Sky coverage - shite

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 09 Mar 2005, 16:14

They are really struggling at the moment I think, recent friday night fights have been shit - Skelton v Moli was one of the worst headliners I can recall watching. This friday we have Nigel Wright v Dean Hickman WTF?? End of April we have Danny Hunt v David Stewart WTF again?? Sorry these are good small hall matches but are they headline top of the bill live TV fights?? Are they fornicate.

If it wasnt for the football I would cancel Sky, the boxing coverage is the worst I can ever remember.

Power v Robinsoin looks a good fight for April, other than that we have mismatch Calzaghe v Magee a week friday and not a lot else on the British front.

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 09 Mar 2005, 16:17

Cannot blame Sky, they are not making the matches. I agree, this is more of a fight skool type event.

More boxing on TV the better for me.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 09 Mar 2005, 16:19

Fact is the top fighters dont fight often enough anymore. Even the guys at British title level are only fighting 3 or 4 times a year at that level guys used to fight every 1-2 months in the past.

And Sky are accepting all this shit so they are to blame as they're taking the money off people. Obviously the promoters are to blame also.

I think they might be fight skools I heard that was coming back on some friday nights.

lvlarc · Post by **lvlarc** » 09 Mar 2005, 20:57

Yeh i think its disgusting that top fighters can get away with earning dollar for just 1 or 2 fights a year.

chado · Post by **chado** » 09 Mar 2005, 21:24

I think they will be good fights.

Wright v Hickman is a good match and should make good viewing.

Hunt v Stewart is a good match up and should make good viewing.

You can't have top notch fights all the time.

In my opinion these fights should be well worth watching and a lot more entertaining than a quality fighter against some pushover.

Sorry, I can't see a reason to complain about these ones, but I undersatnd where your coming from about the fight skool bit.

Unfortunately the cut backs in boxing at the moment means we have to be greatful for what ever coverage of boxing we are getting.

It was good to see Clinton win the IBF Title and Lets hope both Ricky Hatton and Junior Witter can both have a great June and put British Boxing back on the map.

Lefthookhappy19 · Post by **Lefthookhappy19** » 09 Mar 2005, 22:47

I'd prefer it if they just scrapped such matches and then brought us live or next morning the top matches from the US. Pac vs Morales a week late is totally pathetic. Why the fornicate even bother. Anyone who's really interested in seeing it will have got it from the internet within a few days probably. Its just totally shite. Adam Smith will have what he wants to say all wrote down before they show it because he knows the result. I HATE that kind of commentary. fornicate Sky.

Kilburn · Post by **Kilburn** » 10 Mar 2005, 05:30

CH5 showed Rocky Juarez hammering Ranchero Ramirez last night, so they're not completely out of the picture.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 10 Mar 2005, 05:42

Hang about, surely this is the whole point, these smaller shows SHOULD get coverage, it's what the sport needs. So long as I don't have to pay 10 quid for a shit PPV I don't mind.

How else are these fighters supposed to get exposure if they are not shown?

knockout · Post by **knockout** » 10 Mar 2005, 06:16

surely with less and less TV dates you would expect the quality to improve ... but the opposite is true....

Warren gets to put on his shit cards when other promoters have better cards which dont even get televised

MightyWarrior · Post by **MightyWarrior** » 10 Mar 2005, 06:20

It's ok for these type of fights to be televised, but on a so called premium channel like Sky Sports they belong on the undercard.

Imagine American HBO viewers putting up with this crap - they get PacMan/Morales live - we get another Calzaghe mismatch.

Time to cancel I think.

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 10 Mar 2005, 06:30

knockout wrote:surely with less and less TV dates you would expect the quality to improve ... but the opposite is true....

Warren gets to put on his shit cards when other promoters have better cards which dont even get televised

The TV dates haven't cut down on Sky though, still once a week. Okay we did have Fightskool on a Thursday aswell but its the same as before Fight Skool.

Kilburn · Post by **Kilburn** » 10 Mar 2005, 06:33

Yeah but Gatti, Cotto and soon Morales have been replacing some of the live friday fight nights slots. Sunday morning Big Fights Specials are a thing of the past.

stujones · Post by **stujones** » 10 Mar 2005, 06:38

Kilburn wrote:Yeah but Gatti, Cotto and soon Morales have been replacing some of the live friday fight nights slots. Sunday morning Big Fights Specials are a thing of the past.

