Sports Network/ITV

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 26 Jul 2006, 08:29

After a promising start on ITV and a move away from the minor title bouts, SN are back doing exactly what they were doing on Sky all those years. Meaningless titles seem to the the way they are heading.

ITV really need to get away from this exclusive contract with SN and cherry pick the fights they want to show. Some of the garbage served up on prime time ITV has been laughable.

British boxing is being ruined yet again.

Wales · Post by **Wales** » 26 Jul 2006, 09:09

Aye, expect Graham Earl to become a "World Champion" soon!!

THEBUTCH · Post by **THEBUTCH** » 26 Jul 2006, 09:34

Agreed nickd. Keeping it all "in house" doesn't work very well for boxing.

As for Graham Earl, expect Earl to win the European title soon.

knockout · Post by **knockout** » 26 Jul 2006, 09:35

i remember boxing chat was trying to suggest lack of money from sky was leading to the drop in quality of shows...... whats the excuse now??

THEBUTCH · Post by **THEBUTCH** » 26 Jul 2006, 09:54

Scrap my last comment about Earl and the EBU title. Just read the post which says Earl has signed for Sportsnetwork.

All of a sudden I've lost confidence in Earl boxing for the European.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 26 Jul 2006, 10:18

THEBUTCH wrote:Scrap my last comment about Earl and the EBU title. Just read the post which says Earl has signed for Sportsnetwork.

All of a sudden I've lost confidence in Earl boxing for the European.

Earl has signed for Sports Network with the promise of a WBU title fight seriously.

big bad bill · Post by **big bad bill** » 26 Jul 2006, 17:33

ITV have got off to a terrible start....everything is about momenteum and ITV lost that pretty much straight away...some of there shows have been shocking...Remember the DURAN v McNeil fight??!?!?! some of the early shows were a wash out...Williams pulling out and stuff

Thats why it has been shoved onto ITV4 which really is the equilevent of a bad shopping channel on cable TV?!?!?

Im sure lots of SN fighters were expecting mass coverage when the big changeover came but i really think that all the lads which are now on Sky have really stolen a march on the others coz the hard cor boxing fan always watches Friday fight Night...they mean more than the average joe flicking thru the channels on ITV.....people like Arther and Mitchell have seemed to gone off the radar whereas Froch and other Hennessy fighters are now getting coverage that they were gagging for a few years ago

i still expect Warren to come back with some good shows because he has such a big pool fighters that if he starts cross matching them then we are all in for some good fights....

Just think that Warren defection to ITV has opend the door to Big Fat Mick and Mr Maloney to start putting some bigger show with the TV Money that Sky gives you

ITS BETTER FOR US FANS?!?!?!?!

Max Molyneux · Post by **Max Molyneux** » 26 Jul 2006, 19:11

Come on. They barely show the WBU fights or cut them in half!

We've had Williams - Skelton 1 which was decent second one deffo sucked ok), Calzaghe Vs Lacy and then Calzaghe again in October. Now were getting two proper title fights in one night in September and Warren's getting Clinton the exposure he deserves, instead of just supporting Hatton undercards!

Alex Arthur's been in some entertaining scraps too and Scott Harrison's fight wasn't that bad.

Plus, your getting it for free and not part of your Sky or Telewest packages anymore and is that all most just have Sky or Telewest for partly?

Im sure lots of SN fighters were expecting mass coverage when the big changeover came

Harrison/Williams got 8 million watching though even though it was slow.

Calzaghe got millions watching when he whooped the tar out of Lacy.

Yet on ppv, you only get a few hundred thousand watching, which does pretty much sucks except for the money.

jomothepure · Post by **jomothepure** » 27 Jul 2006, 03:53

All joking aside, this WBU stuff really is killing things, for the boxers themsleves in particular.

Take Earl. Fair enough, he's maybe getting a shed-load of money for going to SN. But now what? He looked to have an EBU shot in the pipeline. IF he was good enough, or at least looked impressive enough, to win 4 or 5 EBU fights, he'd probably end up with a title shot.

But with the gypsy trinket he's now being given, he's not going to be ranked by the EBU, or by the world bodies (that is, unless one or two don't actually give the WBU enough credit to make their champions inneligable in their rankings. So he's left in saftey-ville fighting guys with no necessary merit or danger whatsoever. (depite the WBU's thoroughly commendable computerized rankings of course.) Then what? British title fight in two years time having learnt nothing new? Maybe that's what he wants - easy fights for easy money, but it pisses me off to be honest.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 27 Jul 2006, 04:31

Max Molyneux wrote:Come on. They barely show the WBU fights or cut them in half!

We've had Williams - Skelton 1 which was decent second one deffo sucked ok), Calzaghe Vs Lacy and then Calzaghe again in October. Now were getting two proper title fights in one night in September and Warren's getting Clinton the exposure he deserves, instead of just supporting Hatton undercards!

