he never was forced to kick into a higher gear. It was like a highly paid sparring session, with Broner credited with landing 219 of 502 (44 percent), while Molina was just 54 of 249 (22 percent, landing less than five punches per round). Most of that for Broner was jabs, keeping Molina from finding his rhythm or range. As for Molina, the guy whose Hail Marys ended fights with Henry Lundy and Mickey Bey only landed 32 power punches the entire night.

9:43 p.m.: “The last time I fought for the crowd, I took my first loss,” Broner says. “I had to do what I had to do to get my victory today.”

It was Molina who failed to make the fight entertaining, but it’s also the fans who won’t leave thinking that they absolutely have to see Broner again.

Broner forgets to thank Al Haymon. He also gets cut off during his usual “Can Man” speech.

Molina says Broner “was running around a little bit,” and “moves a lot,” even though Broner largely stood in front of him. Molina’s tended to be a slow starter who needs to come on late, as he did with Lundy and Bey. Although he put up that great fight with Matthysse last year, he’s now dropped two decisions in high-profile, must-win scenarios, against Humberto Soto last year and now against Broner.

10:02 p.m.: We move on to Thurman-Guerrero. The production elements both in the arena and on screen look fantastic. A lot of money went into this, never mind the nearly $5 million on the main three fights on this card (including Abner Mares vs. Arturo Reyes), and never mind all the advertising and marketing for this series.

10:05 p.m.: Albert notes that Guerrero is a southpaw and Thurman “has faced only one world-class southpaw.” Though he doesn’t say the name, he means Carlos Quintana, who couldn’t realistically at that point be described as world class. In fact, while Thurman’s been stepping up his opposition, Guerrero is the best foe he’s faced by far.

10:10 p.m.: As expected, Guerrero is standing in and exchanging with Thurman, which is ballsy given Guerrero’s propensity for taking punches and Thurman’s heavy hands. A competitive and entertaining fight is good news for the viewers, and for this series in general.

10:14 p.m.: The fighters clash heads, bringing immediate and significant swelling on the left side of Thurman’s forehead, turning him from “One Time” into “Two Heads” Thurman. It’s a good thing that Andrew “Six Heads” Lewis didn’t have the hematomas to match.

10:23 p.m.: “It’s a very large ring,” Albert says. “It’s a 20-footer.”

You know… the standard ring size.

“And that’s a big ring,” Leonard concurs.

10:30 p.m.: "What Thurman cannot do is fall asleep," says Leonard, while Guerrero plots ways to grab a TV screen, bring it to the ring and show Thurman the Broner-Molina bout.

Thurman is putting forth a good performance, patiently picking his spots, out-boxing Guerrero, ducking under and moving away from his advances, then picking him apart with powerful leads and short combinations. It’s much better than the Thurman we saw bore us against Leonard Bundu late last year, and it’s the most well-rounded performance he’s had, one coming against a legit welterweight. Guerrero is game and tough, but so far he’s not giving Thurman much trouble. With a minute left in the eighth, Guerrero has only been credited with landing 34 power shots.

10:39 p.m.: Thurman drops Guerrero in the ninth. Guerrero lays himself on his back momentarily, gloves behind his head, gathering his senses before rising to his knees at six and getting up at the count of eight, blood streaming from above his left eye. Guerrero withstands an onslaught in the corner and makes it out of the round. Of all things, it looks as if the cut was opened when Thurman’s right uppercut hit Guerrero’s left wrist, driving his own glove into his own eye.

10:42 p.m.: Guerrero goes from being on the ropes to putting Thurman on the ropes, coming out aggressively, soon trapping Thurman and smothering him for an extended period. This is the fighter who moved up from 126 to 130 to 135 and then all the way up to 147, going to battle with Andre Berto and going to battle last year with Yoshihiro Kamegai. Thurman laces in some hard punches of his own while Guerrero makes his stand. The crowd rises to their feet as the 10th round ends.

10:48 p.m.: Albert describes the fight as “a thriller.” Let’s not go that far. It’s been a decent fight. Nevertheless, the crowd is appreciative, standing once more as the final bell rings.

10:54 p.m.: The ring announcer takes it even farther, calling it “one of the most exciting welterweight bouts you will ever see.”

I mean, that’s accurate if these are viewers who haven’t watched boxing before and likely won’t watch it again. Otherwise?

10:55 p.m.: Thurman is announced as the decision winner. One of his team members tries to hold up Thurman’s title belt several feet in the background, but a security member makes him lower the belt.

“It's about the matchup and fighters,” writes whoever handles the PBC Twitter account when someone asks about the belt not being spotlighted on-camera.

True, but the fighters tend to care about the titles they hold, even when they’re trinkets. They also tend to trust Al Haymon implicitly, so they’re likely following along with his team’s direction of not showing titles, not having entourages, and by and large changing the way boxing is presented on television.

