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Pay Per View: Ruining the Sport of Boxing
Kyle Raymond - 8/6/2005
Remember the days of boxing when you could watch Muhammad Ali or Sugar Ray Leonard ply their trade on national airwaves? Or how about watching George Foreman and Tommy Hearns knocking opponents senseless in the ring? Well, those days are long gone and they have been long gone for awhile now. In this day in age of boxing, all fighters want to be on pay per view and they all want to be million dollar stars; even when some of them don't deserve it. There are some great fighters in this sport and that is not to be denied but they would be even bigger stars if they didn't force the issue of being on pay per view
Pay Per view got started in the late 80's and early 90's and still there wasn't that many pay per view cards. In fact boxing was still being showed on national network channels. Michael Moorer fought in the last card on national TV in the early 90's. HBO and Showtime started taking charge and boxing was being shown on these premium channels. Mike Tyson was on HBO and Julio Cesar Chavez was on Showtime. It was evident that the sport of boxing was changing as a whole. But the problem is nowhere near where it is today. At least then the big matches were the only ones on pay per view and only the big name fighters got their fights on pay per view. Boxing was surviving in the early 90s because at least you could watch a decent match on regular HBO or Showtime. Boxing was better in the old days, but I guess we can't dwell on that.
Boxing's big problem today is obviously too many pay per views, and too few dates given from HBO or Showtime. It appears every decent match up is on pay per view these days, and the only ones on HBO are mismatches or matches to hype up the pay per view events. Showtime, on the other hand has good fights and good matches, but they only have 12 shows a year. It is understandable because Showtime has a smaller budget, but HBO should have the budget to put some good matches on right? Well according to boxingtalk.com HBO has to give dates to Top Rank and other companies because they used footage in their Legendary Nights series that they did not have the right to use. So now we get to sit through mismatches on HBO, but have to pay for decent matches on PPV. To me this isn't right. HBO needs to take more responsibility for their boxing program and give us some better matches and more dates. HBO lost 3 million on a pay per view show with Vitali Klitschko so pay per view is not always the solution to get money. Fighters are also a part of the problem these days. Floyd Mayweather now is demanding to be on pay per view every fight, and many others believe they deserve to be on pay per view. To be a pay per view fighter, you need to have a lot of fanfare, and should at least be able to carry the promotion. Floyd Mayweather was able to promote his event with Arturo Gatti, but he still doesn’t have the fan fare. Some fighters do and can carry the promotion so they can make the money to do a pay per view. Those are what make great events
Now it's obvious that there are a lot of pay per view events coming up. Lets take a look at the ones that are coming up, and see if they're worthy or not.
The next pay per view fight is Hasim Rahman vs. Monte Barrett. These are two good heavyweights, but this isn't pay per view worthy. This should be on HBO or Showtime. Don King won't even be able to sell this and I don't see him making any money off this even with a decent undercard.
A pay per view event called “Heavyweight Explosion” with Ray Mercer and Shannon Briggs. This whole card will be an implosion since both these fighters are past their best. ESPN 2 could of picked this up and it would have been a decent card, but now it will be an implosion on pay per view.
On September 17 a pretty good match up is in store. Robbie Peden will take on Marco Antonio Barrera. This is a very compelling match up with Shane Mosley on the undercard. This could get a decent amount of buys, but still should be on HBO if they even offered a date.
The final two events are actually pay per view worthy, but will lose buys because they are only a week apart. Roy Jones Jr will take on Antonio Tarver making a trilogy of great light heavies, and the next week Jose Luis Castillo will take on Diego Corrales in a rematch of one of the greatest fight ever. Ill buy both these events, but many wont since they are so close to each other.
Boxing can fix this problem of too many pay per views. HBO needs to give more dates out and have better matches. Showtime is doing ok, since they don’t have that may pay per view events and have good matches. If boxing went back to national TV, like NBC, more fighters would be known and they would make more money. It will probably never happen though, but when it did in 2003 and 2004, NBC garnered great ratings. If they could strike a deal again with promoters boxing could return to the promise land of no pay per view and lots of free matches. This is unlikely though, so don't expect any changes soon.
FINAL FLURRIES:
Local Minnesota boxer Chris Holt will try and take down Andre Ward on August 18. It will be a daunting task, but he did beat Troy Lowry, who has beaten Santiago Samaniego, and gave Matt Vanda all he could handle. Best of luck to Chris Holt and hopefully he can pull a big victory out.
Anybody else think that Zab Judah is acting like a total child. His profanity laced interview at boxingtalk.com showed he is still an immature kid.. A little trash talking is good, but when you start talking like that you don’t sell pay per views.
Id like to thank Jim Maurine, Arnie Entzel, and Ron Lyke for running the new ACR boxing gym, and doing a good job in running it. It's a nice facility and I enjoy going there to work out and box.
Well that’s it for now, take it easy, and roll with the punches.
Kyle Raymond
hardcoreboxing.net
lrkraymond@msn.com
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