BoxRec

palooka wrote:

chad wrote:I wouldn't mind the Matchroom events so much if SKY complimented their British action with 1 or 2 international events each month. Whilst allegedly have deals with Goldenboy and Sauerland I don't think they have an exclusive deal with Top Rank. If SKY picked up the likes of Brando Rios Vs. Mike Alvarado II on the 30th of March or Nonito Donaire Vs. Guillermo Rigondeux on the 13th April I'm sure boxing fans who subscribe to SKY Sports would be much happier. Even if the shows weren't live and broadcast on a tape delay at 10am on a Sunday morning I'd be fairly pleased.

Me too chad - it is irritating when very good fights don't get shown when we pay SKY subscription, it's not on really.

goldenears wrote:it's got to be said that B-N are picking up a lot more quality fights in general and for a tenner a month you can't argue with it. Sky are in a great position and they've given Smug Eddie this position that he lords over the rest of boxing with. In the US, the network has a lot more to do with the matchmaking and can approve or otherwise the fights that it helps to fund - although Showtime seem to have given Schaefer and De La Hoya far more of a free reign with some awful fights recently. HBO overall are more stringent although they've been complicit with some poor Broner matchups in order to help build him towards a PPV-worthy career.

It doesn't feel like Sky are putting any pressure on Hearn to make the sort of matches that we really want to see, the Kessler/Froch fight was clearly driven by Carl and hardly out of step with his recent career and the fact that he only has a few fights left and they all need to be big ones. In fact Hearn making the Mack fight was an interruption to Froch's legacy if anything and Froch's first bad matchup in a long time.

Hearn's overall attitude and attention seeking is enough to make anyone puke, the arrival of social media has made the egotistical side of promoters even worse than it was back in the day - De La Hoya is a constant embarrassment on twitter and Hearn follows suit and it's got 100x worse since he was given the Sky monopoly. There's no doubt boxing on our main sports cable channel has got worse as a result and Hearn has no intention of making the fights that people want to see - shoving his lesser fighters into title shots abroad as cannon fodder doesn't count.

Obviously it makes it worse that we're in the midst of our own "cold war" which has seemingly harmed FW and made some good fights in recent times unmakeable - these network/promoter issues are throttling boxing everywhere - but as has already been said, Frampton aside there's been barely a matchup worth discussing and Smith should really be brutalising Hearn for that. After this run of shite for them to make Froch/Kessler PPV is a kick in the teeth for subscribers.

Withdrawing support for Hatton when he had some decent-ish propects was brutal, especially after all he'd done for boxing in terms of the audience he brought. They could have tailored their new deals to give the smaller promoters some opportunities and supported the likes of Hatton, Dave Coldwell and Greaves, then British boxing would be in a healthier state with more competition and more choices for boxers. There comes a point where promoters are spread thin because they're just signing everything and only paying attention to their 'big ticket' fighters.

Hearn has found himself in the right place at the right time, when FW didn't have a spectacular world champion and had also taken the decision to build B-N which brought issues of it's own.

For what it's worth I'm not sure Froch v Kessler will do stellar PPV numbers. The casual fight fan was burned by the Haye disasters and we all know that Froch has never had the mainstream attention of most PPV attractions. I think the public is already out of the 'habit' of buying PPV and this is a boxing fans fight. Fast Eddie doesn't build PPV fighters he's not got a clue how to do it and no experience of it.

They've done a fantastic job with Darts no denying that, and Sky have trusted them with boxing - but he sneaked in and got a few fighters at a lucky time when they thought the grass might be greener, the Sky deal has made it easier for him to pinch some more and act like he's the new guru of boxing.

Even his twitter picture is that of a narcissistic buffoon.

Smith made his bed and got talked into letting fast eddie join him in it. Hopefully he will do something about it and put pressure on Hearn to up his game.

TheCobra wrote:For what it's worth, my interest in boxing is currently at it's lowest than at any point in the last 10 years.

The stuff that Sky is currently churning out is very poor, I used to look forward to, in particular, Friday Fight Night. That was like a religion to me, I couldn't miss it, I loved the focus on the domestic boxing scene in the UK, the small hall shows, the British wars - the likes of Jamie Moore, Ryan Rhodes, Carl Johansson, I could write a VERY long list.

Now all we have is prospect vs fading name, 70-30 fights at best. This is exactly what Eddie Hearn promised us WOULDN'T happen, and yet it is exactly what has happened.

The current monopoly situation has severely limited the fights that can be made as promoters are dealing with each other less than ever before as far as I can see. No-one seems to be budging, no-one giving any ground, fights that can be made are going by the way-side due to different promoters wanting to stay loyal to their own TV deals and milk their own fighters and their paper titles.

Do I blame Eddie Hearn? Yes a bit, I think he is a salesman, a smoothie, I like the fact that he treats his boxers well and they get paid on time, that is great, but don't try and con us, the public that we are seeing great fights when we are not.

The fights that seem to have suffered the mosts are those British barnstormers, the trade fights, they aren't getting made as much and certainly aren't getting covered as much. It's just a big shame really, as it was those type of fights that I really loved, I love a big world title fight (even those aren't getting made very much), but I am very passionate about the British boxing scene, and where Sky used to support this, now it seems to have been left to die.

earsjohn wrote:

TheCobra wrote:For what it's worth, my interest in boxing is currently at it's lowest than at any point in the last 10 years.

The stuff that Sky is currently churning out is very poor, I used to look forward to, in particular, Friday Fight Night. That was like a religion to me, I couldn't miss it, I loved the focus on the domestic boxing scene in the UK, the small hall shows, the British wars - the likes of Jamie Moore, Ryan Rhodes, Carl Johansson, I could write a VERY long list.

Now all we have is prospect vs fading name, 70-30 fights at best. This is exactly what Eddie Hearn promised us WOULDN'T happen, and yet it is exactly what has happened.

The current monopoly situation has severely limited the fights that can be made as promoters are dealing with each other less than ever before as far as I can see. No-one seems to be budging, no-one giving any ground, fights that can be made are going by the way-side due to different promoters wanting to stay loyal to their own TV deals and milk their own fighters and their paper titles.

Do I blame Eddie Hearn? Yes a bit, I think he is a salesman, a smoothie, I like the fact that he treats his boxers well and they get paid on time, that is great, but don't try and con us, the public that we are seeing great fights when we are not.

The fights that seem to have suffered the mosts are those British barnstormers, the trade fights, they aren't getting made as much and certainly aren't getting covered as much. It's just a big shame really, as it was those type of fights that I really loved, I love a big world title fight (even those aren't getting made very much), but I am very passionate about the British boxing scene, and where Sky used to support this, now it seems to have been left to die.

What great cross-promotional fights were made in the glory days of 4 promoters on sky?

TheCobra wrote:For what it's worth, my interest in boxing is currently at it's lowest than at any point in the last 10 years.

Parson Cross wrote:Rhodes v Moore wasn't a bad one.