What is wrong with HBO ?

I like Steve Kim, but this article is pretty 'so what?'.

HBO BAD didn't have a great matchup. It showcased a couple of fighters against not so hot competition. It tried to hype up a couple of American fighters. A fighter had an issue with weight so they had to scramble.

Big deal.

Cherry picking a few classics and then trying to compare them to one bad BAD night was pretty weak. Something I'd expect around here from a few people, not something I'd expect from Kim.

 

Floyd fought solid comp on the way up

 

I don't think he cherrypicks anything, changes were expected when Hershmann came into office and as of now ( it's very early I know ), the results are very underwhelming indeed. Questions needs to be asked about this, maybe it's simply because Hershmann isn't on the boat long enough for it to show, maybe it's because he's simply no better than Greenburg ( a very scary situation indeed), or maybe it's because they are too much conflict of interest going on that prevent HBO sport president from doing his job properly. Whatever it is, it needs to be adressed.

 

From a Human Resources point of view, I would love to get a cross-sectional view of HBO. I would love to see just how it works. What do they do? Play Bullshit-Bingo? Who comes up with expressions like "Functional Weight Advantage"?

How is it worked out? Does somebody just say to Lampley "Jim, we know this is bullshit, right? You know it is bullshit, but we have to sell this fight and the commentary is going to be part of the sales routine, that's where you come in" Or does somebody approach Kellerman and say "Listen, Herschel, you know this Kirkland is a bust, got blown out by some nobody from Japan.....but we need to build this, so...." ...and then during the fight, Max does his little party piece, whooping and hollering like all hell.

Or....do these guys already know the score and just play along. Are they that good at their jobs that they can be safely left alone to come up with BS about functional weight advantages? Who decides how these things get put together and orchestrated? Is it a set-routine by the top-brass at HBO, or is it more organic than that, in that they just meander along slowly, adding a bit of BS here and there, until you get what we got with Floyd and Ortiz, a sham of a fight that was essentially sold on the premise that one of the men would weigh more than the other by the time the fight was beginning?

And...if it is of no significance that Broner weighed so much more than Escobedo, then why was it deemed important, important enough for Lampley to repeat ad nauseum, that Ortiz was so much heavier than Floyd? :dunno:

 

interesting article about HBO rating's so far in the Hershman era


http://www.maxboxing.com/news/other-boxing-news/hbos-first-half-posts-similar-ratings-from-greenburg-era