A Look at Andre Ward, Bradley vs. Campbell Goes Bust

[jbin333]

shaw knows his boy bradley would get whupped on.......

and bradley without a title is absolutely no good to shaw.......

so i guess anyone fighting bradley must agree to these bs "options" if they wish to fight for bradley's "championship".......

oh well, good luck finding an opponent....

[javelin_fangs]

I didnt read where Kim said that but if Lou turned down the Dirrell options then he's an idiot. I actually think Dirrell can be the man one day. Im not exactly going to back HBO here after they turned down Taylor-Froch and picked up Dawson-Tarver II. They are dumb for that. You can try to hype Dawson all you want but why a Tarver rematch and why pay alot for it? Talk about super high risk/low reward, thats it and you saw what happened. The fight was garbage and now everyone hates Dawson while the Taylor-Froch fight was beast. Theyre definatly hit & miss. You just said that Dirrell didnt have a promoter so thats different. Some options are real options and some options are basically like signing. Dirrell probably took the options because he wanted to get on Showtime and he probably thought it wasnt a bad thing to deal with Dibella since he had no promoter at the time. Thats business and I dont mind that but the Shaw situation is different. Nate aint Dirrell. Nate has done some things and had a good name. Dirrell was a basic nobody at the time. He had the Gold but he wasnt the Golden Boy so he needed that way more than Nate needs Bradley and Dirrell probably felt that he would beat Stevens with ease anyways and get a solid promoter so it was no big deal to him

I don't think it's a whole lot different between Campbell and Dirrell. Maybe Terry Trekas would disagree with me, but from where I'm sitting Campbell doesn't get on a major network unless he either gives a major promoter options or signs with them before getting matched with one of their prized champions or future stars. Dirrell doesn't get on HBO unless he gives DiBella options.

In any event, Campbell punished Kid Diamond, he punished Juan Diaz and he put on a good show against Funeka. That's the reason why people want to see him. Dirrell, on the other hand, showed a lack of experience in his HBO debut and even though he won people were booing him and basically hoping he'd be banned from televised boxing. To me that's the only difference.

Fortunately for Dirrell, he's young enough and comes with the amatuer pedigree to where he's now found a home on Showtime. Campbell, on the other hand, can get on the networks and I'm sure they like him, but if a fight like Campbell-Ortiz were to ever get made you can bet your bottom dollar HBO wants Ortiz to win and Golden Boy has a rematch clause and options on at least two or three Campbell fights signed into the contract.

Which brings us back to Campbell-Bradley. Bradley isn't a big star or even a household name from a mainstream perspective, but to Showtime and Gary Shaw he's a franchise player. That's why they want options on Campbell for that fight. Dawson was in the same position at this point last year. Unfortunately, not enough people watch Showtime so HBO is going through the motions of replaying 2008 in 2009 with Dawson.

The bigger mistake that HBO made is that they didn't buy Dawson-Johnson and/or Dawson-Tarver 1. Had they bought those two fights we wouldn't be asking about why Dawson-Tarver 2 had to happen. We wouldn't be asking if Hopkins might be interested in fighting Dawson. He would be. Calzaghe may not have retired. But since HBO passed on the Johnson and Tarver fights in 2008 they're going to make up for their mistake by doing them in 2009 in hopes that Hopkins will still be around by the time they're over.

The unfortunate victim of HBO's 2008 mistakes with regard to Dawson was the Froch-Taylor fight which was great, but keep in mind Dawson-Johnson was a great fight also. Dawson-Johnson 2 will probably be every bit as good.

[Pullcounter]

you've never looked at my sig? Hint: look right below the image of Nate.....

sorry dude, I turn off the avatars and sig so I can come on these boards during work.

I'm a fan of nates.

[AC111]

yeh i agree with an earlier post about thanking God in boxing.

Its not merely a question of thanking for a W like this writer suggests....

I think Ward dedicates himself to God therefore obviously hed thank him after something like winning a fight in the ring. Fighters may thank as a thanks to where they were to what theyve become etc etc etc. You dont know what goes on in each individual fighters lives. Obviously theres hypocrites out there though