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by Juan Rodriguez
We’re only in the middle of September and we’ve already had 5 HBO PPV’s and 4 more left. Unfortunately for us fight fans HBO has made sure to inflate our monthly television bill by at least $49.95. When fights such as Marquez-Pacquiao II and Cotto-Margarito are announced we know deep down we will buy those fights. Not a lot of luck for the other PPV’s. If one was o ask a casual fight fan if he would buy a fight such as De La Hoya-Pacquiao or Hopkins-Pavlik that same fan will ask you, “Who’s on the undercard?”
Almost all the time the answer to that will be you don’t know. Sometimes because you don’t or perhaps because they won’t know who those undercard fighters are, lucky if they know the main headliners.
Just last week the Oscar De La Hoya-Pacquiao was announced, or as some can call it, the ‘event’ was announced. And almost with that announcement came the possibility of Rey ‘Boom Boom’ Bautista fighting on the undercard. Not to mention also the hopes of fight fans who planned on ordering the events. The last two big money generating fights (Mayweather-De La Hoya & Mayweather-Hatton) had mediocre undercards. Larry Merchant said the undercard to the latter was more of featuring quantity over quality. And that’s one problem we have these days with these corporations who make these PPV’s as if they were baking a cake. Well if you’re going to sell us these cakes at least try and fill the inside with something good.
Last time we had a good undercard widely accepted by the boxing community was on the undercard of Pavlik-Taylor II, the second HBO PPV of the year. Although we might have some unexpected undercard fun times in such events as Pacquiao-Marquez II and Pacquiao-Diaz we also get our once in a while undercards full of top prospects fighting journeyman as in the case of the latest PPV, Cotto-Margarito. In the case of the highly anticipated main event no one cared. But announce a fight like De La Hoya-Pacquiao and Pavlik-Hopkins and the promoter/HBO need to make sure to build a nice undercard to it.
Some fans are talking of boycotting De La Hoya-Pacquiao and announcing the possibility of Bautista being in the undercard is not a good start. Bautista would be the same guy who was knocked out in a single round by Daniel Ponce De Leon. At the looks of it if Bautista was to fight in the undercard chances are he will fight an unknown opponent. Sometimes matching up one of your stars with an unknown is not such a good idea just ask Giovanni Segura who looked like he had prepared for only a round or two of fighting instead he was taken the distance and upset.
On the other hand we got fights like Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Cesar Figueroa and Librado Andrade vs. Lucian Bute set up for different dates as the main events themselves. The first of which is more of a stay busy, but with a name like JuanMa who is co-promoted by Top Rank what difficulty would it of been to put him in a major PPV, I mean it’s not like Top Rank isn’t involved in Pavlik-Hopkins and Pacquiao-De La Hoya. I’m not implying that JuanMa is an undercard fighter but wouldn’t if serve him better to perform in an undercard of a major event seen around the world instead of just performing in a fight that will probably only be seen inside Puerto Rico. Librado Andrade has proven himself to be a fan friendly fighter so why not put him in there on the undercard of a major event? Sometimes the case might be purse bids but with the huge purses promoters get these days wouldn’t it be smart to invest in a good undercard.
On November 8th we got the hugely anticipated fight of Roy Jones Jr vs. Joe Calzaghe. Originally as this fight was announced for September 20th it was released with a joint announcement of the co-feature being Julio Diaz vs. Sugar Ray Nohr. Not an attention-getting ‘co-feature’. Now that fight will probably transpire over to the new date. In this case it’s acceptable due to the fact that Calzaghe and Jones are independently promoting this fight, Calzaghe has no know fighter under his newly-formed promotional company and Jones only has Dimitry Salita, who will probably serve in the undercard. It was reported HBO tried and get Jones and Calzaghe to get Golden Boy to help promote the event. Jones downright refused to have Golden Boy have any involvement in one of his fights. How getting Golden Boy to help promote would have improved the undercard is unknown, they can’t even get a decent undercard for some of their own events let alone others.
As a fight fan I’m pleading HBO and the promoters of the next 4 PPV’s Golden Boy and Top Rank to try and improve the quality of the undercard. The undercards of the afro-mentioned mega fights including Mayweather vs. Hatton & De La Hoya were dismal at best. More as time fillers to get the arena full while the fans await the event. As it looks De La Hoya-Pacquiao might be heading into the same direction. Bautista-type fighters making up the undercard, no disrespect to Bautista or his fans but he is an average fighter at best. Fighters like JuanMa Lopez and Chavez Jr. could use the extra limelight under a major PPV. Here’s hoping that if we were to decide to buy an HBO PPV event we get or fifty-dollars worth or in the case of De La Hoya-Pacquiao our fifty five dollars worth. Charging fans that kind of money for one main event is an insult, give us a glimpse of the future.
