BoxRec

boxingchat wrote: Last night for instance, God bless Martin Power, was equaly as dull.

whicker wrote:Are you baised towards a certain promoter? Strange how you don't mention the equally disappointing Smith V Quigley fight.

Deno1986 wrote:without Sky we wouldn't have seen Moore-Rhodes, Renda-Samuels, Dodson-Quigley etc, some great fights over the season. It's not Skys fault that Haskins-Broadhurst put on a piss poor fight last night, not Skys fault that Anthony Small decided to be RJJ for the night. I'm just happy I get a weekly fix of live boxing at a decent hour to be honest and I get to see some of the 'big'fights in the States without having to pay BO prices for! People always have to have something to cry about.

diggler wrote:dodson v Quigley was on setanta who I dearly miss

mickey1975 wrote:To be fair,i too knew Small-Mcdonaugh was going to be an absolute stinker.It was inevitible

mickey1975 wrote:To be fair,i too knew Small-Mcdonaugh was going to be an absolute stinker.It was inevitible

Deno1986 wrote:

mickey1975 wrote:To be fair,i too knew Small-Mcdonaugh was going to be an absolute stinker.It was inevitible

but it was for the British and Commonwealth titles and if Sky didn't show it there would have been a lot of angry boxing fans.

mickey1975 wrote:

Deno1986 wrote:

mickey1975 wrote:To be fair,i too knew Small-Mcdonaugh was going to be an absolute stinker.It was inevitible

but it was for the British and Commonwealth titles and if Sky didn't show it there would have been a lot of angry boxing fans.

Not me,and i wont be angry if they never show Haskins again either.Or Matthew Barney.Even for World titles.Some guys,you just know how its going to turn out and its not fair on the opponent or the fans.It can only harm boxing.

whicker wrote:

boxingchat wrote: Last night for instance, God bless Martin Power, was equaly as dull.

You are talking bollocks.

Name a fight on any of frank warrens Friday Fight Night undercards that was as good as that?

MPG wrote:
Martin Power v Matthew Edmonds DULL ? What fight were you watching ?IMO it saved the show from being a complete disaster..

Deno1986 wrote:without Sky we wouldn't have seen Moore-Rhodes, Renda-Samuels etc, some great fights over the season. It's not Skys fault that Haskins-Broadhurst put on a piss poor fight last night, not Skys fault that Anthony Small decided to be RJJ for the night. I'm just happy I get a weekly fix of live boxing at a decent hour to be honest and I get to see some of the 'big'fights in the States without having to pay BO prices for! People always have to have something to cry about.

boxingchat wrote:Am I alone in thinking that the quality of FFN has significantly diminished this season with
some of the most boring fights and poor quality undercards ever seen? In the last few FFN offerings we have suffered 36 rounds of complete dross, like being told Matthew Hatton and Lovemore N'dou was a world title fight and then on the 100th anniversary of the Lonsdale belt seeing two of the worst British title fights in living memory in Small/McDonagh and last nights hug-a-thon between Haskins and Broadhurst.

With the halls looking emptier by the week and the atmoshere likening a wake, can we as boxing fans really be satisfied with these shows? Are we getting our monies worth or are we being fed poor quality fights because Sky are giving OUR money to things like American Pool and the like? It seems to me that Prizefighter, which IMO has now been done to death and has become boring, is taking over from the real sport we love and the developement of tomorrows stars. I've said before that PF is entertaining but it is not real boxing. Would Sky put the Masters Football Tournamants in place of Super-Sunday Premier League Football, of course not so why are they messing with the boxing? Not one Prizefighter has matched up to the first one as now the fighters are tactically aware and as a result its just become dull. Has this polished up tough-man tournamant taken up all the FFN budget and/or made middle-league and has-been fighters inactive whilst awaiting a call from Mr Hearn for a shot at £32k.
Is there inactivity the cause of the poor foreigners we've seen? Has PF stopped fighters fighting their way back into contention or just packing it in, as many of them should? Either way the serious side of the sport is suffering as a result in my opinion.

There are lots of other factors to the demise of FFN and maybe all should be expalined buy the suits at Sky. Bring back Ringside too!

The introduction of Ricky Hatton as a promoter has been a farce and so far his first three shows have been less than up to scratch. After poor main events, we've had piss poor back up fights to fill a two-hour shot. Macklin went in one round, fair enough, but aren't we entitled to be entertained for the remaining 110 minutes as well? Last night for instance, God bless Martin Power, was equaly as dull. Whilst it's commendable that Frank Maloney has apologised for picking, not one but two, diabolical foreigners to be knocked over by his Olympians, please don't take this as a sincere sorry, after all aren't the records avaibable to study and cross reference on the very site he has chosen to hold his hands up on, this one!

