Comments Thread For: Showtime To Disband Entire March 12th Card, Reschedule Fights

[Mitchell Kane]

Neither can take an interim fight without express written or verbal consent from the other party due to the language in their existing contracts

Is that normal?

[OnePunch]

Is that normal?

I wouldnt call it "normal", but its certainly not uncommon to prohibit any interim fights when the bout is several months away. Its more a precaution to keep a fighter from taking an interim fight and maybe getting injured or something that threatens the contracted bout.

In THIS case though its really unnecessary since both guys are with Haymon, and Haymon contracts require his approval on any fights, and theres no way that approval would have been granted, so its kind of redundant.....

[The Problem Child]

Thanks Shaniqua Run Time Coward Hurtman. ****ing disgraceful scared loser.

[The Big Dunn]

Odds are that it wouldnt even matter if there was. The decision to cancel comes from Showtime, not Haymon.

True but this seems like a card that could've been saved. Too bad. Know there are no really good fights the 1st quarter of the year.

[b00g13man]

Really, really disappointing.

[Scipio2009]

It's no worse than what SHO has been putting on for the past two years.

Hyperbole, but honestly wouldn't have expected much else. moving on.

Showtime, at this moment in time, is basically positioned as the platform for PBC "super fights" and "superstars", while also keeping hardcore fight fans satiated with the expanded ShoBox offerings.

Wilder-Szpilka card in January, Frampton-Quigg/Santa Cruz-Martinez in February, the Thurman-Porter extravaganza in March(admittedly a cross-platform show but whatever), Jack-Chavez Jr likely for April, and the likely Wilder-Povetkin fight for May/June.

The JRock/Antoine Douglass/Tony Harrison tripleheader is basically carried "special edition of ShoBox on main-stage Showtime", and other similar shows will likely supplement ShoBox. My guess is that the money tied up in delivering those fights as a tripleheader likely outstripped the money that was set aside for the JRock triple header.

[bigdunny1]

The UFC is putting their early March fight on PPV; rather than title vs title, the UFC is now left selling a non-title fight, likely significantly hitting the upside on the show.

Getting Porter "another decent opponent" isn't the issue; Thurman vs Porter, two prime top-5 welterweights facing off, is a massive potential fight.

What could honestly replace that, from a spectacle perspective, at this point?

Brook-Porter II and Garcia-Porter, with that being about it. Neither matchups is realistically possible at this point.

Odd that they didn't just consolidate things into a tripleheader for Showtime (Russell title defense, Mares fight, and Rodriguez-WilliamsJr is a pretty solid night of fights); maybe the powers that be didn't view that as being enough of a show for 'Showtime Championship Boxing'.

Who is saying you replace it with another equal opponent. The point is you downgrade but get Porter a decent opponent so you can still sell a main event fight and not scrap the entire show and lose money and hurt business relationships in the process. Fight makes less money but less is better then nothing. And I don't think for a minute the plug being pulled is because of Showtime they have aired much worse cards. Likely it's Mohegan Sun, CBS ect that didn't want to continue on.

[Scipio2009]

I could care less about the undercard . At this point Porter should just stay active. It's weird with the 100+ fighters Haymon has he couldn't find a late replacement for him?

For what money, though?

I have no doubt that Haymon could call up a guy like Leonard Bundu (or any 147 fighter already in camp, helping someone else out) and put together a fight, if that was what everyone wanted; only caveat is that Porter likely wouldn't get anywhere near the $1.5m that I assume he's getting for the Thurman fight.

Haymon can get you busy, if that's what you want to do; look at the pace that Erroll Spence, Caleb Plant, Pritchard Colon, etc had their camps put them under.

Once you get beyond that level, the calculus of things change, for everybody; rather than taking two fights and keeping busy, Spence kept in the gym, waited things out, and is now set to face off against Chris Algieri (arguably top-15 147 fighter) in the main event from the Barclays Center, in primetime on NBC. Money isn't everything, but Spence may end up looking at his first $1m payday(finally having to cut Haymon a check).

[Scipio2009]

Who is saying you replace it with another equal opponent. The point is you downgrade but get Porter a decent opponent so you can still sell a main event fight and not scrap the entire show and lose money and hurt business relationships in the process. Fight makes less money but less is better then nothing. And I don't think for a minute the plug being pulled is because of Showtime they have aired much worse cards. Likely it's Mohegan Sun, CBS ect that didn't want to continue on.

Ponder the entire slate of PBC/PBC-affiliated fighters at 147 and offer up some suggestions. Thurman-Porter is a fight that had interests of everyone so perked up that Showtime/CBS was willing to dig into the boxing budget to move the fight onto CBS. good luck

[Jsmooth9876]

I'm glad they cancelled so I get a full refund... Didn't want to see Gary Russell vs a no name bum as the main event lol...

Hope it comes back to Mohegan after they reschedule...