Stephen Smith terminates contract with W Promotions

[mickey1975]

You are really clutching at straws if your evidence of Hearn buying home advantage is Quigg getting a shot at the vacant title on an already sold out bill that was guaranteed to be a ppv blockbuster. He really should bring some good champions over here with his backing.

[lefty]

Expe, you're talking historically, about W arren splashing the cash to bring over world champs. Who has he brought over since his TV channel started up ?

The point I was trying to make was that he's putting his money into the channel, instead of the money flowing the other way, which in the past has enabled him to bring champs over here. Scott Quigg was having home advantage until the Manchester show fell through, that's the sort of thing I'm on about.

I don't think he's created a single world champion since his channel started, and lots of his top fighters have left.

I'm not knocking the guy for the sake of it, he's got longevity and I hope his channel survives and prospers. I just think the channel has changed the business model somewhat and I can totally understand why fighters like Smith are jumping ship.

Quigg is fighting for a vacant title though. Warren can't afford to bring anyone over right now, but Hearn, with the Sky TV money, can't get world champions to travel over here and has never created a world champion at any stage.

Christ you let Warren off with so much. Why did Hearn get the contract over Warren? It wasn't all down to his dad.

FW left sky because he set up allegedly and secondly the main reason Hearn got the deal with sky is because of the relationship matchroom as a whole has with sky regarding all the sports they provide programming for. The foundation was already there.

[earsjohn]

Expe, you're talking historically, about W arren splashing the cash to bring over world champs. Who has he brought over since his TV channel started up ?

The point I was trying to make was that he's putting his money into the channel, instead of the money flowing the other way, which in the past has enabled him to bring champs over here. Scott Quigg was having home advantage until the Manchester show fell through, that's the sort of thing I'm on about.

I don't think he's created a single world champion since his channel started, and lots of his top fighters have left.

I'm not knocking the guy for the sake of it, he's got longevity and I hope his channel survives and prospers. I just think the channel has changed the business model somewhat and I can totally understand why fighters like Smith are jumping ship.

Quigg is fighting for a vacant title though. Warren can't afford to bring anyone over right now, but Hearn, with the Sky TV money, can't get world champions to travel over here and has never created a world champion at any stage.

Not quite. Quigg will be defending the "full" (but not Super) version of his title after the WBA upgraded his interim status a month or two back. As this happened since Quigg joined Team Eddie, it can easily be argued that Matchroom have created a World Champion (also what is Darren Barker if he's not a World Champion?)

[lefty]

Expe, you're talking historically, about W arren splashing the cash to bring over world champs. Who has he brought over since his TV channel started up ?

The point I was trying to make was that he's putting his money into the channel, instead of the money flowing the other way, which in the past has enabled him to bring champs over here. Scott Quigg was having home advantage until the Manchester show fell through, that's the sort of thing I'm on about.

I don't think he's created a single world champion since his channel started, and lots of his top fighters have left.

I'm not knocking the guy for the sake of it, he's got longevity and I hope his channel survives and prospers. I just think the channel has changed the business model somewhat and I can totally understand why fighters like Smith are jumping ship.

Quigg is fighting for a vacant title though. Warren can't afford to bring anyone over right now, but Hearn, with the Sky TV money, can't get world champions to travel over here and has never created a world champion at any stage.

Not quite. Quigg will be defending the "full" (but not Super) version of his title after the WBA upgraded his interim status a month or two back. As this happened since Quigg joined Team Eddie, it can easily be argued that Matchroom have created a World Champion (also what is Darren Barker if he's not a World Champion?)

Expe means from the beginning.

[Jack B]

It's a bit unfair to have a go at Eddie with regards to developing champions "from the beginning" - he's only been promoting for 2 years! He's got all of the UK's best talent on his books now, so let's judge him in the next 3-5 years on his ability to develop a prospect from debut onwards.

Anyway, it's not just about developing boxers from the start. Froch is a good example of a champion who needed more exposure. Matchroom have done this for him brilliantly. Less than 3 years ago he was fighting away from home on a minuscule pay-per-view platform. Nobody outside of boxing knew him. Now, along with Haye and Khan, he is the most well known British boxer in the country. Hearn et al deserve a lot of credit for this.

[mickey1975]

It's a bit unfair to have a go at Eddie with regards to developing champions "from the beginning" - he's only been promoting for 2 years! He's got all of the UK's best talent on his books now, so let's judge him in the next 3-5 years on his ability to develop a prospect from debut onwards.

