Linares vs. DeMarco - the perfect example of HBO incompetence...

HBO has provided us the perfect example of their broadcasting incompetence, with their recent coverage of the Linares/DeMarco fights (a tantalizing fight, by the way, but that's not the point).

First off, we now have Steward on record as saying that Linares is the most gifted and skilled fighters he's ever seen.

And this is just one example of the tone HBO set from the outset - its mission was clear: hype the shit out of Linares, almost as if their life depended on it.

According to Lederman and the rest of the team, Linares is a prodigy of a fighter, with a single upset loss on his record, that he's fighting to erase. And DeMarco is simply a good test for Linares and nothing more (Max declared before the fight was even over that DeMarco was not possibly on the level that Linares had the potential to reach; he was simply a good test for Linares as he fights back from his knock-out loss).


DeMarco slowly dismantled Linares, even as the HBO team oohed and ahed over Linares' performance.

There was no praise given whatsoever to DeMarco, during or after the fight. That was reserved for Linares, the man supposed to have won.


As HBO framed it, in my estimation because of their investment in G, Linares stood to walk away from this fight shining like a diamond. He was in against a good test, was the best fighter Steward has ever seen, showed by Kellerman's account an unprecedented blend of skill and physical talent, and if he'd managed to win, would surely be the newest fighter in Lampley's spank-bank.

Here's the problem:

Because of HBO's framing of the fight, and frankly their call of the fight, DeMarco, at least as HBO would have it, stood to gain nothing. HBO had no problem slobbering over Linares' skills and talent, but would never for a second allow the event, at least their account of it, to be about DeMarco, and his chance to erase his loss to Valero (it was never about DeMarco; it was about Linares).

Well, as is the case frequently with fights broadcast by HBO, their narrative of the fight began to diverge significantly from actual events, culminating in a outcome, in this case a knock-out win for DeMarco, that had to have been perfectly foreseen by viewers, but that required HBO, already off the charts of reality with their Linares ass-kissing version of events, to drastically recalculate their narrative, and quickly change their tune as the reality of events could no longer be suppressed with their biased dribble.

DeMarco is a bad-ass fighter. You watch him walk through Linares' stuff, and batter him with well-timed shots, and slowly dismantle him, you will see this.

Linares, though obviously a skilled fighter, simply isn't a light-weight (although HBO more than once referred to him as lanky), and never had a chance against DeMarco.

 

::

Its not limited to HBO.

I remember Bernard Dunnes fights in Dublin.

Bernard would get decapitated and the colour commentary team would deny furiously that they saw any punch landed, that Bernard had fallen or been shot by a sniper in the cheap seats.

Place would go deathly quiet and then Bernard would get up, miss wildly, get complimented on his accuracy, then get shot by the sniper again. Nobody would see anything. Nobody saw nothing land. So Bernard, now looking like a Swiss Sailor on Shore-Leave, would get up, take a 10 punch combo clean, nobody would see a fucking thing and the other guy would get DQ'd.

Its called an AGENDA. "House Fighters" etc. These commentary crews act like they were the dudes lawyer. They will say anything to compliment their dude and anything to discredit the other dude.

Its not on, but its pretty common. Shame on Manny, he doesn't need the money, he hasn't need the money since the Starship Hearns got put into Orbit by the good people at Cape Hagler, but here he is, laying it on......and he always predicts it too. :shit:

 

well said...when Stewart made that comment that Linares was the best fighter he's ever seen in his life I laughed hard. The HBO crew are so bad its unreal and they're getting worse every time out.

 

Whats the agenda here guys????

 

linares is talented, just not very tough or durable.

 

Fucking agenda.

 

exactly

 

Well, it turns out those are pretty important traits for a boxer (toughness and durability).

Larry Donald was talented too.

Anyway, point is, HBO's coverage of fights doesn't stand up to even the most rudimentary test for objectivity.

And the reason is, they have a good thing going with G. In Linares, they would've had a dog that hunts. Not so with DeMarco.

Whether it's because of volume discounts, administrative and legal issues, its farther reaching promotional tools, or all of the above, HBO has shown itself to have an unshakable preference for doing business with G, and is willing to tell it as they'd like it to be, and not necessarily as it is, if that's what it takes to continue to enjoy the advantages of doing business with G.