True, good point. Although perhaps if there was boxing scheduled on the following Friday the Sunday schedule might still be happening. As far as I am aware (reading the schedules) the big promoters are putting on less shows. For example, when is Barry Hearns' next show - he used to have one once a month.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 10 Mar 2005, 06:40

Who the hell wants these fights on a 6 day delay? Practiaclly worthless by then.

I agree with MW, this is a premium TV channel - those sort of fights are not for headlining Pay TV sorry.

Kilburn · Post by **Kilburn** » 10 Mar 2005, 07:07

stujones wrote:perhaps if there was boxing scheduled on the following Friday the Sunday schedule might still be happening.

I'm sure it's structured so that this doesn't happen. allegedly will get what he's given.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 10 Mar 2005, 11:15

British boxing is more or less out on its feet imo... where are the fights to fill us with anticipation?.... most of the fights that happen now just fill me with an overwhelming feeling of disinterest!.... where are the matchups between the top fighters that we used to see up till the early 90s!.... indeed where are the fighters who you care about winning or losing?.

jamesmcdonnell · Post by **jamesmcdonnell** » 10 Mar 2005, 12:05

By and large, only people who have no hope of winning a spurious world title are interested in tackling dangerous domestic opposition.

Why bother, when there are hordes of Ukrainian, Polish, Latvian, Argentinian, etc etc fighters looking for a buck who can be brought over as opposition.

Everyone (with notable exceptions) is so busy jockying for a chance to get their hands on some meaningless bauble so they can get silly money from TV people, that British, Commonwealth and even European clashes have been seriously devalued.

kevo · Post by **kevo** » 10 Mar 2005, 12:09

And why won't sky show Scott Dann's fights? Didn't they show the Gatti-Leija fight instead? Don't know why they can't put fight's like this on Sunday mornings, instead of picking them over British title fights.

silkov · Post by **silkov** » 10 Mar 2005, 13:22

Sky have ruined boxing in this country in the past decade...... its become nothing but a fringe sport. When I started following boxing in the late 70s/80s I used to keep a scarp book of the boxing news thatd I'd get from various papers (The Mail, Mirror mainly) there used to always be covereage of the British title fights... even lesser known fighters of the time... I remember cutting out reports of Jimmy Cables British Light-middleweight title win over Nick Wiltshire... when do you see articles on Boxers in the daily papers these days unless its Khan!. I had a hard time finding anything on Clinton Woods title win recently.... 10 or 20 years ago that would have been front page news on some papers!.... and basically SKY and Allegedly are to blame... with their spurious titles they have watered down the whole scene till there are now more 'champions' than contenders and most of the 'champions' don't even want to face the few contenders that there are... while the contenders themselves mostly want to take an easy route to being 'champions'.

don't call it a comeback · Post by **don't call it a comeback** » 10 Mar 2005, 14:36

The move to Friday nights has been a disaster. Most of the shows have been poor and there has been little or no build up. During the last few months there have been some big and interesting fights with Danny Williams, Eastman, Harrison, Witter, even Barnes and most of all Clinton Woods.

But the middle layer of fights - the ones we should be seeing on a Friday night - just seems to have disappeared the days when we would see the likes of Steve Roberts, Jav, the emerging Harrison, Hatton etc take on former world champions seem to have gone. David Haye provided an example of a decent matchup last week but that didnt happen at Sky Matchmaking at SN has gone down the plug and they probably reckon if Sky keep them on friday nights then they'll retaliate by putting on crap shows. Well FW could be in for a shock, Ricky Hatton or no Ricky Hatton.

KOJOE90 · Post by **KOJOE90** » 10 Mar 2005, 15:34

Just from a personal point of view I don't like the new Friday night slot at all. I am either out or if I am in by 10pm I am knacked after a hard weeks work.

Also I still hate the tacky graphics and sound effects.

Coconut · Post by **Coconut** » 10 Mar 2005, 18:32

KOJOE90 wrote:Just from a personal point of view I don't like the new Friday night slot at all. I am either out or if I am in by 10pm I am knacked after a hard weeks work.

Agreed entirely. I watch very little live Friday night boxing now. And the repeats come too late in the day - missus normally up and complaining by 10am.

As a side note, I'm rather looking forward to the Hickman-Wright match - what looks like being a genuinely competetive fight between two guys who could go either way, and almost certain to last the distance. I'd much rather watch that, notwithstanding the fact that I don't know them that well, than watch a 'big name' knock seven bells out of some poor overmatched late call-up then listen to Dempsey twitter on dramatically and ask the panel if 'now is the time' for boxer X to 'step up'.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 10 Mar 2005, 18:36

Does Paul Dempsey have the same hairstylist as lego man?