Comments Thread For: Showtime Announces Blockbuster Schedule

[chepboxingking]

SHO is definitely back, for now.

Is the Haymon plan to go SHO in the spring/summer, and then go back to the PBC shows in the fall/winter?

It will be interesting to see what the SHO ratings do during this stretch of fights, because they've been really low recently.

They're low if you compare them to HBO's but HBO has a lot more subscribers so it's not a fair fight. Anywho, I hope they pick up because I'd rather showtime commentary more than biased HBO

[Mitchell Kane]

Steve-o [via mobile]
Haymon must be really low on dough

Dan Rafael, King Fight Freak (1:32 PM)
That never hurts.

[JJRod]

Great news! Much respect to Showtime for this schedule, a lot of great fights.

Side note: Is PBC dead?

Let's hope not.
PBC did have its issues but overall more boxing is better.
Hopefully they learned from their mistakes and stick to consistent schedule.

[MrRolltide91]

[bigdunny1]

Great news! Much respect to Showtime for this schedule, a lot of great fights.

Side note: Is PBC dead?

PBC's death is Showtime's gain. Based on these fights what does that leave left for PBC? They already pushed back their ESPN fights from Jan to April and now to June. They going to go at least 8 months without a PBC fight on ESPN. They only have 1 fight scheduled for March. Only 2 fights during Feb. April has only 2 fights scheduled. Nothing scheduled after April 16 and all the top Haymon fighters according to Showtime have deals to fight in Spring/Summer on Showtime. This could be Haymon waving the white flag on PBC and going back to strictly Showtime. We'll see if these fights bring back all the viewers they lost when PBC launched.

[about.thousands]

Provodnikov fighting Molina pretty much means that Crawford is out of opponents for the summer. This should be the time to make Crawford-Postol.

Yep. This forces Bob to stop bull****tin

DeGale is somehow on the undercard of a fight headlined by Bute (The guy he beat). But I think they're setting up a Jack-DeGale clash for the future, so that's good.

It'll most likely be in Quebec and Bute is still a big draw there.

Overall, I like the lineup. It'll definitely put pressure on HBO to respond.

They're making Cotto-Kirkland PPV. They aren't serious about showing better fights. They need to refuse any Canelo or GGG fight until they fight each other. That's when I'll know they're serious

[MDPopescu]

PBC as dead as a dead duck...

[killakali]

With PBC all but dead it's good to see showtime will have a better year than last year!

[Mitchell Kane]

Great news! Much respect to Showtime for this schedule, a lot of great fights.

Side note: Is PBC dead?

I doubt it's dead, but it may mean that some of the reports of funding and what not are true given that there has been a reduction in PBC shows in the first half of the year and now all these fights announced for SHO.

[about.thousands]

Whenever people say fighters fighting on Showtime means PBC is dead I always point them to Espinoza's statement the day PBC was announced. People didn't believe him when he said it.

Jan 16, 2015
Dan Rafael
ESPN Senior Writer

"I hope [NBC] does 5 million viewers. I hope they do 10 million viewers because, guess what? I'm getting those guys back [on Showtime] and very, very soon," said Espinoza, noting that the boxers are not exclusive to NBC. "And if they come back after those monster audiences all the better. I think it's in my self-interest. I'm not here to be generous or noble. I actually think this benefits not only Showtime but it benefits boxing fans and the sport.

"The more people who are following boxing, the more people who pay attention to our pay-per-views and [network]. So if somebody becomes a Keith Thurman fan because they saw him on NBC, then there is our direct benefit right there."

Espinoza wants folks to believe that he was in favor of having fighters whose names were being built on Showtime going to NBC to help make them bigger stars, which will be good for boxing in the long run as opposed to the short-term gain of his network having a few big-time fights in the next few months.

And now that it's happening people are saying the opposite