Comments Thread For: What HBO Should Do Now – Part Two

[ИATAS]

A couple of great articles, but there's something he's missed to mention. HBO should show the damn ring girls! Seriously, this is the same network that has Real*** and other explicit shows.

Showtime shows them. UFC not only shows them but gives their names & I would assume uses them for marketing stuff/appearances. The NFL shows the cheerleaders. The NBA shows the dancing teams at breaks.

They don't bleep Roger Mayweather. They don't blur out gruesome cuts. Why the hell can't they show some cleavage now & then?

even the ~90 year old Ring ****zine has started doing layouts on ring girls every month now haha.

HBO does need a makeover to appeal to younger audiences and a little boobage wouldn't hurt.

[caguamosoyyo]

Great Read

Great read. Just spent my morning at work being unproductive. Not bad form a tuesday morning. I agreed with almost everything said. However, there was a lil Monday Morning Quaterbacking with Alexander/Bradley.

HBO has given me great fights. One of the reasons I subscribe to HBO is boxing and Entourage. Since Entourage is ending I guess my HBOing is all about Boxing. As far as the next month or two, HBO is putting up some quality fights. Can't wait, however, just like Nonito vs. Fernando, HBO should put up some quality undercards as well. With quality undercards, fight night on HBO feels like an event. If it is only one fight, not so much. Thank God HBO has Max. I love the guy. His insight in the boxing game is second to none. Mr. Lampley, well he is a true gentleman of the sport.

[BMWM3P]

Totally agree with the article it was a long read but a good read. I think Dibella is right on the money with what he said.

Lou DiBella is in accord, saying, "If you're boring and you fight going backwards, I don't care what your pound-for-pound ranking is; you shouldn't be on HBO. It's not about appealing to 250,000 hardcore boxing fans. You have to appeal to a wider audience."

This is what I've been saying all along fighters like Hopkins, Dawson, to some degree Berto, Ward and Dirrell should not be headlining major cards. Their run, hold, potshot styles are not appealing to anyone and none of them can draw flies to ****.

What they tried to do with the 140 pound division came tumbling down on them. While Maidana versus Kahn was a great fight they got a huge dud in Bradley vs Alexander. We knew that Bradley vs Alezander would be boring why couldn't they see that. The better matchup would have been Alexander vs Maidana and Bradley vs Kahn then have the winners face each other.
Bradley imposing his style on other fighters is boring he might win but he doesn't make TV friendly fights. Kahn, Maidana and Alexander do make good exiting fights HBO should have thought which of these three would be the toughest for Bradley to impose his boring style on and the answer was simple Kahn. Alexander vs Maidana was guaranteed to be great and we would have now seen tw great fights and created a huge buzz about the matchup between the winners. Now intstead of 4 great names in the 140 division which everyone wants to see we are left with two which are Kahn and Maidana.

[PRBOXINGCOTTO]

Great article showtime has the 2 biggest stars in boxing in cotto and pac both on ppv hbo is losing the boxing war and showtime has juanma which has a huge fan base step up hbo or you will lose the stars for some boring non competitive fogjts with berta

[superchamp]

Hauser's bias against HBO is getting ridiculous.

They just had a really strong few months, mixing several best-vs-best matches with some fan friendly fights:

Williams-Martinez II
Khan-Maidana
Marquez-Katsidis
Bradley-Alexander
Donaire-Montiel
Jones-Soto Karass II

Hasn't he been saying for a long time that they need to force the best to fight the best?

Now he is complaining about it?]


And they've got a good mix of fights coming up:

Alvarez-Hatton
Martinez-Dziniruk
Gamboa-Solis
Morales-Maidana
Guerrero-Katsidis
Berto-Ortiz
Klitschko-Chisora
Pascal-Hopkins II
Bradley-Khan

Hauser seems to be really upset that HBO isn't showing Pacquiao-Mosley and Cotto-Mayorga, but those are exactly the type of meaningless fights he criticized them for showing over the last few years.

He acts like Arum is God, but if Arum had his way we would be getting a bunch of in-house mismatches and JCC Jr. fights that don't belong anywhere near HBO.

I'm not saying HBO is perfect, but at least give them credit where credit is due. They put their foot down over the last few months of 2010 and so far in 2011 demanding exactly the types of fights that Hauser was crying about, and not taking anything less.

