HBO Crew Should Be Ashamed For Their Comments

[Ray*]

People like Merchant or Lampley are boxing fans too and they have their favourite as well, I dont think this is a race thing.. Look at the way lampley was crying when cotto got knocked out by rito, You could see he wanted cotto to win and he was biase toward cotto when commenting,so does that have anything to do with race also???

[michvlamar]

although this shouldnt happen as a sports broadcaster you cant blame the lampley and merchant for favoring pavlik. He is a blue collar, white american fighter which there are few in boxing. One thing ive noticed is most black people cheer for black fighters most mexicans cheer for mexican fighters so u cant blame a white guy for cheering for their white fighter or calling them racist. This is also a business and although im a huge hopkins fan, his last couple fights have been boring and full of clinching. Pavliks fights have been exciting which brings more ppv buys, remember this is a business. And relax on calling the man the greatest boxer alive he just lost his last fight. And you cant totally ignore the fact that pavlik was moving up in weight to fight one of the best light heavys out there.By the way if you have a de la hoya picture on your comment you lose credit as a boxing enthusiast and your comment means nothing. De la hoya another fighter who has been built up by hbo not cuz of race or talent but because of popular demand

[Mr. Philadel]

People like Merchant or Lampley are boxing fans too and they have their favourite as well, I dont think this is a race thing.. Look at the way lampley was crying when cotto got knocked out by rito, You could see he wanted cotto to win and he was biase toward cotto when commenting,so does that have anything to do with race also???

I think they took into Cotto for the simple fact they thought he could beat Floyd....they praised Cotto in an obvious way to spite Floyd as the divisions best. Marg was too gangster for themplus he had a handful of loses already and had been exposed by Paul Williams.

[Mr. Philadel]

Strongly disagree. How much proof do we need? A bit more than nothing at all would be nice.

George Foreman was biased as hell too. We all have some level of bias, but I see no reason to believe that it's racial with HBO.

I hope you right that its just bias **** going on there and nothing racist....

[AntonTheMeh]

I think they took into Cotto for the simple fact they thought he could beat Floyd....they praised Cotto in an obvious way to spite Floyd as the divisions best. Marg was too gangster for themplus he had a handful of loses already and had been exposed by Paul Williams.

well, even hopkins agreed cotto would give floyd nightmares.

[joseph5620]

[QUOTE=ferocity;4209831]How can you compared what Oscar did to Trinidad to what Hopkins did to Pavlik is beyond me. Pavlik wasn't in his weight class where he was koing people he moved up in weight.

What you can compare Hopkins v. Pavlik is Hopkins v. Trinidad, lol. See a similar patter here?

But one thing i will say is that Trinidad was way more comfortable at 160 then Pavlik was at 175.

So Pavlik looked sluggish and slow so he got exposed.

Pavlik looked slow because Hopkins made him look that way. This was not the first time Pavlik fought at that weight and he rematched Taylor at 166. Stop with the bull**** excuses. Pavlik struggles to make 160 as least as badly as Hopkins did and has said so himself. You're desperate in choosing to give the 43 year old Hopkins NO credit but the **** won't fly here. And you're right about Hopkins-Pavlik being different from Delahoya-Trinidad because Hopkins didn't run like a ***** to protect his lead in the way Delahoya did.

[joseph5620]

well, even hopkins agreed cotto would give floyd nightmares.

Hopkins said the same thing about Hatton aginst Mayweather. Didn't turn out that way though.

[shynequasiog22]

Very true article. It's not right to call Kelly greedy for taking the Hopkins fight. Mayweather is considered greedy for taking easy fights for the most money and Pavlik did the opposite. He took a hard fight, which was one of the few options he had. If anything he should be getting praise for fighting Hop instead of the disrespect they gave him.

[ProBox1]

I dont agree with the article completely. Though I must admit that HBO probably showed overaggression in making this fight between the veteran and the learner, Pavlik did not have to take the fight. Is HBO Pavlik's promoter? No. Pavlik wants money when he fights, like alot of other fighters, he does not want to fade into the background and fade fighters that would not rise to the level of interest for HBO to approve of.

