Comments Thread For: Nelson Says HBO Will Have Open Door To All Promoters

[MC Hammer]

Haymon coming back home to HBO, haters start getting salty.

I don't think he is. I don't know why he would when he has his own platform now. It would be working against what he's trying to build, and would possibly damage the relationship with Showtime. He might as well keep doing what he's doing. HBO may have the top P4P fighters, but to casuals that's irrelevant; he has nothing to gain by going back except maybe some belts for his fighters.

[Eff Pandas]

Kovalev has fought Hopkins and pascal and HBO has a contract for ward to fight him next year. I say that is much better then a pizza guy.

I'm not talking about Kov vs Pascal or Bhop or any of this other misdirection stuff you keep bringing up. Those are good matchups, I wanted to see those fights (well actually I didn't give a f#ck about the Bhop one, but I thought it was a competitive, interesting & good HBO caliber fight). Kov vs the pizza guy is what I'm talking about.

Would you not think DeGale vs Bute would be a fight more HBO viewers would rather watch than Kov vs the pizza guy is what I'm asking. If you answer is yes you aren't insane & that also suggests there exists an opening for Haymon fighters to fight each other on HBO & if the answer is no you are nuts or just being biased or anti-Haymon.

I would concede there could be issues if HBO wanted the winner of DeGale vs Bute to agree to a more than 1 fight contract with HBO that could include certain fights with how Haymon prefers to work. The first half of this post alone should show there are possibilities for Haymon & HBO to work together again doe & is my main point. If it happens or not we share see, but I think Peter Nelson gots higher expectations of what fights HBO should be showing & I think he'd definitely rather have HBO showing DeGale vs Bute than Kovalev vs the pizza guy.

[Mike_R]

Really hope we can get some of the promoter beefs to thaw out.

I think the PBC cards have been real nice but HBO is still managing to produce higher level fights.

HBO boxing is like watching the Wire and PBC boxing is like watching Law & Order. Definitely like them both, but just 2 different levels of intrigue to me (up to this point).

[Eff Pandas]

HBO's talent pool is much smaller than Haymon's and HBO is more likely to run out of compelling fights before Haymon. Kovalev vs Stevenson on HBO benefits HBO far more than it benefits Haymon because one of Haymon's goals is to make HBO boxing irrelevant. So if HBO is starting to run out of compelling bouts, why would Haymon bail them out and start playing ball?

Again I don't see how this is playing ball or bailing out. If Haymon coulda gotten DeGale vs Bute on HBO last weekend I just don't necessarily see that helping HBO much. Whoever wins that fight goes right back to Spike or NBC or wherever for their next fight. If we start talking about long term HBO contracts then its another story, but one offs on HBO don't seem like an awful idea to me.

The Stevenson vs Kovalev fight is an interesting one, but Stevenson is 38, 39 at this point I believe. How much longer does he have in the sport? At some point he's worth throwing away so to speak, the reality is if Stevenson goes to HBO & gets KTFO there are still probably 6 or so top ten guys behind him that PBC has so its not like Kovalev isn't starving for opponents the day after that fight all over again. And Stevenson could win that fight anyway so while you don't got the fight being on PBC you got the fighter being on PBC next time out.

Haymon does fights on Showtime because Showtime's parent company owns CBS and Spike, making Viacom one of Haymon's top options when it comes time to pull the trigger and sign an exclusive television contract for PBC. Also, if Showtime is going to spend $25 million a year on boxing, Haymon might as well make sure other promoters don't benefit from it.

And this is exactly what I'm saying with HBO. If HBO's $30M-$35M budget per year were to spend just $5M on PBC fighters in 2016 thats a nice lil dent that would lower HBO's options with their other fighters & give other promoters less chances to be on TV.

Look at the big picture, Haymon has the TV locked up, the young talent locked up, is locking up more and more belts. If you tighten your grip instantly, your victim can slip away. Tighten slowly and there is no escape.

The problem is I don't think you can tighten your grip instantly when HBO gots like the P4P top 10 under their roster. I think taking some risks (ie maybe throwing Stevenson at Kovalev) or draining their bankroll more (ie getting one off PBC vs PBC fights on HBO) isn't a bad move. The question using my logic would be if HBO doesn't smell what Haymon is cooking with some of that, but I think if you throw them good fights or Stevenson vs Kovalev even I think the cat around now would be alright with it cuz he wants good fights on HBO.

Eh, whatever the case, whatever does happen this should all be interesting to watch develop.

[Eff Pandas]

HBO and Haymon are at war over control of the sport.