Even the ubiquitous members of the Watson family, Haymon employees all, are not seen during the show.

10:57 p.m.: Thurman thanks God, NBC and Al Haymon, in that order. But returning to the previous point, this is a change in the way boxing is presented. There is a focus on branding the fighters and their personalities, on spotlighting the action and accentuating the competition, and doing so with big names doing the broadcasting and even the music.

There’s a lot of effort going into this and a lot of expenses because of that. The big thing will be whether viewers respond and remain, if boxing becomes destination viewing as it once was, if the next stars can be built up, and if people tune in to watch the fights even as they are only beginning to learn about people not named Mayweather, Pacquiao, Ali and Tyson.

It’s an uphill battle, given how far boxing has fallen. And the other big challenge will be bringing in major advertisers and sponsors, who largely didn’t turn out for this debut.

Like any boxing match, this one isn’t over. This was only the first round.

The 10 Count

1.  The early ratings for the debut of “Premiere Boxing Champions” was very good when contrasted with what boxing tends to pull in on HBO and Showtime, though those premium cable channels say their focus is on keeping their subscribers satisfied.

PBC will need to show itself as being marketable for advertisers and their target audiences. It will need to maintain the audience that tuned in this past Saturday, never mind growing it.

The “fast overnight” rating was an average of 3.13 million viewers during its two-and-a-half hour slot Saturday night on primetime NBC, according to Zap2it.com’s TV By the Numbers industry blog.

It was not the highest rating on primetime network TV that evening — a pair of CSI reruns and an episode of “48 Hours” outdid it on CBS with 3.42, 3.91 and 4.65 million, a rerun of “20/20” on ABC had 4.09 million, and a showing of “In An Instant” on ABC had 4.36 million.

Premiere Boxing Champions did outdo its 8 p.m. Eastern Time lead-in, “Caught on Camera With Nick Cannon,” which had 2.55 million; FOX’s “The Last Man on Earth” rerun, which had 2.13 million; and a rerun of “Sleepy Hollow” ON FOX, which had 1 million.
 
Nevertheless, PBC did lead in the coveted 18-49 demographic, pulling in a 1.0 rating and a 3 share.

And that number will likely rise somewhat, as the way “Fast Overnight” ratings work isn’t wholly accurate for things like live sports. “Fast Overnight” ratings collect the Nielsen viewership for that time slot based on the time zone, so it collected the audience on the West Coast from 8 to 11 p.m. Pacific Time, which would be the three hours after PBC went off the air on NBC.

2.  First, PBC needs to be a proven commodity for potential advertisers and sponsors. That would make it a desirable one.

The commercials I saw were largely for NBC programming (the Blacklist, Nascar’s Xfinity series, Saturday Night Live, the NHL on NBC), two spots for Rally’s/Checkers, four spots for Planet Fitness, a commercial for movie “Run All Night,” a commercial for a travel website, several commercials that were clearly time sold back to the local stations to sell local ads, and a handful of commercials for Corona, which has been involved with boxing for years now.

It seems fitting that Corona’s new marketing push — drinking the beer in 12-ounce aluminum containers — ties in with Adrien Broner.

After all, he is the “Can Man.”

3.   For 13 of his 14 years as a pro, and for 41 of his 43 fights, Miguel Cotto has either been signed to or associated with Top Rank, the promoter that took the 2000 Olympian from prospect to contender to three-division titleholder, then — after Cotto worked with Golden Boy for bouts with Floyd Mayweather and Austin Trout — joined with Cotto once again as he added a belt in a fourth weight class by becoming the middleweight champion.

No more.

Cotto announced last week that he’d signed with Roc Nation Sports, the fledgling boxing promotional outfit owned by rapper Jay-Z and run by former Golden Boy Promotions executive David Itskowitch.

Top Rank officials spoke with pain and disappointment, saying that Cotto, who was not officially signed with them, had promised he’d end his career with them.

Cotto told ESPN that he preferred the Roc Nation deal, which could also assist with Cotto’s self-named promotional company.

“Miguel Cotto has a company that Roc Nation is going to bring more interest to. I’m in the last stage of my career. I need to have other things after my career,” Cotto was quoted as saying, using both the third- and first-person to reference himself.

Or in other words, as Top Rank’s Bob Arum once said and will never live down, “Yesterday, I was lying. Today, I’m telling the truth.”

We’ll see how — and if — this helps Cotto in this stage of his boxing career. Roc Nation to this date has only put on one minor show. It has Cotto and Andre Ward, plus some prospects, but has no track record beyond the January card, though there’s Itskowitch’s experience and Jay-Z’s business dealings in athletics and entertainment.

