If Haymon doesn't bail out Top Rank... is Arum finished?

[Scipio2009]

Have you seen some of what ESPN televises these days, especially during the summer months when there's a dead period with the off-seasons in the NFL and NBA?

ESPN is losing television rights battles left and right to other networks, and Haymon offered them a deal that was too good to refuse.

ESPN, even in the doldrums of summer, is the default sports channel for most sports fans. People check on the baseball scores, move on with their day, but still come back when football season starts up by August.

Haymon came to ESPN with his reputation for TV, a depth of talent, and the cred that ESPN felt good to do business with.

Haymon offering up the deal structure that he did definitely gave ESPN no reason to not give him the chance, but the talks wouldn't have even got to that point if his reputation wasn't what it is.

No different than FS1 basically giving up on Toe-to-Toe Tuesday with Golden Boy once Schaefer was pushed out: Oscar's reputation, as a man and as a businessman, was the driveling ****s and most parties refused to continue to do business with Golden Boy once they lost the confidence that Golden Boy's business was handled on the repuation of Richard Schaefer. Or how Bob Arum's deal with TruTV (which he even only got on the reputation of Turner Sports, in TimeWarner) went up in smoke once TruTV saw what Arum actually brought to the table.

If Oscar or Bob had $1b to work with, neither guy would get ESPN, or any other channel, to sit at the table and even get through the intro conversations about a deal, let alone get to the point of where money was being discussed.

[Scipio2009]

Speaking of Dibella, it'll be interesting to see what happens to him if that million dollar insurance price tag sticks past September.

... not sure what you're talking about, but okay

[Mitchell Kane]

Ramirez is 24, yet he could possibly be stuck on the same bum path that Golovkin is currently on. Compare that to a guy like James Degale who, though already 30, has the Badou Jack unification fight lined up next, in addition to Callum Smith, the Murray/Groves winner, and possibly a fight with Felix Sturm in UK/Europe, in addition to the Haymon-backed fighters at 168 (the Dirrell brothers, Peter Quillin moving up, etc) in the US.

What are you talking about Felix Sturm for?

Sturm was talking retirement even before he tested positive after the Chudinov rematch.

He's now certainly out of the picture and Chudinov's manager has already started negotiations for a fight with Ramirez in the fall.

If Ramirez unifies the WBO/WBA titles then he'd have the same number of titles as the Degale-Jack winner.

[Mitchell Kane]

... not sure what you're talking about, but okay

Proposed MMA clause would ‘end boxing in NY as we know it’

“If that law is not repealed or changed, it would end boxing in New York as we know it,” Lou DiBella of DiBella Entertainment said. “It’ll be the end of boxing on a regular basis in New York.”

MSG’s shot at boxing mega-fight may vanish with MMA clause

Language in the bill gives the New York State Athletic Commission until Sept. 1 to “adjust” the requirement. Lou DiBella of DiBella Entertainment has said he won’t be scheduling any of his Broadway Boxing series in New York beyond September until the issue is resolved.

[Eff Pandas]

Whatever pluses that might come with Arum are outweighed by the negatives; if the goal is to capitalize on finding talent, I'd imagine that Carl Morretti would have more to do with the actual nitty gritty than Bob Arum would.

Haymon's image of Bob Arum, in my opinion, was crystallized in the way that he handled working with Arum for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, namely in how (outside of giving Pacquiao the Phillipines TV rights to the fight) Bob Arum was basically removed from every decision making question for the card, outside of what fight he wanted to put in his slots on the show.

Arum wasn't even allowed to offer up a suggestion on the lights.

Not sure how else to describe it, but Haymon moves different; Haymon and DiBella work because, though Lou has a persona and his own issues about him, Lou gets the work done, knows how to move things in his markets, and has yet to really burn any bridges with anyone.

Obviously Haymon moves differently I just don't see how a Hearn-like relationship with Arum is bad in any way. Plus I could see Haymon picking up some TR guys like he picked up some Hearn guys. Haymon needs more big names, Arum needs more TV time. Its win win. If ego's &/or money prevent things from happening fair enough its nothing new or anything, but one of the bigger problems in boxing today is too many egos & too much greed already.

