If you were appointed head of Boxing at Sky....

[horndawg80]

What 5 things would you do?

For me...........
1) Demote Adam Smith. Still keep him as he puts on aesthetically decent productions but keep him in the background
2) Tell Eddie to streamline his stable (maybe clear out the deadwood and bring in some new talent)
3) Bring back Prize fighter for one season covering all divisions in the UK
4) Get rid of Nelson, Froch and Smigga and make Andy Lee, Macklin, Bellew and Andy Scott more prominent
5) Bring in a trio of Ronald McIntosh, Ian Darke and Jim Rosenthal
Bonus Point - Tell D Whyte to get some punching power..............

[tigermoth87]

Try to get boxing more popular than it is. This is the golden age of British boxing, it should be huge. Outside of a select few (AJ, Eubank, Brook) nobody seems to really care.

I'd try and get, I dunno. Some sort of other Boxing programs produced. Documentarys, (Top 50 British fights, Best British Knockouts etc) a reality type show showing the build up/training for someone like say Selby's world title fight.

I'd also try and get Hearn not to put all his eggs in the AJ basket and start building up interest in Burnett, Yafai and Callum Smith too (Since those I think have the best chance of catching the public's eye). He's got a talent for generating public interest in a fighter but, seems to just do so for his current golden boy.

[tobyh5]

I wonder what percentage of the Sky Boxing profit this year will have come from the two AJ fights which could explain why they do not really care about the rest. If they worked harder on the rest of the year maybe they are spending 70% of their time working on 20% of their profit, although that is probably true of many of us.

[banjo]

I'd bin off all the ex-pro pundits and bring in proper boxing journalists who can give a better analysis of the bout. It's gone too much like the football has with the chummy pundits waffling on about stuff you hear a big fat drunk in the pub come out with.

[tigermoth87]

I wonder what percentage of the Sky Boxing profit this year will have come from the two AJ fights which could explain why they do not really care about the rest. If they worked harder on the rest of the year maybe they are spending 70% of their time working on 20% of their profit, although that is probably true of many of us.

Yeah, I can see why they focus on AJ. He's big, handsome, an Olympic medallist, exciting to watch and fights in the main division. It's easy to see why Hearn and Sky got behind him.

I think if they spent a bit of time and effort with someone else though, they could make another star. My pick would be Callum Smith. He's a likeable guy, exciting to watch, a bit of a KO artist and more importantly, fights in a division stacked with British fighters. Fights with Eubank, Groves, Degale would all be huge fights.

[TheGingerBomber]

I'd give the fans what they deserve. A mega ppv with AJ/Wilder headlining, Chisora/Whyte 2, Brook/Charlo, Burnett/Tete, Chamberlain/Okolie. McKintosh, Bellew & Paulie on comms. Also, Sam Eggington vs Barry Hearn.

[Nightmare Roy]

I'd bin off all the ex-pro pundits and bring in proper boxing journalists who can give a better analysis of the bout. It's gone too much like the football has with the chummy pundits waffling on about stuff you hear a big fat drunk in the pub come out with.

Stop charging £20 for a card of fights where the result of all of them is almost a forgone conclusion

Fcuking stop showing adverts in between rounds on PPV cards! Absolute piss take

Sack of the policy of employing pundits just because they are pals of the channel/ promoter

Get Ian Drake and Paul Dempsey back

[brian13]

If I was head of boxing at sky: I would not be afraid to veto opponents on voluntaries. Wouldn't bat an eyelid to mandatories because it would be unfair on the fighters.

[tobyh5]

Get Ian Drake back

Drake was just ducking it

[moogie101]

I'd keep Hearn but bin off the exclusive deal & open it up to other promoters provided they had a decent fight card, keeps Fast Eddie on his toes, gives Sky a wider selection of boxing & hopefully makes it easier to make matches with fighters signed to other promoters.

I'd bring back the occasional Prizefighter event, these could be fun cards & use them to help develop up & coming boxers.

Having accepted that PPV is here to stay I'd demand that every PPV had a strong main event that justified the purchase & then a solid undercard. I'd also do away with adverts during a PPV which is such a slap in the face. I'd also like to return to the day where a PPV purchase got you both a solid domestic card & then you jumped over to America for a strong International event.

More documentaries about past fighters & big fights, similar to the NFL Americas Game which go through a season following that years eventual Superbowl winner with loads of footage & interviews with those involved. Show more classic fights not just the same ten fights on repeat.

[Coco]

OP-I was starting to agree until i reached the word Mcintosh

That is far fetched to say the least!!

[REEVE]

Bring back Friday fight night every Friday

[CaptainSpacerod]

Aim the coverage at boxing fans not channel hoppers.

