Showtime: Hagler/Hearns Benn/McClellan Corrales/Castillo HBO: Gomez/Pintor Morales/Barrera I Pacquiao/JMM I Based on these selections you'd have to go with Showtime. The question is, how do you measure the networks' quantity and quality of "classic" fights in a manner that is, "fair and balanced"? Without sifting through the thousands of fights that have been broadcast? My personal opinion is that HBO tries to build stars and personalities that it can use to promote its channel. Showtime, on the other hand, as best they can, tries to make good fights that it can refer to in promotion of its channel. I definitely think the latter agenda is more fight-fan friendly. HBO tries to build mythological figures like Tyson in the 80's, RJJ in the 90's and now PBF in 00's. The result has been a long list of horrible fights that nobody asked for in the first place (e.g. PBF/Baldomir, RJJ/Telesco). It seems to me Showtime has much more intuition and inclination to put together the fights people want to see and have called for to get made (e.g. Marquez/Vazquez, Castillo/Corrales, etc.). If you're tired of watching your favorite fighter fight nobodies, or cherry-pick his competition, you should pray that he loses in some freakish upset. Then he'll end up on Showtime where he'll be well matched and you can see him in against a real opponent. And you won't even have to pay $50 to watch. The fact that HBO exclusive contracts require a fighter not to lose says it all. They're not interested in good fights. They're interested in creating preposterous figures that get over-rated, stay undefeated, and somehow trick the public into thinking they're unbeatable.
Hagler-Hearns was a Legendary Nights Episode so I assume that was an HBO fight (my copy is the replay with Al Michaels doing commentary on network TV)
I think we need to add a lot more than just three examples for each: The Marquez-Vazquez trilogy is legendary, one of the rare trilogies where all 3 fights were excellent fights, so that plays in Showtime's favor. HBO had Bowe-Holyfield though. HBO had some great BAD fights back in its earlier days: Barrera-McKinney, Robinson-Gatti 1-2, Gatti-Ward 1, Gatti-Rodriguez, I think Barrera-Morales 1 and Toney-Jirov were BAD fights despite being world championship fights. Could be wrong though. Showtime had those great King cards back in the 90s, some terrific fights like Randall-Chavez 1, Castro-Jackson 1
Because then the poll and the question are stupid. If he wanted to include ppv then it should have been clear. And "produced" in this case, should mean "televised". To answer the question, I don't know. I suppose the best way would be to determine which fights are considered classics first.
I thought it was Leonard/Hagler that was a Legendary Nights Episode. But you're probably right. For some reason I thought it was on Showtime, but if you say so, I guess it wasn't. I realize we can't distill it down to three fights and make the judgement based on that. I do know most of Julian Jackson's fights were on Showtime, no? And McClellan's. But besides his fight with Benn, I'm not sure any of those were "Classic" fights. All of the Gatti fights mentioned I think have to be regarded as "Classic," so that definitely seem to tilt the distinction in favor of HBO. Castillo/Corrales could've been a classic trilogy like Vazquez/Marquez, had it not been for Castillo's weight issues. That was a shame.