Anyway, it's not just about developing boxers from the start. Froch is a good example of a champion who needed more exposure. Matchroom have done this for him brilliantly. Less than 3 years ago he was fighting away from home on a minuscule pay-per-view platform. Nobody outside of boxing knew him. Now, along with Haye and Khan, he is the most well known British boxer in the country. Hearn et al deserve a lot of credit for this.

I would say Audley and Fury are better known than Froch.

[palooka]

It's a bit unfair to have a go at Eddie with regards to developing champions "from the beginning" - he's only been promoting for 2 years! He's got all of the UK's best talent on his books now, so let's judge him in the next 3-5 years on his ability to develop a prospect from debut onwards.

Anyway, it's not just about developing boxers from the start. Froch is a good example of a champion who needed more exposure. Matchroom have done this for him brilliantly. Less than 3 years ago he was fighting away from home on a minuscule pay-per-view platform. Nobody outside of boxing knew him. Now, along with Haye and Khan, he is the most well known British boxer in the country. Hearn et al deserve a lot of credit for this.

His promoter at the time had him on Channel 5 and was frozen out of the SKY thing; his 3 bouts since the Super Six have been for Eddie and have been on home ground; I don't mean to be churlish but Eddie has been the very lucky beneficiary of having sole SKY coverage - it is that which is the magnet, Eddie didn't have to fight for that or prove himself in any way - it was gifted - Froch has improved his public recognition mostly through his boxing top level men and being consistently good value - apart from the SKY connection I can't think of anything that Eddie has done that any of the other promoters couldn't have done if they'd had his good fortune. There are good and imaginative promoters and boxing people who do good shows and build fighters without having bag fulls of money/massively powerful people batting for them. (Mick Hennessey did a really good job with Froch - with the cards stacked against him, he had a massive positive influence on Froch' career and trajectory; circumstances more than any promotional brilliance have been the major factors since); was that last bit churlish?

[mickey1975]

It's a bit unfair to have a go at Eddie with regards to developing champions "from the beginning" - he's only been promoting for 2 years! He's got all of the UK's best talent on his books now, so let's judge him in the next 3-5 years on his ability to develop a prospect from debut onwards.

Anyway, it's not just about developing boxers from the start. Froch is a good example of a champion who needed more exposure. Matchroom have done this for him brilliantly. Less than 3 years ago he was fighting away from home on a minuscule pay-per-view platform. Nobody outside of boxing knew him. Now, along with Haye and Khan, he is the most well known British boxer in the country. Hearn et al deserve a lot of credit for this.

His promoter at the time had him on Channel 5 and was frozen out of the SKY thing; his 3 bouts since the Super Six have been for Eddie and have been on home ground; I don't mean to be churlish but Eddie has been the very lucky beneficiary of having sole SKY coverage - it is that which is the magnet, Eddie didn't have to fight for that or prove himself in any way - it was gifted - Froch has improved his public recognition mostly through his boxing top level men and being consistently good value - apart from the SKY connection I can't think of anything that Eddie has done that any of the other promoters couldn't have done if they'd had his good fortune. There are good and imaginative promoters and boxing people who do good shows and build fighters without having bag fulls of money/massively powerful people batting for them. (Mick Hennessey did a really good job with Froch - with the cards stacked against him, he had a massive positive influence on Froch' career and trajectory; circumstances more than any promotional brilliance have been the major factors since); was that last bit churlish?

He was on Primetime.

[Jack B]

It's a bit unfair to have a go at Eddie with regards to developing champions "from the beginning" - he's only been promoting for 2 years! He's got all of the UK's best talent on his books now, so let's judge him in the next 3-5 years on his ability to develop a prospect from debut onwards.

Anyway, it's not just about developing boxers from the start. Froch is a good example of a champion who needed more exposure. Matchroom have done this for him brilliantly. Less than 3 years ago he was fighting away from home on a minuscule pay-per-view platform. Nobody outside of boxing knew him. Now, along with Haye and Khan, he is the most well known British boxer in the country. Hearn et al deserve a lot of credit for this.

I would say Audley and Fury are better known than Froch.

Audley perhaps, although he can't be classed as a serious, active boxer. Fury, I disagree. He has fought on terrestrial TV but has had no big crossover marketing. Froch has. Obviously, the Haye fight will raise Fury's profile considerably - a win and he would sky rocket.

