Comments Thread For: CBS Sports/PBC Deal Revealed: Stevenson-Bika, More

[IMDAZED]

We had Saturday cards on NBC in the late 80s and early 90s. Didn't do much considering the guys that fought in those time slots weren't the best fighters. Its funny how these guys are acting like its a new concept.

The excitement you see isn't because people think it's a new concept. It's because it's an old one that works. Case in point: YOU grew up watching it, according to your post.

And not toward you specifically but it's ridiculous to pretend every fight has to be Corrales-Castillo I or this will fail. Yes, not every network fighter in the 80's and 90's were pound for pounders. But the increased visibility helped them which, in turn, helped the sport. Guys like Witherspoon, and Gamache etc. Oh, and the Chavez's, Nelson's, etc. too. If it does flop, then it flops. But side eye to any "fan" who comes across a little salty after reading the news.

[Scipio2009]

How did that Fox deal work out for UFC publicity? They've never had a worse in year in their history. People aren't going to pay for PPV when fights are on free TV...

Casual fans don't know jack **** about boxing, none. If you put the GGG/Ward on PPV and Garcia/Peterson on free TV, the casual isn't paying for the good fight because they think it's all the same. UFC has this same problem because I'm casual UFC fan, very casual. If its on FOX I'll watch, but I'm not paying for even a Silva/GSP event simply because it's on free TV even though I know the quality of fighter is much better.

Putting boxing on TV will do nothing for Floyds PPV buys... Haymon thinks it will apparently. It'd done nothing to help UFC and in fact, may have hurt the brand.

The UFC made the mistake of not only taking the $100m per year, allegedly, content deal from but also continuing on with their 12-15 show PPV schedule. You add that the UFC has done a terrible job of establishing new stars.

Floyd Mayweather Jr is the only fighter with Haymon, right now, that demands PPV fights. Beyond that, there are also certain showdowns that require PPV (Froch-Chavez/Khan-Brook doubleheader, Stevenson-Kovalev/Pascal, Wilder-Klistchko, etc).

Every other fight card in the Haymon universe can be put together with a $1m-$3m budget. Haymon gets a deal like what the UFC got, uses the shows to build up a handful of PPV fights, and even some PPV stars.

supplement the content deal with 4-5 PPV fights, and you don't end up over-saturating the audience like the UFC has.

[Scipio2009]

List 10 of Haymons greatest fights.

List 10 Arum fights that were great since Haymon's name has entered the lexicon. I'll wait

[Vasyl’s dad]

The excitement you see isn't because people think it's a new concept. It's because it's an old one that works. Case in point: YOU grew up watching it, according to your post.

And not toward you specifically but it's ridiculous to pretend every fight has to be Corrales-Castillo I or this will fail. Yes, not every network fighter in the 80's and 90's were pound for pounders. But the increased visibility helped them which, in turn, helped the sport. Guys like Witherspoon, and Gamache etc. Oh, and the Chavez's, Nelson's, etc. too. If it does flop, then it flops. But side eye to any "fan" who comes across a little salty after reading the news.

I grew up in a boxing family though. We watched boxing all the time. NBC, ABC, ONTV, etc etc. None of my friends ever watched boxing on Saturday afternoon. But the overall point is this. Haymon is more known for protecting his fighters than putting them up against hard competition than making great matchups. Continuously mismatching isn't going to grow anything but false undefeated records. Thats where most people have a problem.

[Vasyl’s dad]

List 10 Arum fights that were great since Haymon's name has entered the lexicon. I'll wait

Do you really think I can't name 10 great fights from the past 15 years?

[IMDAZED]

I grew up in a boxing family though. We watched boxing all the time. NBC, ABC, ONTV, etc etc. None of my friends ever watched boxing on Saturday afternoon. But the overall point is this. Haymon is more known for protecting his fighters than putting them up against hard competition than making great matchups. Continuously mismatching isn't going to grow anything but false undefeated records. Thats where most people have a problem.

Of course you grew up in a boxing family. And regardless of what your friends watched, there were a lot more boxing families back then. The sport was on damn near every major network and cable. Was a great alternative to a Saturday afternoon of ESPN bowling or watching Empty Nest that night. So yeah, what you're saying is exactly my point.

