I've got HBO but it seems there's hardly any decent fights on there. I know the Super Six is on Showtime, and a few fighters I like are also on Showtime. Given the choice, and if you only have ONE you can get, which do you get? Not just for Boxing but just all around channel as well? Showtime has not only Boxing, but also the shows Dexter and Nurse Jackie, which I like both. Not sure how their movies or other programming is though.
For Boxing "Showtime" For overall programming - HBO. "Dexter" is great and I also watch "Nurse Jackie" and "United States of Tara" but HBO trumps it with "The Pacific", "Generation Kill", "Treme", "The Wire", "Flight Of The Conchords", "The Ricky Gervais Show", "Life and Times of Tim", "True Blood" and countless other shows past and present. They just spend tons more money. It doesn't seem to work with boxing but it does everywhere else.
Whoever doesn't answer HBO...is just being a maverick non-conformist..anti-establishment fucker for the sake of it. He the kind that believes in Gay rights, wearing jeans to weddings etc. Without HBO you don't see the big fights involving: Pacquiao, Mayweather, Mosley, De La Hoya, Hopkins, Jones, Cotto...blah blah. HBO end of story.
How many big fights are actually on HBO nowadays that aren't PPV? :dunno: Who gives a fuck about replays after the fact?
De La Hoya? Jones? Hopkins? Mosley? It's not known whether any of those fighters will have another fight on HBO...and in at least half those cases, the likelihood and preference is that they don't. Pacquiao and Mayweather certainly aren't having any fights on HBO...and Cotto probably only ends up there if it's against another opponent like Foreman.
Showtime is cheaper and has Shobox, Strike-force and Championship boxing. I'd say, strictly for boxing, Showtime is the better value. At least at this point in time. As others already said, most of the fights worth a damn, involving HBO fighters, are on PPV anyways. It's rare these days, that HBO has anything more than a set-up fight - a mismatch serving as a advertisement for the next PPV event.
None of those will be fighting after another year though. . And I believe in Gay rights, but not wearing jeans to weddings. For the record.
They both have their share of good and horrible fights. I'm gonna go that Showtime is better "AT THIS PRESENT TIME". Just for the fact of the "Super Six" tournament is the best thing to happen to boxing in years. I have to admit that Shobox is absolute dogshit! I have seen maybe 2 or 3 good fights during the entire series run. HBO's fights as of the last 18 or so months have been mostly wank.
You might just want to go with Showtime and then when a fight like Martinez-Pavlik actually does come around, find a friend who's got it and watch it at their place instead of shelling out the bucks for HBO, and having to put up with their inconsistent scheduling, including long stretches without any boxing, as well as their general habit of overpaying and protecting house fighters, while showing a general lack of actual interest or knowledge of the sport. This is the network, afterall, that repotedly paid $1.5 mil. to Berto to fight Quintana, and supposedly had "no interest" in televising Chad Dawson-Tavoris Cloud. Also, if you do get those extra Showtime channels, they replay both boxing events regularly (not just the next day, or two days after).
I just got Showtime added. Still have HBO free through November and then it goes up to 17.99. Showtime is one dollar a month until January when it also goes up to 17.99.
i guess i'd go with Showtime since they show more boxing (pretty sure). Dexter probably beats True Blood/Hung, but that is also very close. Even if you consider one network to be better, I can't see how a boxing fan can live without having both. If you are hard-pressed for money, just miss out on ppvs. One ppv pretty much pays for over 2 months of both.
Well, I could see how a boxing fan would be able to live without Cotto-Foreman, Khan-Malignaggi, Adamek-Arreola and Berto-Quintana.
Fuck HBO. Fuck Lampley. Fuck Kellerman. And fuck whoever the guy is running HBO sports - Abraham? Green? Whoever the fuck he is.
Pretty much. This is the network that airs half a dozen Alfredo Angulo fights, including a fight for the interim WBO title (against Harry Joe Yorgey), and then a defense of it (against Joel Julio)...and so when it comes time to, you know, actually face the WBO champion, Sergei Dzinziruk, Angulo drops the interim title because he's got a fight on HBO with Joachim Alcine. This is what people pay HBO for...so they can prop up promoters like Gary Shaw. Not that Shawtime is perfect. The whole thing sucks...just get a Netflix account and say 'fuck you' to both networks.