[fasteddie]

at the end of the day hearn wouldnt of done a quarter of what he has done without the £££££ from sky and lets be honest half the shows and the bull crap prizefighters that we get served are a load of sh1te,warren has served us fans well over the years with the full monty show in sheffield building the careers of hatton,naz,khan and calzaghe before getting stabbed in the back for his troubles. hearn is getting the best of british fighters but its only a matter of time before it implodes cause like its been raised on this thread you keep everyone happy with only a number of shows a year.

[Jack B]

It's a bit unfair to have a go at Eddie with regards to developing champions "from the beginning" - he's only been promoting for 2 years! He's got all of the UK's best talent on his books now, so let's judge him in the next 3-5 years on his ability to develop a prospect from debut onwards.

Anyway, it's not just about developing boxers from the start. Froch is a good example of a champion who needed more exposure. Matchroom have done this for him brilliantly. Less than 3 years ago he was fighting away from home on a minuscule pay-per-view platform. Nobody outside of boxing knew him. Now, along with Haye and Khan, he is the most well known British boxer in the country. Hearn et al deserve a lot of credit for this.

His promoter at the time had him on Channel 5 and was frozen out of the SKY thing; his 3 bouts since the Super Six have been for Eddie and have been on home ground; I don't mean to be churlish but Eddie has been the very lucky beneficiary of having sole SKY coverage - it is that which is the magnet, Eddie didn't have to fight for that or prove himself in any way - it was gifted - Froch has improved his public recognition mostly through his boxing top level men and being consistently good value - apart from the SKY connection I can't think of anything that Eddie has done that any of the other promoters couldn't have done if they'd had his good fortune. There are good and imaginative promoters and boxing people who do good shows and build fighters without having bag fulls of money/massively powerful people batting for them. (Mick Hennessey did a really good job with Froch - with the cards stacked against him, he had a massive positive influence on Froch' career and trajectory; circumstances more than any promotional brilliance have been the major factors since); was that last bit churlish?

Froch has never fought on Channel 5. Whilst the fight vs Pascal was live on ITV, his following 4 fights were either on Primetime, none of which exceeded 50,000 views, or in the case of Taylor, not on TV at all.

You talk of Hennessy being 'frozen out' as if it was something out of his control. He was with Sky, then walked out for an ITV deal which went badly. He was then left in the shit. He had the best fighter in the country, fighting in the biggest and most competitive fights, on a Mickey Mouse TV channel. Froch was horribly underexposed. That is as much bad promoting as it is bad luck. Hennessy may have got him good fights but he did a poor job raising his profile - which is just as important. The bigger the profile, the more money he can earn.

Likewise, it is not simply 'good luck' that has found Hearn in this position. Before he got the exclusive Sky TV deal, he started strategically signing good British fighters (Brook, Barker, Froch) and started putting on the best shows. Fights like Brook-Hatton selling out an arena looked far better on TV than rival promoters selling out leisure centres. Getting Bute to come over here, for example, was a great bit of business. Admittedly, he was helped by FW jumping ship, but to simply say he has been lucky is nonsensical.

[magnus]

Bute was brought over, defending a title, wasn't he?

[Tom Ford]

at the end of the day hearn wouldnt of done a quarter of what he has done without the £££££ from sky and lets be honest half the shows and the bull crap prizefighters that we get served are a load of sh1te,warren has served us fans well over the years with the full monty show in sheffield building the careers of hatton,naz,khan and calzaghe before getting stabbed in the back for his troubles. hearn is getting the best of british fighters but its only a matter of time before it implodes cause like its been raised on this thread you keep everyone happy with only a number of shows a year.

Most SKY Matchroom shows are shit. Seems all the decent ones are PPV and Adam Smith and Hearn will milk us until dry.

[expe]

It's a bit unfair to have a go at Eddie with regards to developing champions "from the beginning" - he's only been promoting for 2 years! He's got all of the UK's best talent on his books now, so let's judge him in the next 3-5 years on his ability to develop a prospect from debut onwards.

Anyway, it's not just about developing boxers from the start. Froch is a good example of a champion who needed more exposure. Matchroom have done this for him brilliantly. Less than 3 years ago he was fighting away from home on a minuscule pay-per-view platform. Nobody outside of boxing knew him. Now, along with Haye and Khan, he is the most well known British boxer in the country. Hearn et al deserve a lot of credit for this.

I would say Audley and Fury are better known than Froch.

