Help Me Understand This Ward HBO DEAL. WAS HE STRONG ARMED?

[.!WAR MIKEY!.]

SO Haymon has Showtime sowed up right, and Rocnation (jayz) and Haymon don't like each other so they(showtime,PBC) wont do business with Rocnation (Ward).

And HBO wouldn't do business with Ward unless he signed to fight KOVALEV.

So initially Ward didn't want to fight Kovalev and HBO said okay go fight where you can WARD ended up on BET on getting 325K viewers.

So with those ratings and on such an inferior ****** network no one has even heard of, ward hand was forced to crawl back and beg hbo for the deal.

So safe to say Ward was strong armed by HBO into forcing him to face KOVALEV?

And what was this deal terms? 2 tunes and then he must face kovalev?
what are we on his first tune up or are 2 completed?

[The Big Dunn]

Maybe not strong armed but I think HBO made it clear to Ward they would give him a 3 fight deal if he fought Kov, thus steering him away from GGG for the time being.

Ward, seeing he has no other real options to make the kind of money HBO was offering, took the deal. That's just how business works sometimes.

[Vasyl’s dad]

"Boxing is a business" "ward is at a point where he can pick and choose". "Ward has an atg resume" "ggg ducked". "HBO is going down"

[_Maxi]

Yeah and he said it... they preassure me to move up blabla...

[Robbie Barrett]

HBO protecting the hype job at 160, don't want to upset the casual fans.

[BrometheusBob.]

I wonder if the reason he was trying to get GGG to agree to an eventual fight was to have him be a part of the contract deal, and when that didn't pan out he turned to Kovalev.

[Jewish-Reptile]

HBO Protecting their most saleable asset GGG by keeping Ward away from him.

[Robbie Barrett]

Please leave Gennady alone and we'll give you a deal - HBO

[-PBP-]

I don't think so. Ward's options at 168 are all on PBC. At the time, Abraham was #1 in the division and he already beat him. So his options were either hang out at 168 and wait for Zurdo and GGG or move up to 175 and build that legacy.

[Mitchell Kane]

If you want HBO money, sometimes you gotta do what HBO wants.