Alex Arthur's been in some entertaining scraps too and Scott Harrison's fight wasn't that bad.

Plus, your getting it for free and not part of your Sky or Telewest packages anymore and is that all most just have Sky or Telewest for partly?

Im sure lots of SN fighters were expecting mass coverage when the big changeover came
Harrison/Williams got 8 million watching though even though it was slow.

Calzaghe got millions watching when he whooped the tar out of Lacy.

Yet on ppv, you only get a few hundred thousand watching, which does pretty much sucks except for the money.

Do you really think Williams v Skelton 1 was decent? I thought it was hideous, and the second fight well we don't even need to go there.

The fact that a blimp like Danny Williams has headlined 3 of ITV's cards in the last 7 months says it all about the quality on offer - and that coming after Warren had said he would never promote him again!

Anyway PPV is not the issue, Sky's friday night fights is way better than whats on offer on ITV. Obviously they have had one or two stinkers like the Haye fight last weekend but the move away from the SHIT titles has improved Sky's product no end.

And who was putting on those SHIT title fights on Sky before? Mr Warren who is now churning out the same dross on ITV just with less shows!

Twinkle Toes · Post by **Twinkle Toes** » 27 Jul 2006, 05:49

You have to forgive Max and his opinion, he can't afford SKY so doesn't know what he is missing.

It's blatantly obvious that SN are rinsing and repeating the same business format, only on a different channel.

Max Molyneux · Post by **Max Molyneux** » 27 Jul 2006, 17:28

nickd wrote:
Max Molyneux wrote:Come on. They barely show the WBU fights or cut them in half!

We've had Williams - Skelton 1 which was decent second one deffo sucked ok), Calzaghe Vs Lacy and then Calzaghe again in October. Now were getting two proper title fights in one night in September and Warren's getting Clinton the exposure he deserves, instead of just supporting Hatton undercards!

Alex Arthur's been in some entertaining scraps too and Scott Harrison's fight wasn't that bad.

Plus, your getting it for free and not part of your Sky or Telewest packages anymore and is that all most just have Sky or Telewest for partly?

Im sure lots of SN fighters were expecting mass coverage when the big changeover came
Harrison/Williams got 8 million watching though even though it was slow.

Calzaghe got millions watching when he whooped the tar out of Lacy.

Yet on ppv, you only get a few hundred thousand watching, which does pretty much sucks except for the money.
Do you really think Williams v Skelton 1 was decent? I thought it was hideous, and the second fight well we don't even need to go there.

The fact that a blimp like Danny Williams has headlined 3 of ITV's cards in the last 7 months says it all about the quality on offer - and that coming after Warren had said he would never promote him again!

Anyway PPV is not the issue, Sky's friday night fights is way better than whats on offer on ITV. Obviously they have had one or two stinkers like the Haye fight last weekend but the move away from the SHIT titles has improved Sky's product no end.

And who was putting on those SHIT title fights on Sky before? Mr Warren who is now churning out the same dross on ITV just with less shows!

Yes, the first one was a good brawl and I put inbrackets that I clearly though the 2nd one was terrible. I said Harrison/Williams was slow as well .

Most people here seem to like the matchups even though there WBU title fights though like that Lockett and Rhode's one for example. If it's a good matchup then forget about the belts unless it's the Brit, Common or Euro title.

Well Warren still putting on these shit fights and your still watching them.

He's delivering proper world title fights as well though for us to watch for free so why complain?

PPV is an issue, people hate having to fork out15 quid when they already pay a subscription and having figures in the millions shows people prefer ITV.

Max Molyneux · Post by **Max Molyneux** » 27 Jul 2006, 17:32

Twinkle Toes wrote:You have to forgive Max and his opinion, he can't afford SKY so doesn't know what he is missing.

It's blatantly obvious that SN are rinsing and repeating the same business format, only on a different channel.

Errrrm, I do have telewest but my parents have never ordered sky sports because not enough watch it and I'm working on trying to convince my mum to order it, otherwise I search forums for downloads before they get taken off because of copyrights.

Demeaning little bugger.

I buy the PPV's anyway.

My preference is the HW's anyway and there easier to find downloads of.

Does Max work for SN?

Why do most assume that, just because I differ from people like you? People accused that Paul Fowler guy of working for FA or something over calling Calzaghe a joke.

BigEars · Post by **BigEars** » 27 Jul 2006, 18:37

Because by comparrison Max Sky Sports are miles ahead , their fights have been top quality this year and are all competitive .

Earl v Romanov , Froch v Magee , Muttley v Anderson and that's not even including the foreign fights .