Audley perhaps, although he can't be classed as a serious, active boxer. Fury, I disagree. He has fought on terrestrial TV but has had no big crossover marketing. Froch has. Obviously, the Haye fight will raise Fury's profile considerably - a win and he would sky rocket.

What crossover marketing has Froch had? He's been on the Jonathan Woss show and that's it. He could have all the marketing in the world and people still won't take to him.

[mickey1975]

It's best they don't market Carl. He is very unlikeable.

[palooka]

It's best they don't market Carl. He is very unlikeable.

x2 mickey - he is a fantastic boxer but just comes across as so smug and self referential; there is no glimpse of anything 'human' that you can recognise - it's just as well he isn't chocolate.

[palooka]

It's a bit unfair to have a go at Eddie with regards to developing champions "from the beginning" - he's only been promoting for 2 years! He's got all of the UK's best talent on his books now, so let's judge him in the next 3-5 years on his ability to develop a prospect from debut onwards.

Anyway, it's not just about developing boxers from the start. Froch is a good example of a champion who needed more exposure. Matchroom have done this for him brilliantly. Less than 3 years ago he was fighting away from home on a minuscule pay-per-view platform. Nobody outside of boxing knew him. Now, along with Haye and Khan, he is the most well known British boxer in the country. Hearn et al deserve a lot of credit for this.

His promoter at the time had him on Channel 5 and was frozen out of the SKY thing; his 3 bouts since the Super Six have been for Eddie and have been on home ground; I don't mean to be churlish but Eddie has been the very lucky beneficiary of having sole SKY coverage - it is that which is the magnet, Eddie didn't have to fight for that or prove himself in any way - it was gifted - Froch has improved his public recognition mostly through his boxing top level men and being consistently good value - apart from the SKY connection I can't think of anything that Eddie has done that any of the other promoters couldn't have done if they'd had his good fortune. There are good and imaginative promoters and boxing people who do good shows and build fighters without having bag fulls of money/massively powerful people batting for them. (Mick Hennessey did a really good job with Froch - with the cards stacked against him, he had a massive positive influence on Froch' career and trajectory; circumstances more than any promotional brilliance have been the major factors since); was that last bit churlish?

Froch has never fought on Channel 5. Whilst the fight vs Pascal was live on ITV, his following 4 fights were either on Primetime, none of which exceeded 50,000 views, or in the case of Taylor, not on TV at all.

You talk of Hennessy being 'frozen out' as if it was something out of his control. He was with Sky, then walked out for an ITV deal which went badly. He was then left in the poo. He had the best fighter in the country, fighting in the biggest and most competitive fights, on a Mickey Mouse TV channel. Froch was horribly underexposed. That is as much bad promoting as it is bad luck. Hennessy may have got him good fights but he did a poor job raising his profile - which is just as important. The bigger the profile, the more money he can earn.

Likewise, it is not simply 'good luck' that has found Hearn in this position. Before he got the exclusive Sky TV deal, he started strategically signing good British fighters (Brook, Barker, Froch) and started putting on the best shows. Fights like Brook-Hatton selling out an arena looked far better on TV than rival promoters selling out leisure centres. Getting Bute to come over here, for example, was a great bit of business. Admittedly, he was helped by FW jumping ship, but to simply say he has been lucky is nonsensical.

I honestly didn't realise that Froch hadn't boxed on channel 5 ; I remember him boxing Damon Haigh, Dodson etc on TV before the SKY days and also remember watching the Taylor bout on television.

Eddie has done well with the hand he has been dealt but to not recognise a very lucky hand is in itself disingenuous, if Brook v Matthew Hatton is the best example of promotional brilliance by team Hearn then I'll not be hoping for a great deal now that the new 2 year SKY deal has been announced.

[expe]

It's best they don't market Carl. He is very unlikeable.

x2 mickey - he is a fantastic boxer but just comes across as so smug and self referential; there is no glimpse of anything 'human' that you can recognise - it's just as well he isn't chocolate.

Managed to do it again tonight, said the WBA was a proper world title like the WBC and IBF, leaving out the WBO belt that Calzaghe held for 10 years.

[DMA1987]

Froch has never fought on Channel 5. Whilst the fight vs Pascal was live on ITV, his following 4 fights were either on Primetime, none of which exceeded 50,000 views, or in the case of Taylor, not on TV at all.