[Eff Pandas]

That answers nothing. UFC isn't a cable network.

No clue what you mean. PBC isn't a cable network either.

Maybe you are just watching (or not watching, as many vocally do) the fights, but from most accounts of whats going on behind the scenes is that PBC's long term goal is to become a elite boxing league not unlike the NFL is for football, the NBA is for basketball & the UFC is for MMA.

The reality is no one really knows for sure what the PBC blueprint is, but there are some big bold move quotes out there attributed from Haymon & Haymonites. One of the first stories I read about Haymon from 5 or so years ago when he had less then ten guys advised by him iirc was that he could take over boxing if he wanted to.

[IMDAZED]

No clue what you mean. PBC isn't a cable network either.

Maybe you are just watching (or not watching, as many vocally do) the fights, but from most accounts of whats going on behind the scenes is that PBC's long term goal is to become a elite boxing league not unlike the NFL is for football, the NBA is for basketball & the UFC is for MMA.

The reality is no one really knows for sure what the PBC blueprint is, but there are some big bold move quotes out there attributed from Haymon & Haymonites. One of the first stories I read about Haymon from 5 or so years ago when he had less then ten guys advised by him iirc was that he could take over boxing if he wanted to.

Yeah that's my point.

You said if they want to become an HBO-like entity. And I said what makes you think they want to do that? And then you gave that quote which backed up nothing you wrote before.

[Eff Pandas]

Yeah that's my point.

You said if they want to become an HBO-like entity. And I said what makes you think they want to do that? And then you gave that quote which backed up nothing you wrote before.

I think it says alot. Watson is saying they will be bigger than the UFC. Haymon is quoted as saying he can takeover boxing by the guy who used to run HBO. There's more stuff out there that says more things like that that I can't recall off the dome. He got a half a billion to a billion dollar bankroll & a venture fund guy who's still consulting & has his own venture fund that I won't be surprised if he jumps on if Waddel & whatever go broke. He's buying up massive TV time, he's got the biggest roster of name fighters of anyone in the business, Seems obvious to me he's doing something bigger than most think cuz he's going in on a level no one has in boxing history. I mean to me this can't JUST be about getting a TV deal, but maybe it is. We'll see.

[IMDAZED]

I think it says alot. Watson is saying they will be bigger than the UFC. Haymon is quoted as saying he can takeover boxing by the guy who used to run HBO. There's more stuff out there that says more things like that that I can't recall off the dome. He got a half a billion to a billion dollar bankroll & a venture fund guy who's still consulting & has his own venture fund that I won't be surprised if he jumps on if Waddel & whatever go broke. He's buying up massive TV time, he's got the biggest roster of name fighters of anyone in the business, Seems obvious to me he's doing something bigger than most think cuz he's going in on a level no one has in boxing history. I mean to me this can't JUST be about getting a TV deal, but maybe it is. We'll see.

Your initial statement was that they need hundreds more fighters or it will fail.

You attempted to qualify that by saying well if they want to be an HBO-like entity then yes, they have to.

Both statements are wild shots in the dark.

[Eff Pandas]

Your initial statement was that they need hundreds more fighters or it will fail.

You attempted to qualify that by saying well if they want to be an HBO-like entity then yes, they have to.

Both statements are wild shots in the dark.

No I didn't say PBC wants to be HBO or they need 1,000 boxers to be HBO. I said IF THEY ONLY wanna be as big as HBO then they DON'T need a thousand guys on PBC's roster or associated with PBC promoters.

And who's not speculating when it comes to PBC? They haven't exactly press released an agenda of their goals for the next 10 years. I'm just going off of whats been said by Haymon, Watson & others associated with Haymon & what all this money indicates to me. You don't need a billion dollars to get a TV deal & to throw boxing on 8 or 9 different channels & to buy up a couple hundred guys' contracts. Thats overkill in my eyes.