One of his closest allies, Phillip Fondu no doubt got these bodies over and was asked by the Promoter for 'easy jobs' for his Olympic prospects. Didn't he check what he was getting for his money or, in reality, did he get exactly what he wanted and exactly what he paid for? Both the BBBC and the people at Sky could and should have checked these bums as well and said 'no thanks.' They have a responsibility to the sport and to us the fans too don't they. I hear the Newport show was poor and the main event was again supported by a flimsy undercard throughout Even in the front row people were talking, texting and sharing jokes, in fact doing anything but watch the boxing. If they don't want to watch it, what makes Sky think we do? For me, Maloney's apology was about as sincere as George Graham's. They both only apologised after they'd been caught out.

I can't work out just who is making the decisions at Sky and just who is vetting these fights.
Why has the policy changes and the quality suffered? Sure enough Haskins and Broadhurst was ordered by the Board so maybe Maloney can hide behind that fact, but he wanted the fight and he paid to promote it, did he really expect Benn V Eubank? Did Ricky Hatton not know that Small V McDonagh was probably the worst match that could possible be made in the whole of British Boxing, if not then perhaps Sky should seriously question if he knows what he is doing and also seriously question their own quality controller, if indeed such a person exists. Hatton might be a great fighter but outside the ropes he has alot to learn and his shows have been poor at best.

allegedly has been slaughtered on here for years, in fact it's become national pastime on Boxrec, but I feel sure a fight like HaskinsV Broadhurst would have been on a big show and surrounded by other championships or at the very least on a show with some depth, in the home town or at least one of the fighers to ensure an atmosphere, that's what promoting is all about. Last weeks PPV in Newcastle was good, sure Khan went in a round but no one expected it to, but the rest of the show was decent an Mitchell V Prescott was worthy of a FFN slot on it's own - so why did we have to pay extra for it?

Going back to my original question, someone, somewhere at Sky Sports needs to get a grip of
the Boxing programming as for the first time in a long time they have a monopoly on the sport, so why not build on it, who knows more people might turn on. There's lots of great prospects out there so why oh why do we want to watch PF tournaments every few weeks featuring guys who are past it or never acheived anything at their peak, it's a joke.

To their credit they do a great job of covering the sport and their production and preview stuff is second to none. Whilst Adam Smith can 'polish' many a turd the fact is most boxing fans know the turd is a turd long before the first bell, don't fool us we know more than you do!

Let's go back some years and we had many stars and many great fights and the PPV fights were special occasions with massive bills full of top quaity fights, remember Naz, Eubank and Calzaghe on the same bill?. So what's changed at Sky, the personnnel, the budget or are some promoters just not up to the job. How can super-shows work one day and not the next? Maybe fighters are being vastly overpaid now, I don't know but somethings gone wrong.
I agree that you get what you pay for and promoters are no doubt struggling, as are all business people and if the reason is that Sky have seriously cut budgets then I sympatjie with them all. However, the fact remains that my bill has not gone down and your bill hasn't gone down either so I am entitled to get the same quality that my money used to buy me, am I wrong?

Frank Maloney's apology adds insult to injury and only last week he was telling Anthony Small to refund the crowd at Wigan, as the Wigan football team did after their 9-1 humping, for his disgusting display against the equally disgusting Thomas McDonagh. Well Frank, the tables have now turned 360 so if your apology is sincere and you are a man of principle then perhaps YOU should refund the crowd at Newport for your sub-standard offering and give your fee back to Sky who could then re-invest it by buying some decent boxing to show to us long suffering fans.

I would like to find out just who at Sky is buying such poor fights and sanctioning so many weak supporting contests. I have read elsewhere on this forum a post by 26 who says that budgets have been cut and this is the reason for the declining quality but I can't help thinking that if his is the case then surely it is a false economy. I am sure like many of you that without boxing I probably wouldn't bother with Sky Sports and would rely on the pub or MOTD for my weekly football fix.

So let's hear from someone at Sky as to what the reason os for this. and if we get know explaantion then let's at least hope that the quality improves in 2010 and we can get back to the old days and looking forward to FFN.

We can only hope!

Merry Christmas and Adios!

whicker wrote:

MPG wrote:
Martin Power v Matthew Edmonds DULL ? What fight were you watching ?IMO it saved the show from being a complete disaster..

Some of the non-televised bouts were decent too, I hear.