Crawford vs Postal is going to bomb

[j0zef]

When you combine Postol/Crawford's LWW resumes, this is the lineage they've created: Matthysse, Dulorme, Lundy, Aydin, Jean, Beltran, Prescott. While most will agree that this is #1 vs #2 match-up, the lineage can be (and hopefully will become) stronger.

As for it being PPV, I feel like the main event fighters are being sabotaged a bit. Postol has been on HBO only twice in his career, while Crawford has been on HBO since 2013. HBO will try to gauge Crawford's PPV potential with this match-up, but it might've been the wrong one or the wrong time. As others have stated, the event's success probably won't be greatly dependent on PPV #'s, but I'm sure that HBO would love for Crawford to win and become their next superstar.

How come this bout isn't in Nebraska? If you want to give this bout a good chance of attracting fans, it would make sense to put it in Crawford's backyard.

The concepts of resume and lineage are not as applicable today as they were a decade or two ago. Nobody has a decent resume today. Nobody. I can make a decent argument at vastly discrediting every single P4P fighter and make them look like Joe Shmoe.


This is one of the best fights to be made today. Let's support it and enjoy it.

[-Antonio-]

What are the purses? It's hard for me to fathom the great HBO can't even pick up a fight like this anymore.

This is definitely a regular HBO quality fight that HBO would normally have several times a year, now it's resorted to PPV.

Even Devon Alexander vs Timothy Bradley was way bigger than this and that was just a few years back on regular HBO and that fight had a lot of problems in making, very complicated. HBO paid a massive license fee of around $3 million to land the fight. In addition, it guaranteed the loser a comeback fight at a very high fee of $1.25 million and the winner more, on top of the purses of each fighter.

This is much less complicated than that. You have a somewhat known name in Crawford, who is on the rise and has a good but local fan-base, and you have Postol who isn't really known. This should be an easy deal to make for HBO, and yet they couldn't unless on PPV.

This should be a real eye opener to the current situation of boxing in America. And specifically to those people who say "K2 needs to pay Danny Jacobs $3-$4 million!" or something similar, these people need a dose of reality. If HBO can't even afford good fights like Crawford vs Postol, which is a fight between two champs who aren't stars, imagine how much more difficult it is to make fights between guys with bigger names who aren't PPV stars. It's that gray zone when guys are big enough to get more than your average Joe but not big enough to be PPV attractions, that's one of the biggest issues right now with networks making the good fights - they can only afford to pay one guy good money and the opponent has to take like $500k or less.

It's a huge problem and it's too late to fix it. That's why boxing in America is going to go through a really rough phase.

These guys expect to be paid big money when the networks aren't willing to pay for it. It's interesting that Showtime and all those other networks believed so much in Haymon's business model when a TV giant like HBO did the complete opposite. They had 7-10 years of overpaying Haymon fighters and said ENOUGH.

Without Floyd how much money did those Haymon fighters generate anyway?

[Bullrider]

With its dwindling resources, putting it on PPV is the only remaining tool HBO is left with nowadays. Offer the amount they can afford as a guarantee and let the market decide how much these fighters are really worth. It's probably senseless for fighters to ask for more if they don't even know how much they are really worth.

Even then it's a gamble.

I think promoters/networks are running out of options. PPV seems to be the only solution when fighters demand huge money. No different from delivering a product on consignment. You get paid when your product sells.

[Ray Corso]

If it "bombs" its just another indictment on the current day boxing fan that needs a promotional hype to gain their interests!
Just watch both of these young men work and anyone should be able to commit to supporting them.
They have skills, determination and present match up problems to one another.

I'm watching this one and it should be a great match!
Ray

[The Big Dunn]

This is the kind of fight us hardcore fans have to make a success if we want to see more like it. If we let it fail, good luck getting the two best fighters in a division together on any consistent basis.

We have to give promoters reasons to put these fights together.

I agree with this. I am going to get the fight.

[The Gambler1981]

I doubt it bombs because it would have to sell near nothing considering the costs, it could lose money but a bomb is losing a lot of money. Given the fight will make back some money so chances of it losing a ton are pretty low.


The thing is though it is not growing their brands or making the winner a big star. PPV is a cash in thing and sometimes a tool that allows fights that are hard to make a much better chance of happening. This fight happening is better than it not happening so that is a positive and while it is a top end fight at 140 it is a fight that might not be that fun to watch so having a limited audience is not as damaging.

[just the facts]

I also think this fight won't do well. Neither fighter is a big enough name to carry a PPV. Too bad, this is a helluva fight in my opinion.

[jqSide]

I don't think they're losing money even if it bombs. Fighters will still get their respective guarantees which is the amount promoter and network are willing to pay in a regular non ppv case. It's just a way of clinching the deal. They'll get paid more according to the number of PPVs sold.

[PRchamp]

With our luck watch the fight be a "fight of the year" candidate and a bulk of boxing fans didn't even watch it live.

[Motorcity Cobra]

I'll buy the fight because it's a good fight and I want to support fighters making good fights. But if the fight does well that means we'll be seeing more and more good fights on PPV instead of great fights. It's a catch-22