HBO, America and Boxing

[soul_survivor]

Blame some of the fans too. Some of you guys cry when they dont make the best fights possible and then when they actually DO you ILLEGALLY stream it.

You can't blame the fans for not wanting to $70-$100 for a single fight, most of which are made past their sell by dates these days or with very poor undercards.

Like many said, the ppv model can not be sustained.

[N/A]

The Wilder fight would have happened this year if Wilder signed for it, he did not.

That's a lie. There was never anything for him to sign that would have guaranteed a fight this year. Hearn told him to wait a few days for a date and when a few days passed, Hearn admitted the date was April 2019.

[Eff Pandas]

Ah I misread about the mob, my bad. I agree that a single, unified body for boxing as a whole would be far more beneficial but that has never been to the benefit of the myriad of promoters and managers, along with the various organisations, all part of the global problem but we're talking specifically about dropping ratings in the US, losing the sports biggest network (at one time) and the irrelevance of American fighters.

There has ALWAYS been an ebb & flow of the sport. When boxing left network TV that dropped the audience right there. Whenever the biggest names in the games get old & retire there is often a gap in super stars. And I think Floyd made that even more difficult for this generation cuz he didn't pass the torch to anyone. The old guard NEEDS to lose for the new guard to takeoever. So there are other things going on then just the simple surface problems you bring up.

Nope, this is not just a PBC hate thread but I raised a point, if you can argue then fine, if not it stands. The point is that Haymon controls the welterweight division, has done so, barring Pacquiao, for the better part of half a decade. Much like King did to the heavyweights in the 80s and part of the 90s...you know what the difference is? King had his heavyweights fight each other, we're years and years into the PBC experiment and have only just got Porter v Garcia, we barely got Thurman v Porter and that too happened a year or more after it was originally slated. Now the top guy in the divisions, supposedly, is Thurman and yet he is sitting out and not even booked into a fight. Spence, the most promising young fighter at 147 fought a scrub and a shot fighter post Brook, all of them months and months apart.

The problem here is you PBC critics keep acting like Haymon is like Arum or King or a promoter. He is not a promoter. No matter how many times you say it or how much you belief it he's not one. He's a manager & advisor. He's looking after his fighters & talking to them about what they wanna do. If you actually looked into how he deals with his clients he allows the fighters to make the choices of who they wanna fight & for fights to happen it appears that fighter A & fighter B have to wanna fight each other. Which for various reasons isn't going to be the case.

Now compare GGG, Canelo, Crawford and Lomachenko to Thurman, Spence, Porter and Garcia. Who since the start of the PBC experiment have had better opponents or bigger fights or are better known?

Yea cuz those guys are the promoted by their promoter & 2 of those guys are basically the only guys who matter to their promoter so get all the promoter love. And even while Bud & Loma split time as Bob's preferred projects there are still just the two of them that matter the most.

If you wanna say PBC guys need dedicated promoters or to challenge themselves more fair play & I wouldn't disagree, but idk that this has anything to do with Haymon.

Don't get me wrong, all American promoters and tv networks are guilty of this but PBC has taken what HBO did, I call it the Roy Jones problem (paying a good fighter too much to fight too much crap) and just lowered the bar even more. Spence is a millionaire with only one world class win under his belt. Thurman is rankedn umber one having accomplished nothing of any serious note.

Oscar was a millionaire before turning pro back in the day. I think he made $100k or something like that for his pro debut. Sh^t can be all over the place with the money cuz it ain't even about what you critics think it is. Its not necessarily just about who you beat. Its how you look & how people accept you or don't accept you. Its an asses in seats game. Its an appeal game. Its an excitement game. Its about winning hearts & minds by ANY MEANS NECESSARY not necessarily just beating the best guys. You people confuse the sport of boxing with the business of boxing & like it or not the business of boxing has been kicking the sport of boxing's ass for decades now.

Should I even bother getting started on Wilder, his four year run with the WBC belt?

There is no doubt there is sh^t to be critical of with Wilder's early run. He was about 30 fights in before he fought a live body iirc. Thats nuts. Til you realize this mfer can't box for sh^t, despite his accomplishments, & needed that extra time. For the last few years I think he upped his game & I've been much more impressed with his heart & ability to win even if I'm still pretty critical of his actual boxing talent. While I wouldn't say Wilder has a better resume than Joshua I do think he's got one of the best resumes at HW right now so what are we really upset about at this point in his trajectory? I mean he's fighting Fury who's the lineal champ next & he seems to wanna fight Joshua more than Joshua wants to fight him much to my own surprise cuz I think Joshua will win that fight (not to say Joshua's hittability & Wilder's power don't make an upset possible, just saying Joshua is my favorite to win that fight).

