FOX Sports EVP on Chris Mannix Podcast

[New England]

PBC belt is just for PBC fighters. If Canelo fights Charlo, of course the PBC title won't be on the line. Just the WBC and WBA.

If J-Rock fights winner of Harrison-Charlo than the WBC-IBF-WBA as well as the 154 PBC title will on the line.

if they have "in house" fighters they won't need alphabet belts in time. make no mistake, they don't want to pay sanctioning fees or let another organization dictate who their guys fight. would you?


promoters and fighters need the alphabets at the moment. only reason you get people in the casinos sometimes is to call the fight a "world championship."

in time they will attempt to phase them out. that's what this is! they're cutting out a middle man. at the very least they'll no longer be at their beckoned call and have a better control over the quality of their product.


very, very basic business.

[Bob Haymon]

The alphabet belts have lost any meaning and I hope they become obsolete. Promoters creating their own belts isn't a solution to the problem, it will only make things worse. It's already bad enough that the top promoters are calling the shots with the sanctioning bodies and getting undeserving fighters title shots or easy mandatories. Now there won't be any mechanism to allow top fighters from different promoters to fight against each other. Under the status quo we used to at least get the occasional cross promotional fight but that started eroding with the proliferation of WBA interim, regular, and super belts which has allowed fighters like Santa Cruz and Davis to duck Cancio and Loma.

[DARTH SILKWORMS]

Mannix works for DAZN and is incredibly biased.

DAZN promoted CANELO vs ROCKY as a WBA world title fight. Why wouldn't Fox promote Pacquiao as a WBA world title fight?

Every network recognizes both the WBA super title and WBA world title as being world titles.


Fox doesn't recognize the WBO. Period. Has nothing to do with Crawford. When Andy Ruiz is on Fox, they do not acknowledge his WBO heavyweight title. He is only listed as IBF/WBA champion.

[Scipio2009]

Taking anything from the shorthand of an interview with a journalist being directly paid by one of the person being interviewed's direct competitors (DAZN) is bound to lead to a bad conclusion, and this is without hearing this unnamed EVP's name, but let's zoom out a bit.

It's not at every weight, put PBC generally has a pretty firm hold on the WBC, WBA, and IBF belts.

What's to stop PBC from crowning the WBC/WBA/IBF champion as undisputed champion and putting a PBC-made title on said champion to replace the trinket from Golden Boy Magazine?

Spence-Pacquiao are on a collision course to that at 147lbs, the same thing is in the works at 154lbs, as is the same at 168lbs, a similar thing would be in the works at heavyweight (the IBF forces their mandatory, with Usyk going for the vacant WBO belt on DAZN), they still have 2 of the 3 needed belts at 126lbs, and the market is wide open at 140lbs, with who knows who at cruiserweight tbh.

ESPN basically has the belts mostly sewn up at 135lbs/130lbs and 175lbs, and DAZN basically has things at 160lbs, but that's it.

You cut out Golden Boy magazine, you fully phase out the organization that seems to only work explicity for Arum/Warren, and you have now, a brand stamp to give clarity to the fans coming back to boxing on the joint platform.

[Eff Pandas]

If PBC belts are coming I feel like thats a sign Al & Dana are gonna be fast friends when Zuffa boxing comes on board finally. Dana has talked about not effing with the current ABC regime.

Could get interesting. The best thing that could happen in boxing is the big 4 belts continue to lose power in the game. Main issue is how do you make a PBC belt appealing to a non-PBC boxer or promoter. Idk that you can. Although the first move is to not call it the PBC title. Needs a more legit & mainstream + less biased name.

[BigZ44]

Isolationism in boxing is reaching a whole new level, death of the sport feels closer than ever

[DARTH SILKWORMS]

If PBC belts are coming I feel like thats a sign Al & Dana are gonna be fast friends when Zuffa boxing comes on board finally. Dana has talked about not effing with the current ABC regime.

Could get interesting. The best thing that could happen in boxing is the big 4 belts continue to lose power in the game. Main issue is how do you make a PBC belt appealing to a non-PBC boxer or promoter. Idk that you can. Although the first move is to not call it the PBC title. Needs a more legit & mainstream + less biased name.

I agree it's a sign that Dana might be getting involved soon. The rumors continue to swirl that the company that owns UFC wants to buy PBC.

They don't need to make a PBC belt appealing to a non-PBC fighter as I doubt they'd allow non-PBC fighters to fight for them. Clearly the plan is to create a UFC model where PBC is a self contained league with its own champions. So it would definitely be called the PBC championship, not another name.

The brilliance is that if/when PBC creates a PBC belt and begins to ignore the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO, it puts other companies in the strange position of continuing to insist there are five different champions (since WBA has super & world), while PBC will be insisting there is only one champion.

What's more appealing to fans? PBC claiming there is only one champion or ESPN & DAZN insisting there are five champions?

[New England]

Isolationism in boxing is reaching a whole new level, death of the sport feels closer than ever

i don't know if i agree with this.

HBO and showtime were the only players in the "top tier" of boxing for years. other networks, like ESPN, had fights, but they were always for short money. FNF, for example, had guys splitting 10-20 grand in purse for a main event. HBO guys would make a million bucks, sometimes even two.


the sport is going through some serious growing pains. SO IS EVERY OTHER SPORT! the way people consume media is changing drastically, and TV companies have been the ones with relationships with boxing promoters, and theyve been slow to catch on to streaming and cord cutting.


boxing will survive. it'l be the same top heavy, corrupt **** show it's always been. but we'll still get good fights if we're willing to wade through all of the BS. life, uh uh uh uh, finds a way.

[Jsmooth9876]

Boxing is a joke. We dont need more belts, we need less. Now let's make sure nobody in PBC ever fights anyone outside PBC by creating our own titles that only our guys can fight for.

Yeah just what we want, more seclusion from promoters and networks...

[The Big Dunn]

Isolationism in boxing is reaching a whole new level, death of the sport feels closer than ever

I disagree. This comes down to what happens with Canelo and the TR boxers. Once all of Canelo's big fights dry up on dazn what does he do? Same for Crawford at TR?

Canelo can be an Independent and get fights with anyone because he is a draw. Crawford maybe comes to PBC since they have all the WW and JWW's. TR will be able to make plenty of fights at the lower weights given all their fighters.

The other big thing is if dazn gets a major sports deal. They would have to use resources for that sport and the support programming, which will mean many fighters signed to the app will probably be let go. Where will they go?

I think this could end up being the start of the sport making a positive turn.