In Linares, HBO clearly saw the opportunity to "create" the next P4P fantasy. And the ridiculous and undeserved praise they showered him with, together with the utter indifference showed towards DeMarco, is evidence of this.

As bad as they've been in the past, it's almost as if for this fight, Jim, Max and Manny were sat down in a room before the fight and told, "Linares is out next guy. G needs badly an entrant in the list. Nearly 80% of our fights will be promoted by them, and their list of P4P entrants is growing thin. Hopkins and JMM will be retired soon. And PBF's act can't go on much longer. Linares HAS to be our next guy. Call it that way. Make it that way. Alright, you're dismissed." :)

 

Strangely, I get what you're saying but still think you're way off. If anything, the broadcast team completely jumped ship the moment DeMarco turned the tide. So much that they got their facts dead wrong at the end of the fight, claiming that Linares has never beaten a Mexican, when in fact his breakout fight came in front of their very eyes on HBO PPV against a Mexican (Larios).

Anyway, point being they jumped on DeMarco bandwagon the moment he took control.

Prior to that, Linares was way up and DeMarco looked like a guy who was a considerable underdog. Not bias, just fact.

 

Linares looked promising years ago. Now he's on the level of a gatekeeper or worse.

 

I was impressed with Linares. He's talented.

Without the cuts imo, he would have won that fight by UD.

 

Basically yeah. Nowhere near robust enough to fight at lightweight, and DeMarco if nothing else is a big, solid lightweight.

Honestly Linares should fucking drain himself and fight at 126 if it's at all possible.

 

If anyone can make it happen, Ariza can.

 

Ariza is a genius, the best conditioning coach ever,..They should shower him with awards, how he has transformed Pacquiao is unbelieveable.

By the way,.. what's going on with this 'Not acceptable' stuff???... ::

 

Some people who like laws which permit the killing of mongoloids don't want me to call the mongoloids names, such as "Retard". :scratcher:

Its an irony and a contradiction of both Mendelian and Mengelian proportions.

 

:scratcher: Killing of mongoloids?.... you want to kill Pac?..

 

He gone get his frum Floyd anyhow.

 

That's just it. There was no such thing as a DeMarco band-wagon. There was a Linares band-wagon, if he could just beat DeMarco, but it wasn't the other way around. In the end, it was a non-story as far as HBO was concerned. There'd been two possibilities entertained that night: either Linares wins and erases his KO loss, or he doesn't. There was no room, no story-line, no promise for DeMarco as far as HBO was concerned.

I fully recognize HBO had to put a crimp on the hose when it came to their embarrassing praise for Linares, once he begin to get beat up. What I object to is their was no hose for DeMarco. It was a chance to hype a G fighter, and when that chance was gone, their work was done.

 

demarco vs. morales is going to a fun fight.

 

:crafty: Not the best start if disabled people are called 'mongoloids' ... that's two birds with one stone. Mongoloid is a race-type, I wonder how it became synonymous with handicapped people...I just wonder..... :crafty:

 

Hopkins is disabled. :nono:

 

No he's not! ... He's BUILT for America baby, 'Only in America' infact.

Still we must respect our Jooney's and our Ugotabekidding's ...with the world 'Mongoloid' for it is an anthropology classification,.. not a cracker-arsed slurr to lump them in with Down-syndromer's.. :: :crafty:

 

Will you stop KaukipRrr already, with the anti-American rhetoric? Or at least stop speaking in code so I can address it issue by issue.

 

I'm not sure what to make of DeMarco. Linares was giving him a lesson.

 

Yes. A lesson in how to lose.

 

Will there not be a rematch, seeing as linares was cut so badly and his vision was so impaired? He was only 2 rounds away from a win.

 

You don't know how left-wing you are when you complain about the antics of certain fighters, and the mechanisms of the boxing business Double L. :bears:

 

Bernard is disabled. He has the scans to prove it.

 

Ahh,.. Howling an apology, for I now see the moon.

Will any of us get to see these scans, or will it be the commission's 'right of confidentiality' ,..the pact.

 

The landings will be at Calais. Calais.

Richard "Sorge" Shaefer will see to it.

Mazeltov Maskirovka!