Another one of Hauser's long pieces. http://www.secondsout.com/columns/thomas-hauser/hbo-and-boxing-at-a-crossroads
Hmmmm.... HBO Bigwigs R PISSY about the Press SHOWTIME has Generated for it's Supermiddle Tourney???...HOLY SHIT!!!...Wait a Minute, REED has the Mother of ALL IDEAS!!!!...HBO Should Devise THEIR OWN Tournament!!!...Who'da THUNK It???:cheer:... Seriously, Considering HBO's LARGER Budget, it's IDIOTIC that they HAVEN'T Thought of a Tournament Soooooooner....A Welterweight Tourney Should've Happened Looooooooooooong Ago...A Jr. Welter Tourney would B Intriguing...A Lightweight Tourney would B Intriguing...A Jr. Feather Tourney would B Intriguing...ANYBODY On this Site Could've "Advised" HBO to Do Something of that Nature...It AIN'T Rocket Science...Instead, they're Looking to CUT the Budget???... REED:shit:
If it takes pressure from the Ceo, execs for HBO Boxing to get their shit straight..so be it... ENOUGH paying boxers MILLIONs for TUNE up fights...HBO should be pushing for a Tourney at 122.....a unification at 147...Pavlik vs. Williams the BEST fight at 160 is happening...Keep Dawson fighting tough opponents/ best competition.... don't pay for Hopkins vs. Jones...
it is easier said than done though....you can't just pick a division and turn it into a tournement. The reason it works at 168 is because there are no massive names/egos there.....i don't think there is a fighter there who can demand significantly more than another...their worth is pretty even....Kessler may be perceived as the best, but does he draw anymore than the others?......logistically a welterweight tourney would be a hell of a lot harder to devise, that said, there are other divisions that this model could be applied to.
It can be done....right now only place boxer can get paid in the 100'sthousands or millions is fighting on HBO or SHOWTIME.... At 140 HBO can push for a tourney...cause the only big name/$$ man is HATTON..and he knows he can't make the same in SHOWTIME... at 122 w/ Juanma, Caballero, Vasquez, Marquez...these guys know they need Showtime/HBO....thats the only way the can make REAL MONEY... Right now..>Showtime/HBO have control of boxing...they ARE boxing... Even the BIG BOYS like Mayweather and Pacquiao...they need HBO. They can't jump ship and go to Showtime..but they won't get paid as well..and the PPV's won't be the huge success they are w/ HBO...
Jr. Middleweight is by far the easiest. All four champions are begging for fights, all come at reasonable price tags. I´d say half of what you have to pay the super-middles for each fight. You add on a veteran in Cintron and three prospects in Lara, Angulo and Martirosyan. Make it single elimination, random draw, say quarterfinals IBF Spinks vs. Lara WBC Martinez vs. Angulo WBA Santos vs. Martirosyan WBO Dzinziruk vs. Cintron And you´ll have an undisputed champion (maybe Lara) to face fresh from jail James Kirkland in 15 months. Of course HBO would say nobody knows these guys, blah blah blah and throw another 750k at Berto to beat up Michel Trabant.
Some of the Highlights of the Article... HBO is MAINLY Disappointed in Ross Greenburg, Since he Makes the Decisions...It was Greenburg that GREENLIGHTED HBO Paying 3.2 Mil for Dawson-Tarver II...WOW!!!!...It was Greenburg that GREENLIGHTED the Almost EXCLUSIVE Involvement of "Golden Boy Promotions", which is Now Biting HBO In it's Ass... It was Also Greenburg's Decision to PASS on Taylor-Froch TWICE...The 1st Time, they Showed Taylor-Lacy Instead...The 2nd Time, they Showed Dawson-Tarver II...OBVIOUSLY, Taylor-Froch was the BETTER Fight...On PAPER AND in Reality... If the HBO Bigwigs Want to Do "Budget Cuts", they Should START w/Greenburg's Salary...REED Could Do his Job for Probably 1/10th of what he's Making::... Some INTERESTING Quotes... “They [HBO] gave their dates to one promoter, whose stable has now been wiped out,” Bob Arum observed afterward. “They would love to give us dates, but they can’t. They’ve committed dates to Golden Boy, who now has no fighters except retreads to put in. It was the wrong decision when they made it and now it’s coming home to roost.” “You’re not getting the best boxing available on HBO,” Kevin Iole of Yahoo.com wrote afterward. “You’re getting the best boxing Golden Boy can deliver. There’s a significant difference.” The biggest obstacle that HBO faces in rebuilding its boxing franchise is that not enough people there have in-depth knowledge of the business and sport of boxing. One HBO employee notes, “Ross hasn’t been able to put together a plan for boxing that works because he doesn’t know the business the way Seth [Abraham] did; he has no one on staff who knows the fighters the way Lou [DiBella] did; and there are times when he lets his personal feelings get in the way of sound business judgment.” Bob Arum builds on that theme, saying, “To do the job right in any business, but particularly in boxing, you have to be on the ground. And these guys aren’t on the ground. When it comes to boxing, Ross has no feel for the job. The most knowledgeable person he has on his staff is [Mark] Taffet. Taffet is a politician, but at least he’s a bright politician. Some of the people over there are morons.” VERY Interesting Piece...Ultimately, HBO has THEMSELVES to Blame, for Putting a NON-Boxing Guy In Charge of their Boxing Production & Budget...Boxing AIN'T Rocket Science, but it Takes PASSION FOR the Sport, KNOWLEDGE OF the Sport & an Abilty to RELATE to the Fighters & Trainers Primarily... Like Arum Said, U've GOT to B "On the Ground" to EFFECTIVELY Run a Boxing Business...Boxing is an "Everyman" Sport...REGULAR Guys that Drink Beer, Like to Look @ Half Dressed Women, Use Foul Language & Live Paycheck to Paycheck...A Guy in a Suit & Fancy Office Obviously COULD Run a Boxing Business, but it'd Certainly HELP him if he CONNECTED w/Boxing on a GRASSROOTS Level...Or @ the Very Least had an ASSISTANT in Place that Did... REED:mj:
agREED.... It Can DEFINITELY Happen...Guys like Kelly Pavlik, Allan Green, Lucian Bute & Librado Andrade would KILL to B a Part of the Supermiddle Tourney...Shit, Chad Dawson would Likely DROP Down just to B a Part of It...Other Fighters would KILL to B Part of Network Tournaments, In & Around their Respective Divisions... Just like Hauser Said in the Article, the Networks have ALL the Power...& HBO has the Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepest Pockets of ANY Network...It's Absolutely SHAMEFUL that SHOWTIME Beat them to the Punch w/the Supermiddle Tourney, but Instead of CRYING about it, Follow SHOWTIME'S Blueprint & Make it BETTER... Even the Welterweights would Fall in Line...The ONLY Guy that Would B Problematic would B Floyd, but if U Put the Other Elite Welters in a Tournament, What the Fuck Else is Floyd Gonna Do???...He'd EVENTUALLY Get his Act Together... REED:hammert:
It also shows a little bias on Hauser´s part, because Victor Ortiz was matched with another top prospect with world title fight experience in Marcos Maidana. And all the other prospects have been matched tough and therefore losses happen. Ok HBO (maybe wrongly) anointed them as the future, but all of their fights, setbacks and losses have been entertaining.
Very true, but that's the problem. HBO is caught in the middle. On one hand they can only feed a promising young prospect so many easy fights before fans get bored. On the other hand how do you go about putting on fights that are entertaining yet a lock for the house fighter? You can't, because in order to be entertaining it has to be competitive. If it's competitive at all it means your potential star could lose. A few losses (or even 1 in most cases) and they can't pump the guy up anymore as "the future".
I don't know of anybody who had a problem with the Maidana-Ortiz match-up going in. That was a good match-up. But take Angulo, for instance. That loss was something like his fourth fight on the network. He'd already fought Gutierrez, Tsurkan and Rivera....and during each of those fights, he was being sold to the fans by the network. It's not like he had fought in some evenly matched fights (or at least percieved even). He wasn't fighting James Kirkland. He was in three set-ups. And for his first semi-step up, he fought a fighter who was coming off a draw that should've been a loss (or two losses). Take James Kirkland. He didn't lose this year, but he'd already had two set-up fights (Eromosele Albert and Brian Vera) prior to his step up against Joel Julio....who was, himself, a hyped up prpsoect (by Dan Rafael, among others) before getting exposed in his HBO coming out party....who arguably lost to Ishe Smith (however you scored it, it wasn't impressive) and Sergey Dzinziruk the year prior to the Angulo fight. Like Cintron, Julio was a step up...but one Kirkland was expected to win...and he did. Andre Berto....how many showcases did he have before he finally stepped up against Luis Collazo? Estrada, Trabant, Rodriguez, Forbes (maybe others, I don't remember them all)...all showcase fights where he was being hyped by the network. And in his one major step up...he wins a close, controversial decision....and instead of following that up with a rematch....he gets a junior welterweight in Juan Urango.
