Comments Thread For: Too much boxing: Riyadh Season inadvertently makes the case against 'supercards'

[BustedKnuckles]

As for the "too much boxing" part, I think the amount of boxing was fine, it's the padding between fights that needs to go. I've said it before, ten minutes after a fight has ended in UFC, the next fighters are making their ring walks. And that includes post-fight interview. That's ample time to run ads and set up the next bout. It doesn't feel rushed, it feels right.

Boxing on the other hand takes an absolute age between fights at the best of times. Thirty minutes is the minimum, forty five is common and the Crawford fight took over an hour. Why? Who is that good for? It slows down the momentum of the card and creates this weird stop-start effect which, to your point OP, becomes a real chore to sit through. I've missed the opening rounds of fights before because I went off to do something else during the intermission and lost track of time. That shouldn't happen. If you're not holding the viewer's attention, you're failing (and re-treading the same old talking points with a bunch of talking heads does not cut it). How hard is it to get these guys warmed up and then just "You're on in ten." How hard is that, seriously? It's embarrassing how far behind boxing is in this aspect.

Agree completely. This is why i watch most events either long after they started or next day. That way I can fast forward through all the nonsense, as well as garbage matchups and girl fights.

[billeau2]

It wasn't the mere use of the honorific that was bothersome...it was the repetition...over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. I appreciate a great card like everyone else and also appreciate that people have different tastes when it comes to "entertainment," but all the acclaim seemed like mandatory (and excessive) reverence. It made Don King look like Mother Teresa.

It is the equivalent of "Mr" Smith for all practical purposes... The one BIG difference depends on the society involved: In Chinese, you can be informal, even calling an older man "Hey Uncle" but in an Arabic country, or Japan? not using the proper title in a greeting is really insulting. Yes, it sounds ridiculous lol. A lot of tribal societies are fiercely hierarchical and use honorific designations carefully... Other pluralistic societies don't. Pali the language of the BUddha, and a variant of Sanskrit is an example of the latter.

[MulaKO]

Wow Raskin can really spread it on thick
I got no problem with the boxing and thought it was a pretty damn good card
Where I do have a problem is the time consuming bullchit in between fights with nothing more than gibberish , nothing of note , really no learning
Wish they would force fighters to enter the ring in the next 30 minutes max after the previous fight
But never to much boxing when the card is packed with 50/50 fights which I thought most fights were
You can say that with Bakole and El Rayo coming up with W’s as underdogs
Take into consideration another underdog Miller , should of gotten the nod as goes without say Hot Rod should of been in the W column also

[Slip jab]

Hahahah. Very funny and somewhat true, but hey, we are finally getting the fights that we always wanted to see, so I am OK with pizza.

Exactly. He just just needs to remember he’s a guest in our house.

[Slip jab]

IDK, in my view, he's a bit of a cornball who somebody gave a big bag of gold. He's not so knowledgeable fo the sport from where I sit. As Eric Raskin notes, he's simply well-funded. Nothing more.

Hahaha

[Wacked_Out]

I cant get why the author won't record the fights and watch later. What a bad nag to have on a boxing site. Too much boxing is a problem for the author.
If I had to find a negative it would be that I was too hammered by the end to remember everything the next day.

[SUBZER0ED]

It is just a title... It sounds ridiculous in the same way you see a 20 year old with a red striped belt and he refers to himself as "grand master" in his art, but honorifics do not generally translate well... Probably why Chinese is a relatively easy language to practice speaking, but Japanese you can really insult someone bad! It is like "Your Majesty" or even "president." It just sounds very inflated to our secular ears.

I'm not really talking about his title, which sounds as if he's royalty (he's not), it's the high praise he gets, that's over the top. Sure, he's put together some good fights, but it's because he's oil-rich and likes boxing. Not because he's some incredible being whose worthy of mountains of praise and near-worship. I say, give him a high-five, some dap, a fist-bump and keep it moving.

[ambrose1am]

If you zoomed straight to the comments, you did the right thing. This article is clickbait

..shameless kowtowing to a non-fighter whose defining positive characteristic is willingness to spend money
Personally, I would shake his hand and thank him profusely if I ever saw him in person

..playing of the Saudi national anthem before a main event featuring no athletes from Saudi Arabia
It was 1 song, 1 min, and no one sang. You would shame a man who honors his country? The one who gave us this night?

