The Year was 2018...

[rolshans]

The goliath trio of PBC, Showtime Boxing and Barclays Center reigned supreme!

Stephen Espinoza, fresh off a mammoth 2017, was promoted to President, Showtime Sports and Event Programming.

With his impressive roster of fighters, Espinoza unveiled Showtime's schedule for early 2018 – and what a schedule. 13 title fights. All the fan favourites: Mikey Garcia, Spence, Wilder, Danny Garcia, Broner. And not just the old guys either. Young stars like Devin Haney were heading much-anticipated SHOBOX cards.

The fights were held at Barclays Center...what a venue! The place to be in NYC. With raucous crowds, it held major fights like Wilder-Ortiz I, Broner-Garcia, and Porter-Garcia.

And then DAZN happened, hosting major fights with Canelo, GGG and AJ at MSG. And stealing Devin Haney and Mikey Garcia.

And then Fox happened, stealing Wilder and Spence.

Now all Showtime has is Tank Davis, Claressa Shields and Kownacki. All Barclays Center has is Garcia-Redkach and Kownacki-Helenius.

2018 seems like yesterday...

[Marchegiano]

Showtime has just an absurd amount of money behind it though.

Wait-n-see doesn't necessarily mean they're out. Like how Netflix was alone forever and today pretty much everything on cable can be streamed from its own stream service. Disney wasn't interested in making Disney+ until after Netflix built them a secure market. With DAZN and PBC fighting over sub vs ppv platforms it makes sense for Showtime to let DAZN and Fox pay for that gamble and then restructure themselves around the more proven and successful model be it ppv or sub. ESPN is doing a hybrid thing were you sub and buy ppvs. Who really knows how it'll work out when it's all normalized.