Interesting article with a lot of good facts. But I think the author failed to pin-point the fundamental reason for HBO's troubles. The author would have us think that the people at HBO are just stupid and have no coherent plan. But HBO does have a plan. And that's the fundamental problem: HBO's plan. Their plan is to build stars. Not show good boxing. They say it themselves in the advertising. And that's the problem. They're prepared to make shitty fights because their objective isn't to make good fights. It's to make, "stars."
HBO acts as part television channel, part promoter, part matchmaker, part cheerleader, part investor, part showbiz, part protectors of credibility, part bully and so on. When you have so many roles you are playing, you are going to make mistakes and the only way out, imo, is to show good fights on paper and hope they turn into good fights in reality. HBO misses the 'good fights on paper' part way too often for the money they have.
This is a little reminiscent of what happened at ESPN...which Hauser also wrote about some years back: http://www.secondsout.com/columns?ccs=208&cs=12103
And that's evidenced when you look at the fights they've shown dating back to the 2000 Olympic team. When you look at boxing on HBO, prior to that group turning pro, how many times did prospects get showcases on HBO prior to having title fights? I mean, excluding heavyweights - where HBO did invest time in prospects, whether it was won Night of the Young Heavyweights cards, BAD, whatever - you can point to some fighters....like a few fighters who came out of the Olympics...like Roy Jones Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, even David Reid...but Jones and DLH were names coming out of the Olys, and Reid was as well, to some degreee, having won the only US gold, and by late in '96 by knockout...(and HBO wasn't the only one showcasing him, after winning the gold I remember Ring Magazine began running a profile series on him, with regular installments). Outside of that, there haven't been that many. Vargas and Mayweather, both widely considered better prospects than Reid from the '96 team, but with no gold medal, each got one showcase apiece, I believe, before their title fights...and their title shots came just two years after the Olympics. They didn't get a prolonged series of showcases like non-gold medal winning Olympians like Taylor, Berto and Cotto recieved. (And Ricardo Williams Jr. and Michael Bennett were on a pretty similar path to Taylor...thank you, Lou Dibella...just as SHO was showcasing their crop of Main Events fighters like Bojado and Juarez...of course, HBO eventually got into the Bojado/Juarez/Diaz business, showing the first two in non-title apperances, while Diaz actually fought for a world title his first HBO show.) But for most of the boxers that eventually became mainstays on HBO in this era, their first HBO appearances came in actual world title fights....(which I believe the following is an accurate accounting of, if you include the WBO). Mosley...Philip Holiday, a lightweight titlist. Hopkins...Roy Jones Jr., vacant middleweight title fight. Marquez...Freddie Norwood, featherweight titlist. Pacquiao...Agapito Sanchez, super bantamweight titlist. Gatti...Tracy Harris Patterson, super featherweight titlist. Morales...Daniel Zaragoza, super bantamweight titlist. Wright...Vargas, junior middleweight titlist. V. Klitschko...Chris Byrd, challenger when he was heavyweight titlist. Corrales...John Brown, challenger when he was super feathweight titlist. Barrera...Kennedy McKinney, challenger when he was super bantamweight titlist. Quartey...Vince Phillips, challenger when he was welterweight titlist. Hamed...Kevin Kelley, challenger when he was featherweight titlist. You can even look at some fighters who eventually went over to Showtime...like Tapia, Tszyu, JL Castillo...first HBO fights came when they had belts. Comapre that to someone like Jermain Taylor...who's first title fight didn't come until he fought Hopkins in 2005...five years after the Olympics. How many regular HBO showcases did he get until that fight (aside from just the Olympians debut card in NY)? So, yeah, like you said...HBO was building legends, telling tales, or whatever you want to call it.
I think if HBO does do a tournament they should do it in the welter division just so we'll get to see Floyd retire again. On a serious note though. Double L is right. HBO's biggest problem is they're focusing on boxers not boxing. If you look at the successful explosion of MMA it doesn't seem like it's riding on the popularity of anyone particular fighter. Everyone just tunes in to watch any of their fights. If HBO could do that with boxing and stop turning their backs on guys who lose and even go so far as to downplay a loss, then they might have more success.