..interview with promoter Turki Alalshikh in which he displayed the charisma of a turnbuckle pad
The disrespect..

It was a deep card, yes. One of the deepest in boxing history. But the actual “greatest card in boxing history” surely had at least one A-plus, must-see fight somewhere on it.
This guy really did fall asleep

And I realize the downside for fans: Now you’re asking them to pony up for two PPVs. Well, that’s easily solved. Put one on PPV — the one with the card’s one true PPV-headliner-level star, Terence Crawford — and air the other “free” on DAZN
THIS is why you don't make those decisions, Eric. Free on DAZN? Really? The fighters wouldn't have gotten half the purse or the exposure

I’m not sure how sustainable the Riyadh Season business model is. Actually, that’s not true. I know exactly how sustainable it is. It’s not a business model, period. It’s a loss leader. It works for as long as the Saudi government is content to overpay and lose money in exchange for a reputational overhaul.
A column writer can't understand the actions of a billionaire.. shocker. The whole point of this card was to tap into & test the US market, get these PBC fighters stuck on that sinking ship career-high paydays and some badly needed exposure, and set up much bigger fights down the line by gauging who performs well on the big stage

Sportswashing talk is for people oblivious to worldly matters, so they repeat the rhetoric. The one started by the same propagandists saying ******s are *********s. You really ought to do a deep dive into your own country's history before making those claims if you want to go there. And oil isn't going to last forever. If they can take over billion dollar sports industries, why not?

It seems to me that if and when someone comes along to actually save boxing, they won’t spend so much time congratulating themselves on saving boxing
He doesn't, the people grateful for the opportunity do. PBC guys thank Al Haymon in their post-fight interviews. I suppose he's more deserving?

I went into Saturday expecting to find a fight/fighter-focused angle for my post-fight column. But thanks to my frustrations with the overall package, here I am, some 1,400 words in, having barely talked about any of the actual boxing.
Lol that's the beauty of choice, Eric. No one told you to spend the first 1400 words b****ing! If it's too much for you, maybe, it's time to have that talk with your editor

That’s a shame. In an alternate universe, I could have written a column with one of these angles:
A play on the name Andy and neither is technically a Big Baby

Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience..
..whose getting really tired of having to stay up late for his job


This card was long, but FANTASTIC. Boxing WON. Boxing fans WON

Lol Must be tough watching from the outside. Funny thing is, this writer may have just blown any opportunity to get that life-changing call from a certain very rich boxing fan. One, whose only just getting started

Talk about sycophancy. Are you on Turki’s payroll? Yes, having stacked boxing cards is fantastic, but it’s fine to criticize the scope of the event and consider how to improve it. Raskin makes some good points about the length and time-wasting, the sucking up, and the need for changing the pace. His split card is a good idea. Your ideas are to laud billionaires and propaganda and criticize…writers and editors. Be a little critical of the real people in power.

[boxing IQ]

Talk about sycophancy. Are you on Turki’s payroll? Yes, having stacked boxing cards is fantastic, but it’s fine to criticize the scope of the event and consider how to improve it. Raskin makes some good points about the length and time-wasting, the sucking up, and the need for changing the pace. His split card is a good idea. Your ideas are to laud billionaires and propaganda and criticize…writers and editors. Be a little critical of the real people in power.

Lol are you on Boxing Scene's payroll?

You don't have enough posts to talk to me

Scoot

[sasquatch88]

It is the equivalent of "Mr" Smith for all practical purposes... The one BIG difference depends on the society involved: In Chinese, you can be informal, even calling an older man "Hey Uncle" but in an Arabic country, or Japan? not using the proper title in a greeting is really insulting. Yes, it sounds ridiculous lol. A lot of tribal societies are fiercely hierarchical and use honorific designations carefully... Other pluralistic societies don't. Pali the language of the BUddha, and a variant of Sanskrit is an example of the latter.

I hear ya...but, like I said, my discomfort was not limited to the use of the honorific. In any event, considering that the fella declares himself the "face of boxing," I'm less inclined to chalk this up to mere cultural differences (though I appreciate that those differences do play a role here).

This is neither here nor there, but "General Entertainment Authority" seems like its straight out of Borat. Turki should call is next card, "His Excellency Turki Al-Sheikh's Exchange of Fisticuffs With Glove Covering on Hands Program for Entertaining of Make Riches, by His Excellency Turki Al-Shekh."