[Dave Rado]

He says the best should be fighting the best but then he turns around and **** on the alexander/bradley fight.

I emailed him about that and he replied:

I don't have a problem with Bradley-Alexander. As I wrote at the
time, I thought it was an intriguing match-up (albeit a bad styles
match-up from an entertainment point of view). What I thought was
ill-advised was HBO signing multi-fight deals with each fighter.

Regards,
TH

Which is fair enough.

[Dave Rado]

Totally agree with the article it was a long read but a good read. I think Dibella is right on the money with what he said.

Lou DiBella is in accord, saying, "If you're boring and you fight going backwards, I don't care what your pound-for-pound ranking is; you shouldn't be on HBO. It's not about appealing to 250,000 hardcore boxing fans. You have to appeal to a wider audience."

This is what I've been saying all along fighters like Hopkins, Dawson, to some degree Berto, Ward and Dirrell should not be headlining major cards. Their run, hold, potshot styles are not appealing to anyone and none of them can draw flies to ****.

What they tried to do with the 140 pound division came tumbling down on them. While Maidana versus Kahn was a great fight they got a huge dud in Bradley vs Alexander. We knew that Bradley vs Alezander would be boring why couldn't they see that. The better matchup would have been Alexander vs Maidana and Bradley vs Kahn then have the winners face each other.
Bradley imposing his style on other fighters is boring he might win but he doesn't make TV friendly fights. Kahn, Maidana and Alexander do make good exiting fights HBO should have thought which of these three would be the toughest for Bradley to impose his boring style on and the answer was simple Kahn. Alexander vs Maidana was guaranteed to be great and we would have now seen tw great fights and created a huge buzz about the matchup between the winners. Now intstead of 4 great names in the 140 division which everyone wants to see we are left with two which are Kahn and Maidana.

What you're saying is that boxing isn't a sport, in your opinion, it's just show business.

[delmont]

Did someone at HBO kick Hauser's dog? One huge problem with what he starts with: Plenty of credible boxing writers were enthused about Bradley vs. Alexander so it seems not at all unreasonable that HBO would put some money and effort behind it, hope for a good fight, at least one emerging star. And in saying the next Martinez fight doesn't look to be exciting, we shall see. There have been plenty of fights that looked great on paper and weren't, plenty that didn't and were.

Networks spend money and hope for the best. Nature of the beast. Showtime's spent a bunch on the Super Six, which may help produce one big star, Andre Ward, though at this point, he's far more skilled than exciting.

That aside, who's to say HBO overpayed for any fight(s) without some context? Did Showtime or someone else have zero interest? Were some or any of those paydays made to keep a promoter happy, boost HBO's chances of signing another fighter?

In terms of opinion, the idea of making Arreola a personality, using him more is not the best idea I've heard. Different demographics and tastes and all that, but Chris strikes me as a buffoon who is not serious about boxing. Most all of us and a lot of fighters have their profane moments (and I can swear with the best/worst of 'em), but Arreola strikes me as tiresome, unprofessional.

That said, I do like the idea of a regular boxing news show; as Hauser notes, it wouldn't cost much to have Lampley, Merchant, Steward, etc., talking about what's going on, having interviews with fighters, trainers, promoters, etc.

[UglyPug]

These are excellent articles. This what distinguishes boxingscene from other noob sites. True journalism coupled with excellent research. Thank you for the good read(s) over the past few days, good sir. And thank you to BIG POPPA PUMP, and the rest of BS for posting the jants!

[warp1432]

Im waiting on that young dude Warp to counter this.


I just hope he refute Hauser and not just attack Top Rank

It's not just me being anti-top rank, but if Hauser uses Arum (who is very hypocritical in his own right) as his main source I'm going to go after it. In his past articles, I've refuted other biased **** Hauser puts out that doesn't have Arum.

I will give Hauser credit. I really like his ideas about new marketing, specifically about how HBO needs to open it up to the brand of boxing. They need to show more about the actual sport and the division, not just the fighter's background story.

That's only a blurb in this article though and the majority of it is bashing HBO's 2011 schedule. I really can't believe that. I'd say the majority here looked forward to Bradley Alexander and are looking forward to the upcoming fights.

