It will be another special edition of Shobox, like Guerrero-Litzua. Shobox is definitely improving the quality of it's fights by broadening the fights beyond just "prospects". Dan Rafael: The super middleweight division is one of the hottest in the sport and Showtime sees that. It's one of the reasons that network executive Gordon Hall, who oversees "ShoBox," has secured rights to the March 29 eliminator between England's Carl Froch (22-0, 18 KOs) and Germany's Denis Inkin (32-0, 24 KOs), who will meet in Froch's hometown of Nottingham on a special edition of "ShoBox." Showtime will carry the bout on same-day tape delay. The winner becomes champion Joe Calzaghe's mandatory, although that bout is unlikely because Calzaghe is moving up to face light heavyweight champ Bernard Hopkins. More likely, the Froch-Inkin winner will fight for a vacant belt. "ShoBox" typically features prospects, but Hall told ESPN.com that Froch-Inkin, along with an undercard featuring top British lightweight prospect John Murray (23-0, 12 KOs) against John Fewkes (16-0, 2 KOs), was too good to pass up. "Two very good fights and the price is right," Hall said.
The price should be right. The Euro promoters should be willing to give their fights to the US market at a bargain price. It is far more likely to help them promote their fighters in the US in the future than hurt them. Not only does it help sell their fighters here, but it would help get US fighters to go over there. And I would guess that after a while, the US market would be willing to pay more and more as the channels compete. And even if it doesn't work, they've still been making more money than they would have without showing the fights in the US.
Agreed. Hopefully Adamek-Bell lands on ESPN Classic. Whatever the channel, be it HBO, Showtime, MSG, or whatever, it's better to have these fights on US television than not...even if it's just on tape delayed basis (and I don't mean just same day).