I call a spade a spade. I called it 3 years ago with Pac/May and said the model of American boxing could not be sustained, HBO is the first and largest casualty, the others are not too far behind.

LOL wut?!!?!?! Are you not paying attention?

HBO has been dropping its budget for 20 years. Supposedly they were working with a $20M-$25M-ish budget in the last couple years. Which is a smaller budget then Showtime has who's always been seen as HBO's lil bro. And there product has suffered & became less appealing in this last few years as they last Floyd & others.

Also in the last 12 months we got new players throwing more money into boxing then HBO has thrown into boxing in the last 2-5 years probably, depending on what platform we are talking about & the alleged money being given to them.

Things change man. And boxing is changing now & it will be changing massively over the next 5-15 years as this streaming platform war gets decided. There is no American problem. There is probably more money in American boxing right now than any time in boxing history ffs. If thats boxing on the downslide, bring forth the boxing apocalypse.

[The Big Dunn]

The year is 1894 and Thomas Edison films the legendary James J. Corbett in an exhibition, a visual first and occurs in Orange County, New Jersey...United States of America. Fast forward almost three decades and another first takes place, the first ever voice broadcast of a sporting event, an exhibition bout held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Another American first. It was a nation of boxing pioneers, the sport so intertwined with its nationhood that the heavyweight championship was viewed as the most prestigious of prizes, its holder a national icon.

Now HBO, boxing's greatest platform for decades retires from the sport. Friday Night fights to pay-per-view to its international deals with the BBC and Sky Sports are all now consigned to history. Was it inevitable? Maybe, some point down the line but in 2018? It seems to be a symptom of the time. Boxing is no longer intertwined with the American conscience and ever since the Klitschkos dominated the division, the heavyweight championship has been ignored, looked down upon even. It is no longer American, so why should they care?

This could possible be a sign of the times, an insular nation, looking inwards for its sporting heroes, no longer wanting the rising tide of Hispanic and increasingly European and Asiatic world beaters. The sport has moved on, stadiums are sold out in Germany, the UK, Russia and the eastern bloc...pay per view is not the only way and TV broadcasts made the Klitschkos household names across Europe. The biggest star in the sport has not even had a single fight on American soil.

As American boxing stands still, frantically eyeing up potential stars, HBO gives up. Why? The answer is simple. The sport has become too corrupted, to glossy, money floating around sub par fighters in sub par fights. HBO is to blame in part, paying Roy Jones huge sums of money to fight a string of bums...Joe Louis had the bum of the month, Roy Jones had a bum every month. Its natural predecessor, the Al Haymon run PBC, pays undeserving fighters millions to avoid each other and fight lesser names. It essentially owns the welterweight division but Thurman, supposedly the top fighter, may never fight again, Spence has yet to fight Garcia, Thurman or Porter and those three names only fought each other after 3 years of circling.

All the while, Anthony Joshua in 21 fights has almost cleared out the heavyweight division, Oleksandr Usyk is undisputed champion in less fights and Vasyl Lomachenko is the sports premier fighter. All the while, someone as talented as Gervonta Davis is known more for his spat with Floyd Mayweather than any fight.

HBO has left boxing because America not only turned its back on the sport but it allowed it to be contorted, twisted and corrupted beyond measure. The others will soon follow.

I think fans tuned out HBO in part because they kept using the "employ cheap foreign labor" concept by putting on fights with so many non Americans because they fought at a lower pay rate relative to their American counterparts.

HBO should've used their original strategy by developing US stars like ODH, Roy, Tyson and Floyd. Losing Tyson and Floyd also hurt HBO tremendously because each retained their ability to sell after HBO dropped them.

I wish we could have an old school Don King like card with the following fights:

Wilder/AJ
Usyk/Tabiti
Ward/GGG
Crawford or Mikey/Loma
Russell or santa Cruz/ warrington
roman/dogboe

I like the USA's chances.

[soul_survivor]

I think fans tuned out HBO in part because they kept using the "employ cheap foreign labor" concept by putting on fights with so many non Americans because they fought at a lower pay rate relative to their American counterparts.

HBO should've used their original strategy by developing US stars like ODH, Roy, Tyson and Floyd. Losing Tyson and Floyd also hurt HBO tremendously because each retained their ability to sell after HBO dropped them.