A 2.4 rating for Bradley Alexander isn't bad. That's 1.5 million people and Cotto Foreman, which did a 3.9, had 1.9 million people watch. I'm not sure how much HBO paid for Cotto-Foreman, but they also had the new yankee stadium to advertise.

Paul Williams-Sergio Martinez II did a similar rating to the fights mentioned above. Probably just a bit higher, but this was coming off their first fight that was a war. It probably even had more hype among the hardcore fans.

Bradley-Alexander wasn't disappointing to me personally. I know it was to a lot of people, but like mentioned it was a fight that needed to happen. I personally thought the action was good because I like technical fights like that. The ending was iffy, but I really can't believe Hauser really is putting HBO down for that fight happening. It needed to happen.

I'll give some ground on HBO paying too much for Alexander's return fight. I agree, but I'd be really interested in seeing Alexander vs Lucas Mythasse like what was mentioned. If we're talking about overpaying, I have to be iffy on Hauser's sources sometimes. How do we know for sure Khan is getting 3 million win or lose? Hauser is the one who reported the false "Where did the 500k go" story from a while back, so his numbers with GBP might not be super accurate.

It's hard to trust "insider sources" to begin with. That term is so vague. Michael Marley has his "insider sources", but he turns out to be wrong half the time. One last thought about Bradley Alexander, where is Hauser basing that the audience was basically admitted for free? Sure, probably some were, that's always the case, but we have seen no actual reports that the audience number was super inflated like Hauser was saying.

I like how he mentions that the silverdome hosts 80000 and how only around 7000 filled it, but he conveniently doesn't mention that the arena was suited for around ten.

Addressing his other beefs with HBO's 2011 schedule, I'd much rather see Sergio Martinez vs Sergei Dzinziruk than any of the mentioned opponents for Martinez (Zbik and Lee). Martinez vs Lee or Zbik is a guaranteed win and HBO would definitely overpay for it. It's why I'd much rather see Martinez vs Dzinziruk than Cotto-Vanes (the fight HBO turned down) because Cotto is pretty much a guaranteed winner. They are paying for the better match up.

Sure there is speculation that HBO owes Sergei a date anyway, but like I said I'd much rather have seen Dzinziruk fight than Vanes. Oh and by the way, Martinez-Cotto was possible but good ol' bob didn't want Cotto-Margarito's rematch to be jeopardized.

Hauser mentions a lot about HBO overpaying for things, but what I disagree with him is that he complains about overpaying for good fights. I agree with him HBO overpaid on crap like Berto-Hernandez or Dawson-Tarver II, but fights like Hopkins-Pascal II and Martinez-Dzinziruk are worth the money.

Showtime wanted Hopkins-Pascal II on their network, it was their highest rated fight in years. Hauser doesn't mention that. He doesn't mention how people want to see the rematch. And the fans do. No one wanted to see Pascal fight Dawson again. HBO is giving us the fight we want to see at an earlier date.

Showtime didn't have a date until July for Hopkins-Pascal II, when HBO had one in May. Also the winner fighting Dawson wouldn't necessarily be bad either. Especially since a lot of people say that Hopkins would duck Dawson. He is forced to fight the winner unless he retires, which I can't see him doing if a three fight contract is on the table.

Dibella, who I think is one of the best guys around in boxing, is ****** in saying that about boring fighters. I don't see him complaining when Berto gets overpaid or when Jermain Taylor, the king of going backwards, was on there.

If HBO were to discriminate against out boxers, that would be terrible. Some fights just need to happen regardless if they are two out boxers. Dibella shouldn't say otherwise.

One last thought, I really disagree with Hauser in saying that Adamek-Klitchsko shouldn't happen on HBO. Klitschko fights come cheap nowadays because they are on tape delays. Wlad-Adamek might be a mismatch, but its the best heavyweight fight that is actually going to happen. Haye won't fight Wlad.

It seems like any fight HBO does Hauser would have a problem with. Does he have a list of top fights he wants to happen in 2011? I'm really interested in seeing what this guy has the idea for a top fight because HBO has stepped up their plate.

Do they have a way to go? Sure and I agree with Hauser in some areas, but his bias against Greenburg should be taken into heavy account. Most of his view points can be easily retaliated.

If you read all this, good job.