Stop the appalling dumbing down of the coverage. Boxing fans aren’t idiots - they know if a fighter is world class or if a forthcoming fight is a tasty one - no amount of cheerleading and hype will convince them otherwise so just stop with the lies.

Get a knowledgable intelligent broadcaster to present the shows, get rid of the out of her depth, cheap eye candy incumbent.

Stop the jobs for the boys policy of hiring recently retired boxers as pundits who just parrot the party line and offer no real insight

Tell Adam Smith to stop patronizing viewers with his risible and irrelevant references to classic fights

Have more big domestic clashes headlining cards rather than fringe world level home boxers fighting ukrainian binmen for meaningless alphabet titles

Bring back Ringside

Stop banging on and on about the Smith brothers

Lock the drinks cabinet, hire a chauffeur and rehire Glen McCrory

[tobyh5]

I'd keep Hearn but bin off the exclusive deal & open it up to other promoters provided they had a decent fight card, keeps Fast Eddie on his toes, gives Sky a wider selection of boxing & hopefully makes it easier to make matches with fighters signed to other promoters.

I'd bring back the occasional Prizefighter event, these could be fun cards & use them to help develop up & coming boxers.

Having accepted that PPV is here to stay I'd demand that every PPV had a strong main event that justified the purchase & then a solid undercard. I'd also do away with adverts during a PPV which is such a slap in the face. I'd also like to return to the day where a PPV purchase got you both a solid domestic card & then you jumped over to America for a strong International event.

More documentaries about past fighters & big fights, similar to the NFL Americas Game which go through a season following that years eventual Superbowl winner with loads of footage & interviews with those involved. Show more classic fights not just the same ten fights on repeat.

Yeah I'm with you, the exclusive contract was needless. What was eddie going to do if the contract had not been exclusive? He says that it is the biggest platform out there so he's hardly going to refuse as he has nowhere else to go. They have the cards, not him.

[Nightmare Roy]

Get Ian Drake back

Drake was just ducking it

[SteveDow]

Some excellent suggestions above but, call me cynical if you want, there are way too many vested interests for most of them to happen.

Presumably the Head of Boxing at Sky will be on some sort of bonus arrangement based on the numbers of viewers and the number of PPV buys that are generated for each show. As such, it is not in that person's interest at all to pander to the more serious and knowlegable boxing fan. They want the casuals to watch in their masses as there simply are not enough serious boxing fans in the country to make the numbers they want to work otherwise. As such, they will tailor shows and productions to what appeals most to the casuals and that includes having a bit of totty presenting, having only famous ex-boxers doing studio analysis rather than better informed and more analytical journalists and having less detailed boxing analysis and more crap like interviews with celebrities, renditions of "Sweet Caroline" and other irrelevant nonsense.

[brian13]

I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of small hall shows during the year. There are great small hall venues such as York Hall and I am starting to miss cards from there.

[leejonesjnr]

I’d try to get Malignaggi as full time commentator, maybe Hatton too as he’s still very popular and is reasonably insightful and engaging

Commission more shows like the ones they did with former super middle and heavyweight champs chatting around a table and some along the lines of the old HBO shows about the lives of individual boxers and ditch the face to face over a table shows unless the contest and the contestants warrants it

Bring back bi monthly Prizefighters

Work out a deal to get Goodwins shows on, either in association with Matchroom or by ditching the exclusive deal

Make friends with the Russians and get all the current and future SS

[tobyh5]

maybe Hatton too as he’s still very popular and is reasonably insightful and engaging

Hell no, but we could take bets on how long before he says "It's not a tickling contest."

Hatton has a bunch of recycled expressions which grow old about ten years ago.

[TheLeprechaun]

First order of business would be giving Adam "Tosser" Smith the p45 he should have received decades ago

[Nightmare Roy]

First order of business would be giving Adam "Tosser" Smith the p45 he should have received decades ago

You would miss him growling "it's a bit like Barrera and Morales"

[Terminator666]

I’d knock ppvs on the head and every card would have at least three world title fights plus well matched top fighters in the other bouts-the card would be quality throughout

[MattCoke]

As much as I loved Froch as a fighter, he’s not the best commentator/analyst, so he’d be getting binned.
Glenn McCrory would be getting his job back, as he generally says it like it is.
I’d like to see Audley Harrison as an analyst, he’s a great talker as we know much like Malignaggi.

[rd350lc]

Get Ian Drake back

Drake was just ducking it

Quack quack

[rd350lc]

I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of small hall shows during the year. There are great small hall venues such as York Hall and I am starting to miss cards from there.

Have you not seen the nextgen cards ?