However, it is Pavlik's choice. He could have chosen to fight off of HBO. My God, why does every fight have to be on HBO? I mean it is nice, but not if it screws up a fighters career (I dont think in this case it has, pavlik will be back).

Point is, Kelly needs to take his time, B-Hop had 20 title defenses, where all of those on HBO? And the point is, he stayed at middle weight, perfected his craft, and now can choose to move up and take on quality boxers. Kelly Pavlik, the time where you can dominate in different classes and adapt your style of fighting in order to dominate your opponents will come only through patience and longevity, stay focused and don't be greedy.

I applaud Lampley and Merchant, they were telling the truth. I dont suspect either that they make every decision or any final ones, they are commentators after all. There are suits behind them that make the big boy decisions like the desire to pursue this bout.

You make some points, but in the end Pavlik is an "HBO fighter." He can't just go over to Showtime and he is too big to fight on some indy pay-per-view or on ESPN.

During the fighter meetings, there was no "why did you guys take this fight" coming from Lampley or Merchant. I hear it was more of a "Hopkins is old and it will be huge if you become the first guy to knock him out."

My point is that Lampley and Merchant KNEW that Pavlik and his team were trying to fight guys like Green and Rubio and Williams and Wright. They knew their company, HBO, turned those fights down or was unwilling to put up enough money to make the Wright or Williams fights happen.

Taking their knowledge of that into account, it was WRONG for them to all of a sudden turn on Pavlik and put his reason for the Hopkins fight into question and call it greed for taking the fight when they knew that his team tried to get half a dozen middleweight contenders that were turned down. The network pushed for the fight because they thought Hopkins was old, Lampley and Merchant knew that as well.

If they really thought the fight was a farce, then they shouldn't have waited until the eight round, when Hopkins was well ahead, to begin taking shots at Pavlik and his team. They should have opened their mouths before people spent $50 bucks. They were selling this fight the entire way, and selling some more and when it appeared that Pavlik was not going to win, they turned on him.

Also keep this mind, and I know this as fact from people who tried out for the HBO broadcast position when Merchant was on the verge of being ousted. The guys from HBO in the back, will often tell the broadcasters what to talk about, what to say and when to say it. They don't do it that much with Merchant, but it happens often with Lampley and Steward. During Joel Casamayor's ridiculous decision over Jose Armando Santa Cruz, I heard they were telling them through their head pieces - "to not make a big deal over the decision and to move on."

[joseph5620]

[QUOTE=Rick Reeno;4210922]You make some points, but in the end Pavlik is an "HBO fighter." He can't just go over to Showtime and he is too big to fight on some indy pay-per-view or on ESPN.

During the fighter meetings, there was no "why did you guys take this fight" coming from Lampley or Merchant. I hear it was more of a "Hopkins is old and it will be huge if you become the first guy to knock him out."

My point is that Lampley and Merchant KNEW that Pavlik and his team were trying to fight guys like Green and Rubio and Williams and Wright. They knew their company, HBO, turned those fights down or was unwilling to put up enough money to make the Wright or Williams fights happen.

Taking their knowledge of that into account, it was WRONG for them to all of a sudden turn on Pavlik and put his reason for the Hopkins fight into question and call it greed for taking the fight when they knew that his team tried to get half a dozen middleweight contenders that were turned down. The network pushed for the fight because they thought Hopkins was old, Lampley and Merchant knew that as well.

If they really thought the fight was a farce, then they shouldn't have waited until the eight round, when Hopkins was well ahead, to begin taking shots at Pavlik and his team. They should have opened their mouths before people spent $50 bucks. They were selling this fight the entire way, and selling some more and when it appeared that Pavlik was not going to win, they turned on him.


I remember George Foreman stopped them from doing that during the final three rounds of Jones-Ruiz. Lampley started with how unskilled Ruiz was and how bad the match up was before Foreman interrupted and said, "Oh no you don't. Don't promote a fight and then tear it down in final rounds" Lampley didn't seem pleased that Foreman said that.