You talk of Hennessy being 'frozen out' as if it was something out of his control. He was with Sky, then walked out for an ITV deal which went badly. He was then left in the poo. He had the best fighter in the country, fighting in the biggest and most competitive fights, on a Mickey Mouse TV channel. Froch was horribly underexposed. That is as much bad promoting as it is bad luck. Hennessy may have got him good fights but he did a poor job raising his profile - which is just as important. The bigger the profile, the more money he can earn.

Likewise, it is not simply 'good luck' that has found Hearn in this position. Before he got the exclusive Sky TV deal, he started strategically signing good British fighters (Brook, Barker, Froch) and started putting on the best shows. Fights like Brook-Hatton selling out an arena looked far better on TV than rival promoters selling out leisure centres. Getting Bute to come over here, for example, was a great bit of business. Admittedly, he was helped by FW jumping ship, but to simply say he has been lucky is nonsensical.

Nice one Jack , great post.

[Jack B]

What crossover marketing has Froch had? He's been on the Jonathan Woss show and that's it. He could have all the marketing in the world and people still won't take to him.

Off the top of my head, he was also on that ITV reality TV show recently. There's no doubt he's much better known now then he was 3 years ago - likeable or not. He's the number 1 boxer on Sky Sports and that adds a lot to his profile. Fury may be on Channel 5 once every 3-4 months, but other than that the general public/average sports fan doesn't see anything of him. This has obviously changed since the Haye fight announcement, and as I said, if he wins, he will become major news.

[Jack B]

Froch has never fought on Channel 5. Whilst the fight vs Pascal was live on ITV, his following 4 fights were either on Primetime, none of which exceeded 50,000 views, or in the case of Taylor, not on TV at all.

You talk of Hennessy being 'frozen out' as if it was something out of his control. He was with Sky, then walked out for an ITV deal which went badly. He was then left in the poo. He had the best fighter in the country, fighting in the biggest and most competitive fights, on a Mickey Mouse TV channel. Froch was horribly underexposed. That is as much bad promoting as it is bad luck. Hennessy may have got him good fights but he did a poor job raising his profile - which is just as important. The bigger the profile, the more money he can earn.

Likewise, it is not simply 'good luck' that has found Hearn in this position. Before he got the exclusive Sky TV deal, he started strategically signing good British fighters (Brook, Barker, Froch) and started putting on the best shows. Fights like Brook-Hatton selling out an arena looked far better on TV than rival promoters selling out leisure centres. Getting Bute to come over here, for example, was a great bit of business. Admittedly, he was helped by FW jumping ship, but to simply say he has been lucky is nonsensical.

Nice one Jack , great post.

Cheers buddy, appreciated.

[fasteddie]

Bute was brought over, defending a title, wasn't he?

yes he was,an undefeated ibf title holder

[Jack B]

I honestly didn't realise that Froch hadn't boxed on channel 5 ; I remember him boxing Damon Haigh, Dodson etc on TV before the SKY days and also remember watching the Taylor bout on television.

Eddie has done well with the hand he has been dealt but to not recognise a very lucky hand is in itself disingenuous, if Brook v Matthew Hatton is the best example of promotional brilliance by team Hearn then I'll not be hoping for a great deal now that the new 2 year SKY deal has been announced.

It wasn't the best example - it was the first example. Froch-Bute better for you? Getting an established champion, who could have made a ton more money fighting in North America, to come to his challenger's backyard, was a great effort. In my opinion, it's the best bit of promotional business at major title level in the UK since Hatton-Tszyu. It is not just luck. As I said, though, he was also fortunate that FW left Sky when he did.

Froch-Hague was aired on BBC - not sure if it was live or next day highlights. Froch-Dodson was on Sky. There was 100% no live UK TV coverage of Froch-Taylor. ITV showed highlights.

[thatllbeme]

the way I see it is warren knew that sky were going with 1 promoter and it wasn't him so decided to create allegedly. at that time he had a better stable of fighters than matchroom. since then matchroom has signed up some of the better fighters meaning he they now have a far better stable and can now put on better shows. if this went the other way and sky went with warren he would now have the better stable and matchroom boxing probably wouldn't even exist.it it wasn't for the deal barry hearn already had with sky none of this would have happened!

[spudder56]

the way I see it is warren knew that sky were going with 1 promoter and it wasn't him so decided to create allegedly. at that time he had a better stable of fighters than matchroom. since then matchroom has signed up some of the better fighters meaning he they now have a far better stable and can now put on better shows. if this went the other way and sky went with warren he would now have the better stable and matchroom boxing probably wouldn't even exist.it it wasn't for the deal barry hearn already had with sky none of this would have happened!

X2