I don't think HBO thinks this at all. Lampley might. Lampley probably watches Alex Jones & gots a 10yr supply of water & creamed corn in his basement & gets excited at every world disaster. I think HBO realizes they are the gold standard in the sport & just chugging along as per usual for the most part & are aware of these "cold war" type relationships going on, but don't see them that serious really. PBC clearly has a more strategic approach & I feel they are at war, but I think the potential tactics to be used could be different than what you are suggesting in some instances.

[Eff Pandas]

Really hope we can get some of the promoter beefs to thaw out.

The reality is when you got powerful promoters on par with the ones we've had in this era you are always going to have beefs cuz too much is at stake. If your guy loses you lose power in the sport. If you win you win power in the sport. With winning or losing meaning so much to your promotion it only makes sense that you'd be trying to find the best guys your guys could beat & staying away from those guys you guy can't beat. Granted its not always like that, but nowhere in boxing are the best fighting the best all the time & thats one of the biggest problems in the sport of boxing.

[Eastcoast]

I'm in line with the assessments by saint laurent - we won't see Haymon back on HBO because Haymon doesn't need HBO. In fact the complete opposite. Haymon spent $300mill on time buys to starve out the competition, the same competition that's now only kept alive by HBO. Giving any of his fighters time on HBO only provides HBO with more life. Additionally take into consideration the fights HBO wants from Haymon are fights where his fighters are likely to lose.

HBO never banned Haymon fighters, Hersham made that clear multiple times. Haymon on the other killed HBO fights - Quillin/Korobov, Stieverne/Ortiz, and refused to even negotiate potential purse bid fights - Lomachenko/Russell, Kovalev/Stevenson.


This is why I believe if HBO is to survive they need to adapt and go on the offensive. Allow fighters like Kovalev who have a mandatory bid vs Stevenson, to go fight on the Haymon platform and win. It's a gamble, but that's part of war. Allowing fighters like Golovkin, Kovalev, Crawford, and Lomachenko to go fight one-off high-level fights on the rivals platform, will give their fighter's a bigger name while decimating their rivals stable. And best of all, we the fans win regardless.

[IMDAZED]

I'm in line with the assessments by saint laurent - we won't see Haymon back on HBO because Haymon doesn't need HBO. In fact the complete opposite. Haymon spent $300mill on time buys to starve out the competition, the same competition that's now only kept alive by HBO. Giving any of his fighters time on HBO only provides HBO with more life. Additionally take into consideration the fights HBO wants from Haymon are fights where his fighters are likely to lose.

HBO never banned Haymon fighters, Hersham made that clear multiple times. Haymon on the other killed HBO fights - Quillin/Korobov, Stieverne/Ortiz, and refused to even negotiate potential purse bid fights - Lomachenko/Russell, Kovalev/Stevenson.


This is why I believe if HBO is to survive they need to adapt and go on the offensive. Allow fighters like Kovalev who have a mandatory bid vs Stevenson, to go fight on the Haymon platform and win. It's a gamble, but that's part of war. Allowing fighters like Golovkin, Kovalev, Crawford, and Lomachenko to go fight one-off high-level fights on the rivals platform, will give their fighter's a bigger name while decimating their rivals stable. And best of all, we the fans win regardless.

A win for the fans but I can't see that happening. Nelson pretty much said, "we welcome any promoter on our platform."

[Cinci Champ]

....and the fact that they aren't real fights, unless you are one of those people who thinks GGG vs Lemieux was a real fight.

hell no i dont hbo is just better at making people think their fights are better then they actually are. with the few fights they put on its almost crazy how many passes they get from boxing fans with all the one sided fights they put on. Look at kovalev last opponent and ggg last few opponents all completely one sided fights. Look at canelo kirkland and all the crawford fights the lomenchenko fights pretty much every boxer they propaganda p4p over fights a bunch of over matched foes and they blame haymon for it and people fall for it. i mean the list goes on and on all of which would be completely bashed by boxing fans if they were same fights under the pbc banner.

People can say whatever they want but the reality is with hbo it seems like every big fight is possible and "might" happen in the future and in the mean time we get bs. I mean honestly i dont really care that people give hbo a pass but its annoying when they bash pbc and praise hbo when they both doing same things. The difference is pbc has so many more fights on tv that of course a large percentage is going to be showcase i mean thats just common sense.

Am i the only one who notices hbo puts on bull **** one sided fights and gets away with it? I mean seriously give me a break with this idea that hbo puts on great fights the reality is their fights are one sided as **** and used as propaganda in p4p agendas

[The Big Dunn]

I'm cautiously optimistic. Nelson said all promoters are welcome but we all know Haymon isn't a promoter. One could be promoted by someone associated with Haymon and not necessarily be managed by Haymon.

It would've been much better if he outright stated Haymon fighters are no longer banned from HBO. But this is a step forward so I will take it as a positive.