I wish we could have an old school Don King like card with the following fights:

Wilder/AJ
Usyk/Tabiti
Ward/GGG
Crawford or Mikey/Loma
Russell or santa Cruz/ warrington
roman/dogboe

I like the USA's chances.

Ah OK, blame foreigners. Sounds great and reasonable.

[The Big Dunn]

Ah OK, blame foreigners. Sounds great and reasonable.

Not blaming foreigners. Blaming HBO for giving them the push instead of home grown talent.

Imagine if the "GGG push" went to an American power puncher instead? Instead of a guy we didn't know it would've been a guy we maybe saw fight for the USA in the Olympics and got to see his early career develop.

for example, Roy and Floyd used to fight on Tuesday night fights all the time on USA Network before they made it to HBO.

[soul_survivor]

Not blaming foreigners. Blaming HBO for giving them the push instead of home grown talent.

Imagine if the "GGG push" went to an American power puncher instead? Instead of a guy we didn't know it would've been a guy we maybe saw fight for the USA in the Olympics and got to see his early career develop.

for example, Roy and Floyd used to fight on Tuesday night fights all the time on USA Network before they made it to HBO.

Ridiculous small minded post. GGG generates more in ticket sales, viewership and now PPV then most ... actually all American fighters. Plus he got the pick because A - he was the bets upcoming middleweight around and B - because he fought and cleared out the division.

Which American mw was good enough to get a push? HBO tried with Jacobs but he failed every time.

Your posts get worse every time.

[Eff Pandas]

Not blaming foreigners. Blaming HBO for giving them the push instead of home grown talent.

Imagine if the "GGG push" went to an American power puncher instead? Instead of a guy we didn't know it would've been a guy we maybe saw fight for the USA in the Olympics and got to see his early career develop.

for example, Roy and Floyd used to fight on Tuesday night fights all the time on USA Network before they made it to HBO.

Who do you propose HBO had "pushed" if not GGG? Who was worth pushing? I'm not sure there was anyone.

And personally in the sexy historical divisions like MW I think you wanna push talent in general not just US fighters.

As I'm watching it MW was sorta dead-ish for awhile. Its super sexy right now with like 7 or 8 worthwhile guys at the top & all sorts of matchups to be made, but GGG is 36, 37 or w/e now. He's been pushed for years already. Who was at 160 5-6 years ago besides non-Americans who actually mattered. It was the Sergio, Cotto, GGG & Canelo show going back to the time GGG was on the comeup. And Canelo didn't REALLY fight at 160 til the first GGG fight ffs. He was doing that bs 155 sh^t up til then.

[Eff Pandas]

Which American mw was good enough to get a push? HBO tried with Jacobs but he failed every time.

Could they have pushed Jacobs back then? He got KO'd by Pirog in 2010. He was out of the ring for a year & a half shortly after that L (2011-2012). And he didn't really get back on the scene til he picked up the belt vs a bs contender, Jarod Fletcher, in 2014. He became a legit player with the Quillin W in 2015, thats when I was like oh sh^t Jacobs is for real cuz I thought Quillin was gonna take that fight. And then HBO has Jacobs fight GGG within 15 months of that W. And he took an L in that fight, but was soon back with HBO with a deal.

Do we even know HBO didn't make a play for Jacobs sooner, but Jacobs relationship with PBC prevented that/slowed things down?

The real guy I woulda thought was worth pushing back then was Quillin who looked like a player, but he's also connected to PBC/Haymon & was with Showtime & lets be real he wasn't a guy you'd start a bidding war over.

[soul_survivor]

Could they have pushed Jacobs back then? He got KO'd by Pirog in 2010. He was out of the ring for a year & a half shortly after that L (2011-2012). And he didn't really get back on the scene til he picked up the belt vs a bs contender, Jarod Fletcher, in 2014. He became a legit player with the Quillin W in 2015, thats when I was like oh sh^t Jacobs is for real cuz I thought Quillin was gonna take that fight. And then HBO has Jacobs fight GGG within 15 months of that W. And he took an L in that fight, but was soon back with HBO with a deal.

Do we even know HBO didn't make a play for Jacobs sooner, but Jacobs relationship with PBC prevented that/slowed things down?

The real guy I woulda thought was worth pushing back then was Quillin who looked like a player, but he's also connected to PBC/Haymon & was with Showtime & lets be real he wasn't a guy you'd start a bidding war over.

I just mentioned Jacob's because that's all us had to offer at mw. Quillin is another one.

They both failed on their biggest nights and were never consistent or busy enough.

I think we agree dunn was being trash as usual.