Why Pirog isn't fighting in the US revealed

[Forza]

Pirog isn't marketable to the US fanbase that's why

[THe TRiNiTY]

I think Pirog and his handlers assumed that big win over Jacobs was going to be all the spring-board he needed to making it in America. Unfortunately, like Martinez did in the beginning, he needs a couple of other big wins. Even after Alex Bunema, HBO wanted to see more out of him. They didn't just put him in with the top guy immediately.

With Pirog, he has very little draw here and is expecting top billing. Just makes no sense. I think Martinez would fight and beat him, but why should he is the better question.

[mathed]

It's what I said from the git go, HBO is mad at Pirog for beating Jacobs and they blacklisted him.

[ShoulderRoll]

It's poor management.

Why is it that Pirog doesn't go after some of the big names in Eastern Europe? Like how Golovkin is chasing Felix Sturm.

[chiguy91]

pirog just needs to fight a known name at MW imo. geale unfortunately fell through, perhaps another undefeated fighter, there's plenty of them at 160. proksa and macklin are ranked due to their performances against known names within the MW division, i think pirog needs to do the same and he'll probably be looked at more if he chooses to fight in the US again.

[DoktorSleepless]

A couple more interesting quotes.

Again, what has Pirog done in the US, where Martinez has planted himself and committed to long term, to endear himself to HBO or Showtime much less make this fight happen? Nothing. I like the fight but that point cannot be ignored. 2 fights since July 2010 ain't getting it done.

I would have done what Kathy Duva did with Adamek. Find a Russian population and market to it. But Pirog's US promoter does not want to spend time and money doing that. He is making million dollar paydays in Russia so that is why they went there. They almost went to China for even more money.

I can see why Sergio is having trouble building a following. Contrary to the thought that you can put any Spanish speaking latin in LA or near a Mexican population and they just show up, it does not work that way. If it did, Cubans would be huge here. So would Dominicans. As it stand they are incredibly hard to market. Consequently, Sergio being from Argentina holds him back or did until this point. I think now he might be able to make the jump. But also, his style is not particularly appealing to Mexican fans as a whole.

On the other hand, Pirog has plenty of large Russian populated areas to be promoted in.

I hope all this "Martinez is ducking Pirog" nonsense finally stops along with this mythical image people have of Pirog. Pirog fights for money just like everyone else. If he's not willing to come in the US for less cash to make a name for himself, that's his problem, not Martinez' problem.

I would not be surprised if money was a major issue in why Showtime rejected Geale vs Pirog. If he's actually making a million per fight in Russia, it doesn't seem unlikely that Pirog priced himself out. Showtime's budget is only so big.

TBH, a lot of this criticism does applies to Martinez' camp as well. Dibella hasn't done that great of a job promoting him and I could understand why someone like Cotto would take someone else over Martinez. I hope Dibella does a good job at promoting the Macklin vs Martinez fight because this actually has a good chance of selling well. Two Irish dudes in the same card in St. Patty's day in a major city. If he manages to sell out the MSG theater, it might convince Cotto to give Martinez a shot.

[Porter's Dad]

The question is, why are HBO so reluctant to showcase him? They were positively raving about him during the Jacobs fight.

[ИATAS]

Pffffft, pirog was trying to fight geale which showtime was interested in but geale is a hoe

[DoktorSleepless]

probably talking about the jacobs fight. haymon probably blacklisted him after that ****. smh at haymon and hbo. if thats true thats disgusting.

I was thinking that too, but Mantoya blamed Al Haymon specifically for "Pirog-Martinez not happening ever", not for Pirog not being allowed on HBO. So there could be something else to it. He also blamed the WBO (not HBO). What the hell does the WBO have to do with it? Why is the WBO preventing a Pirog-Martinez fight? Martinez has mentioned before that he never wants to fight for the WBO again and there seemed to be some bad blood. Chances are it was Al Haymon's fault Martinez was stripped and that probably has something to do with the whole fiasco.

[DoktorSleepless]

Pffffft, pirog was trying to fight geale which showtime was interested in but geale is a hoe

uh, how do you know it was Geale's fault? From what I could tell from his interviews, Geale also wanted the fight bad. He does have a fight in Australia planned, but that doesn't mean Geale was the one who bitched out. We haven't heard anything from Pirog since Geale talked about his plans.

Also remember there was plans for the fight happening in New Years and Geale was all onboard, but the Cloud fight was chosen instead. (but then cancelled)