We’re only in the middle of September and we’ve already had 5 HBO PPV’s and 4 more left. Unfortunately for us fight fans HBO has made sure to inflate our monthly television bill by at least $49.95. When fights such as Marquez-Pacquiao II and Cotto-Margarito are announced we know deep down we will buy those fights. Not a lot of luck for the other PPV’s. If one was o ask a casual fight fan if he would buy a fight such as De La Hoya-Pacquiao or Hopkins-Pavlik that same fan will ask you, “Who’s on the undercard?”
Almost all the time the answer to that will be you don’t know. Sometimes because you don’t or perhaps because they won’t know who those undercard fighters are, lucky if they know the main headliners.
Just last week the Oscar De La Hoya-Pacquiao was announced, or as some can call it, the ‘event’ was announced. And almost with that announcement came the possibility of Rey ‘Boom Boom’ Bautista fighting on the undercard. Not to mention also the hopes of fight fans who planned on ordering the events. The last two big money generating fights (Mayweather-De La Hoya & Mayweather-Hatton) had mediocre undercards. Larry Merchant said the undercard to the latter was more of featuring quantity over quality. And that’s one problem we have these days with these corporations who make these PPV’s as if they were baking a cake. Well if you’re going to sell us these cakes at least try and fill the inside with something good.
Last time we had a good undercard widely accepted by the boxing community was on the undercard of Pavlik-Taylor II, the second HBO PPV of the year. Although we might have some unexpected undercard fun times in such events as Pacquiao-Marquez II and Pacquiao-Diaz we also get our once in a while undercards full of top prospects fighting journeyman as in the case of the latest PPV, Cotto-Margarito. In the case of the highly anticipated main event no one cared. But announce a fight like De La Hoya-Pacquiao and Pavlik-Hopkins and the promoter/HBO need to make sure to build a nice undercard to it.
Some fans are talking of boycotting De La Hoya-Pacquiao and announcing the possibility of Bautista being in the undercard is not a good start. Bautista would be the same guy who was knocked out in a single round by Daniel Ponce De Leon. At the looks of it if Bautista was to fight in the undercard chances are he will fight an unknown opponent. Sometimes matching up one of your stars with an unknown is not such a good idea just ask Giovanni Segura who looked like he had prepared for only a round or two of fighting instead he was taken the distance and upset.
On the other hand we got fights like Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Cesar Figueroa and Librado Andrade vs. Lucian Bute set up for different dates as the main events themselves. The first of which is more of a stay busy, but with a name like JuanMa who is co-promoted by Top Rank what difficulty would it of been to put him in a major PPV, I mean it’s not like Top Rank isn’t involved in Pavlik-Hopkins and Pacquiao-De La Hoya. I’m not implying that JuanMa is an undercard fighter but wouldn’t if serve him better to perform in an undercard of a major event seen around the world instead of just performing in a fight that will probably only be seen inside Puerto Rico. Librado Andrade has proven himself to be a fan friendly fighter so why not put him in there on the undercard of a major event? Sometimes the case might be purse bids but with the huge purses promoters get these days wouldn’t it be smart to invest in a good undercard.
On November 8th we got the hugely anticipated fight of Roy Jones Jr vs. Joe Calzaghe. Originally as this fight was announced for September 20th it was released with a joint announcement of the co-feature being Julio Diaz vs. Sugar Ray Nohr. Not an attention-getting ‘co-feature’. Now that fight will probably transpire over to the new date. In this case it’s acceptable due to the fact that Calzaghe and Jones are independently promoting this fight, Calzaghe has no know fighter under his newly-formed promotional company and Jones only has Dimitry Salita, who will probably serve in the undercard. It was reported HBO tried and get Jones and Calzaghe to get Golden Boy to help promote the event. Jones downright refused to have Golden Boy have any involvement in one of his fights. How getting Golden Boy to help promote would have improved the undercard is unknown, they can’t even get a decent undercard for some of their own events let alone others.
As a fight fan I’m pleading HBO and the promoters of the next 4 PPV’s Golden Boy and Top Rank to try and improve the quality of the undercard. The undercards of the afro-mentioned mega fights including Mayweather vs. Hatton & De La Hoya were dismal at best. More as time fillers to get the arena full while the fans await the event. As it looks De La Hoya-Pacquiao might be heading into the same direction. Bautista-type fighters making up the undercard, no disrespect to Bautista or his fans but he is an average fighter at best. Fighters like JuanMa Lopez and Chavez Jr. could use the extra limelight under a major PPV. Here’s hoping that if we were to decide to buy an HBO PPV event we get or fifty-dollars worth or in the case of De La Hoya-Pacquiao our fifty five dollars worth. Charging fans that kind of money for one main event is an insult, give us a glimpse of the future.
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