Comments Thread For: Merchant Agrees With HBO For Rejecting Rigondeaux

[Pocket Dogs!]

HBO is running a business and Rigondeaux is not good for business. HBO doesn't care for the die hard boxing fans. They want the people who flip channels on their remote, see boxing, and stay on the channel until the fight is over.

[oneon11]

Larry is one dumb SOB, I love the sport of boxing and anyone that can't appreciate a guy using his skills to out box another guy shouldn't be involved in the sport. Larry really doesn't know **** about boxing & I could care less about how long he's been calli g fights. The guy is a disgrace to the sport.....

[periks19]

Some hard core boxing fans just couldn't differentiate Professional boxing from Amateur boxing...unless they don't know what "Professional" means. Rigo is a great fighters unfortunately, "fan boys" are the ones the keeps HBO boxing on air. Larry is right about his restaurant analogy, sad to say. Hey, there's always Showtime and ESPN.

Showtime has had better boxing events than HbO this year. What people fail to understand is how did fans expected for rigo to fight nonito? Fans wanted to se donaire knock someone out pac style and got pissed off. Thats what happens when you hype a guy so much. If the narvaez fight wasn't a dign tjat nonito can't box has no plan B

[HeroBando]

Its already paying off. The highest rated boxing event of the year so far is Broner vs Paulie. A fight with little to no hype that most fans saw as a cherry pick fight. Showtimes doing it with 5 million less subscribers. While HBO is signing old shot fighters like Cotto to try and stop the bleeding. And the fighters they do have like GGG, Sergio, and Marquez are already a little long in the tooth. Showtime has the brighter future for sure.

The Paulie fight cost them 2.5m+ to get 10% higher ratings than the GGG fight, which cost 4x less. Sounds like good business

[jvsnypes]

I love technical fighters. I would just like to see them go for the KO sometime. Especially when their opponent is overmatched like the fight with Rigo vs Donaire and Floyd vs Guerrero. How do people get upset with the technical fighter who's boxing like he is suppose to do? Why not be upset with their opponent who obviously hasn't put the work in to build up their skills to match them? What would Roberto Duran and Julio Casar Chavez, Sr have done with skilled fighters like Floyd and Rigo??? They would have cut the ring off and made it a rugged fight. Its not the skilled fighter's fault that these guys don't have the proper trainers to teach them the science of boxing. It tells you a lot about todays boxing fan and the future of the sport when they love the less skilled fighters. They should just watch tough man competitions.

[ShoulderRoll]

HBO is running a business and Rigondeaux is not good for business. HBO doesn't care for the die hard boxing fans. They want the people who flip channels on their remote, see boxing, and stay on the channel until the fight is over.

Maybe they should bring back Butterbean. Or start televising Toughman contests.

[HeroBando]

If they don't want him in a main event, can he at least be on an undercard? That or let him out of his contract, if TR can't put him on HBO, what good is he to them?

Should've put Rigondeaux in against Darchinyan. That KO would've got people talking.

His minimum purse is probably way beyond what hbo wants to pay for an undercard

[Slip Stream]

I think some are being too hard on Larry, its a fact he has less respect for boxers, a trait fairly common on this site so what's the diff? Oh wait, if he was talking about Mayweather it would be open season at this very second but the fact that its Rigondeaux makes all of this somehow more palatable.

Merchant ultimately has a point though and I'm loath to agree with him. Some fans want punch for punch action and not a clinic....

[Pocket Dogs!]

I love technical fighters. I would just like to see them go for the KO sometime. Especially when their opponent is overmatched like the fight with Rigo vs Donaire and Floyd vs Guerrero. How do people get upset with the technical fighter who's boxing like he is suppose to do? Why not be upset with their opponent who obviously hasn't put the work in to build up their skills to match them? What would Roberto Duran and Julio Casar Chavez, Sr have done with skilled fighters like Floyd and Rigo??? They would have cut the ring off and made it a rugged fight. Its not the skilled fighter's fault that these guys don't have the proper trainers to teach them the science of boxing. It tells you a lot about todays boxing fan and the future of the sport when they love the less skilled fighters. They should just watch tough man competitions.

The difference with Rigo and Floyd is that Rigo literally waited for Donaire to throw something, ANYTHING the entire fight. Floyd, on the other hand, was countering and instigating the fight the entire time.

[HeroBando]

No kidding. I'm a paying HBO subscriber and I would rather see Rigo on their airwaves than this ****ing Zou Shiming.

Shiming is not in prime time and costs them next to nothing. Here's Rafael explaining it:

Couple of things here -- Zou is the nominal main event because the fight is in China. The real fights for fans are the two title bouts that are very solid fights -- Evgeny Gradovich vs. Mauricio Munoz and Juan Francisco Estrada vs. Milan Melindo. Both legitimate fights that should be good. Second, this not a "real" HBO card. It is on HBO2 on tape delay. Top Rank is producing the telecast and HBO simply is picking up the feed for a VERY, VERY cheap license fee (about $100k) and offering it to its subscribers for added value on HBO2, which has no original programming. I look at it as a bonus. Simple as that. The first card from Macau was highly entertaining and I expect this to be the same.