As far as Haymon being known for protecting his fighter, well duh yeah. That's what every promoter tries to do while maximizing profit. Lowering risk? Lol. But please stop acting like it's oh so terrible. Paul Williams wasn't protected to me. Nor Vernon Forrest. Chris Arreola. Maidana. Tarver. Even Broner who is way overhyped has fought welters Malignaggi and Chino. Just because it's "known" that he protects fighters doesn't mean we blindly follow that logic, whatever that means. The first few announced matchups aren't mind-blowing but they're actually pretty good cards. That's more than a lot of promoters can say lately.

[Scipio2009]

I don't see the quality here, i see Haymon Champs vs Haymon Chumps.

Wait, why is Stevenson fighting Bika, who is a weight class lower and lost to Anthony Dirrell in his last fight? Thats ridiculous. The fights between Bika and Dirrell were horrible and a pain to watch.

Also Campillo again? That poor guy is getting knocked out again.

Then we have Fonfara, well i dont mind Fonfara fighting Chavez jr, but we could have GGG fighting Chavez Jr. instead.

Figueroa against Ricky Burns, wait didnt Burns win only 1 fight out of his last 4?

It seems like all the same fighters are taking rounds fighting each other, Campillo is the sacrificial lamb for everyone, Fonfara lost to Stevenson and may now lose to Chavez jr. Burns lost to Crawford and may now lose to Figueroa. Bika lost to Dirrell and may now lose to Stevenson.

You call that quality? I call it champs vs chumps, maybe not on a Rod Salsa level but still not remotely close to the fights the fans deserve. (Kovalev Stevenson, GGG vs Chavez Jr, LSC vs Rigo etc)

So we have the big Haymon Champs (Stevenson, Figueroa, Chavez jr., Beterbiev) vs the chumps that are supposed to lose: (Bika, Ricky Burns, Fonfara and Campillo)

I dont really see the quality there, well the names might be familiar but in a way that you already know who will win, the only close fight will be Fonfara vs Chavez Jr because lazy Chavez has to fight opponents at his size now.

HBO is looking at Matthyesse-Provodnikov and Kovalev-Pascal, which should be good scraps. Still, if you're basically going to **** on every fight beyond put together by Haymon so far, what fights are you actually looking forward to?

Because Golovkin-Murray isn't all that great a fight, and neither is Klitschko-Jennings. TBH, you can't say that there is a single other fight on HBO's docket that would draw any real interest, lol.

[Scipio2009]

One difference with most sports and MMA/Boxing is the threat of an early ending, like the first UFC on FOX main event that lasted a minute.

And that's the beauty of working with 170 fighters. You book 2-3 fights to feature on TV, and you load the rest of the card with decent prospect fights. If a fight ends early, which isn't unusual, you open up some time for one of the earlier fights to get onto TV.

The debut PBC show has two quality TV fights (Guerrero-Thurman, Broner-Molina) and a TV-firendly fighter (Abner Mares) on the bill, with Breazeale and Robert Easter in decent TV-filler fights.

[Scipio2009]

Do you really think I can't name 10 great fights from the past 15 years?

Haymon hasn't been around for 15 years in the public conversation; if you're desperate enough to want to count a manager of a single fighter as being influential, that's your own prerogative.

And yes, I do want you to name 10 great fights, preferably from after Haymon helped Mayweather buy out his deal with Top Rank and get the De La Hoya fight in 2007.

since it's only 10, you should have no issues with such an easy task.

[big_james10]

We are going from seeing one boxing contest a month (except for FNF) to seeking one practically every week. I need a yearly calendar to keep up with all the events Haymon is going to offer.


There are going to be some crappy fights involved (like Stevenson-Bika), but we are going to get a chance to see some really good or great fights also. In 2013 and 2014, 95 percent of the fights we saw on HBO and Showtime were crappy one-sided fights. We will see some much better quality matchups now thanks to Al Haymon.

One good thing about this Haymon programming is that it will force promoters like Bob Arum and HBO to provide better quality matchups. If they don't, we don't have to watch them on HBO (causing their ratings to go down) or pay $70 plus for PPV to watch mismatches. That means we won't be subjected to watching GGG fight the journeyman of the month because that is the only boxing match on in the entire month nor will Arum try to offer fans Pacquaio/Vargas on PPV at a cost of $70.