Cotto doesn’t need a major opponent for his presumed June date in front of his always-loving second hometown crowd in New York City on the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade weekend. And that can then set him up for a big fight, perhaps finally with Canelo Alvarez later in the year, or with Gennady Golovkin if Cotto does the unexpected and chooses to step in against extreme danger.

4.  If you didn’t switch from NBC to NBC Sports Network last night, you might’ve missed Abner Mares winning a decision over Arturo Reyes.

Mares is now a year and a half removed from his stunning first-round stoppage loss to Jhonny Gonzalez. He’s more than a year removed from when a rematch with Gonzalez was to have happened, only to be canceled when Mares got hurt in training camp.

Gonzalez will face Gary Russell Jr. on March 28. Mares will likely go into a fight with 122-pound titleholder Leo Santa Cruz once Santa Cruz departs for featherweight.

As for Reyes? Fittingly, I believe he was wearing Cleto-Reyes gloves.

That kind of last name/brand name correlation likely has happened before, given the number of boxers with the Reyes surname and the popularity of Reyes gloves.

It’s probably also happened with boxers whose surname is Grant.

Sadly, it’s never happened with former House of Pain singer Everlast…

5.  Steve Smoger earned a reputation as being one of boxing’s better referees. While that gives him credibility for his role as rules analyst on the “Premiere Boxing Champions” broadcast this past Saturday, I think it should disqualify him from working any future fights associated with Al Haymon’s boxers.

He’s employed in the enterprise. Even if Smoger were to do an impeccable job as the third man in the ring, his outside gig creates a perception that there could be a conflict of interest, and that potential perception is more than enough reason. Boxers shouldn’t have to worry about the business relationships of the referees or judges or anyone else tasked with oversight.

6.  There was other action last week, with HBO2 airing the same-day replay of flyweight titleholder Amnat Ruenroeng’s decision win over Zou Shiming in Macau, China.

It’ll be interesting to see what Shiming does from here, and whether the defeat will have much of an effect on what promoters are hoping is a blossoming Chinese market for boxing. I think they and Shiming will be fine.

Shiming became a national hero a three-time Olympic medalist, with a bronze in 2004 and gold in 2008 and 2012. He is 33, still young in boxing terms though relatively old for the lighter weight divisions. He’s improved in less than two years as a pro and while working with Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach. But he’ll have a ceiling.

And there’s always the next wave of talent to come. Shiming’s spotlight, for as long as it lasts, can help bring attention to other prospects from China.

7.  I’m not sure which is sadder: Those few of you who spent $19.99 to watch a webcast of Roy Jones Jr. taking on some dude named Willie Williams last week at some venue called the Cabarrus Arena and Events Center in some city half an hour outside of Charlotte, North Carolina called Concord…

…or those of you who spent $14.99 for Jones’ rap album back in 2002.

Williams is a 36-year-old light heavyweight from Baltimore who was moving up to cruiserweight to face, by far, his toughest competition yet, even in the faded form of 46-year-old Roy Jones. Williams was 2-6-1 in his previous nine fights, with the lone wins coming against foes whose records were 3-7 and 4-6. The last time he’d topped an opponent who had a winning record was in June 2008, when he stopped a 6-2-1 fighter named Alfred Kinsey, not to be confused with the famous sex researcher of the same name.

Jones has now won six in a row since getting knocked out by Denis Lebedev back in May 2011. He may end up getting another cruiserweight title shot, this one against Marco Huck.

8.  Boxers Behaving Badly update: Mental evaluations performed on Jermain Taylor have led an Arkansas judge to find him fit for trial, and the former middleweight champion has been relocated to a rehabilitation center until then, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“Taylor had been at the private hospital to undergo a physical and mental evaluation requested by his attorneys after Taylor's second arrest on a shooting-related charge in less than six months,” the article said.
 
Online court records show that Taylor still has a jury trial scheduled for June 23 and 24 in the case in which he is accused of shooting and injuring his cousin last year.

He’s also facing charges from January, when he was arrested following an incident at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Little Rock in which he is accused of pointing his gun at a woman and her kids and shooting at their father after a child dropped Taylor’s world title.

9.  Today marks 10 years of “Fighting Words.”

That’s 530 columns.

And those columns have brought 646 entries and updates involving boxers, boxers’ livestock (yes, boxers’ livestock), boxing journalists, broadcasters, commissioners, judges, managers, matchmakers, promoters, referees and trainers behaving badly.

I don’t know which of those I’m more proud of.

10.  Now that I’ve marked 10 years at BoxingScene (last October) and 10 years of “Fighting Words,” that’s it for anniversaries — at least until Sept. 10, 2016.

That was when “Boxers Behaving Badly” first began.

And of course it began with Scott Harrison.

Somehow I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re still chronicling the former featherweight titleholder’s misbehavior 18 months from now…

“Fighting Words” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com