Max Molyneux · Post by **Max Molyneux** » 27 Jul 2006, 19:03

BigEars wrote:Because by comparrison Max Sky Sports are miles ahead , their fights have been top quality this year and are all competitive .

Earl v Romanov , Froch v Magee , Muttley v Anderson and that's not even including the foreign fights .

The 3 you mentioned sounded like great fights(havent found downloads for any of the 3), but ITV have been shown quality and competitive matches that would match them at least and.

Macca V Hobson was a great competitve fight.

Calzaghe put on a quality display giving out a beating to Lacy. Twas only Ashira like but that one handed display was good to watch.

Danny Vs Skelton 1 was competitive and a good decent battle.

states · Post by **states** » 27 Jul 2006, 19:10

Max, ITV's presentation has been below par. They fit in one fight, talk for ages about Khan, show Khan, and then talk about him some more, as a general rule.

Sky's coverage is much more professional. Admittedly, they have 4 dedicated sports channels, but the point remains. If you watch Sky, you'll catch the pro debut of Brett Flournoy, for example. You won't see that on ITV.

This doesn't mean I'm against ITV, far from it. Any time Boxing gets prime-time TV, it's generally a good thing, and fair play to ITV for taking the gamble. But their coverage has been poor.

Max Molyneux · Post by **Max Molyneux** » 27 Jul 2006, 19:13

I'd give them time.

It's only been a year since they returned to it and they've had one Hennessy show but they failed to impress. Other than Hennessy and Warren, what other promotor has cared enough to get their fights on ITV though?

I remember Woods saying after he beat Hoye that he hoped boxing would return to the BBC but ITV would be good choice, but FA are more bothered about copying America and going the PPV way.

states · Post by **states** » 27 Jul 2006, 19:38

Max Molyneux wrote:I'd give them time.

It's only been a year since they returned to it and they've had one Hennessy show but they failed to impress. Other than Hennessy and Warren, what other promotor has cared enough to get their fights on ITV though?

I remember Woods saying after he beat Hoye that he hoped boxing would return to the BBC but ITV would be good choice, but FA are more bothered about copying America and going the PPV way.

What's the deal with ITV though? Have Sports Network got an exclusive deal? If so, no-one else is going to get a fight on there. The Hennessey show was the first show back on ITV, since then it's all SN shows.

Max Molyneux · Post by **Max Molyneux** » 27 Jul 2006, 20:52

Can;t be that exclusive if Hennessy tried it.

Other than him no one else has tried so it can;t be all ITV.

emma · Post by **emma** » 28 Jul 2006, 02:26

Yeah it hasnt been great this year but i predict better things next year.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 28 Jul 2006, 04:05

Calzaghe v Ashira was a good watch?

Max you've been brainwashed.

nickd · Post by **nickd** » 28 Jul 2006, 04:07

Max Molyneux wrote:Can;t be that exclusive if Hennessy tried it.

Other than him no one else has tried so it can;t be all ITV.

As our friend says in the post above, Hennessy had the first ever ITV show before this deal with SN kicked in. Its SN shows only on ITV.

Lenny · Post by **Lenny** » 28 Jul 2006, 05:20

The thing is Sky has stuck with boxing through thick and thin over the last 10 years (ok they did start to waver a few months back) whereas ITV are only back for the Amir Khan roadshow. If you like boxing on ITV you'd better hope that peoples predictions on Amir's chin are wrong otherwise you'll see them jump out as quick as the BBC did.

The problem is because of the exclusive deal SN have they don't have enough shows in the year to give ITV a regular output and keep people keen. It means SN fighters (esp young ones) are all fighting for shots on Amir Khan undercards and not being treated as well as they should. Why do you think Danny Williams headlines so much? Warren has said he won't let Khan headline so he need a fighter on the bill who he can say is headlining on ITV. With Calzaghe breaking a nail at regular intervals, the fat heavyweights are his only other option with the likes of Arthur deemed suitable for ITV4 only.

Max Molyneux · Post by **Max Molyneux** » 28 Jul 2006, 07:40

nickd wrote:Calzaghe v Ashira was a good watch?

Max you've been brainwashed.

I thought his one handed display showing he can adjust while in the ring wasn't that bad.

Sky far outstrip ITV in everyway. Sky show more domestic shows and more US shows, when they do a domestic show the boxer knows he has a chance of being on TV and the boxers themselves state this.

Sky are showing good shows but how many really try to watch Sky Sports other than for football and cricket?

The boxer would become a more well known name though if they got exposure on a terrestrial channel though. More people have heard of Khan over most fighters that sky show.

Lenny · Post by **Lenny** » 28 Jul 2006, 08:15

I thought his one handed display showing he can adjust while in the ring wasn't that bad.

They'll have you knocking on peoples doors trying to convert them to SN and the WBU soon