BoxRec

One of the things I've been hearing with PBC (Premier Boxing Champions) with the NBC & Spike deals that I'm curious about is the updating & improvements on the production & presentation of the visuals involved with the shows that keep getting brought up.

Anyone got an ideas how this will be done? What will be enhanced/improved upon? What you'd like to see done better?

work better with coulors maybe. better lights. better screens. to be honest i like it how it is.

For starter it would be nice if all the media people involved with boxing stopped talking about how much boxing sucks...

They need to start actually hyping people again, and not just on random boxing forms. An organization like the UFC gets it's fans (and casual followers, who are sometimes the most important) to believe anything they say. They can feed a chump to an up and comer and have you truly believe it's gonna be a good fight. Then after the inevitable destruction, every body is on the bandwagon.

Presentation basically comes down to the theatrics of the events. I always like the dancers they have at the Belle Center in Quebec. Make it a production again, rather than just going through the motions.

punchoutsb wrote:For starter it would be nice if all the media people involved with boxing stopped talking about how much boxing sucks...

They need to start actually hyping people again, and not just on random boxing forms. An organization like the UFC gets it's fans (and casual followers, who are sometimes the most important) to believe anything they say. They can feed a chump to an up and comer and have you truly believe it's gonna be a good fight. Then after the inevitable destruction, every body is on the bandwagon.

Presentation basically comes down to the theatrics of the events. I always like the dancers they have at the Belle Center in Quebec. Make it a production again, rather than just going through the motions.

Sh!t I agree with all of this. You better build up the f#ck outta these PBC fights or get to the unemployment line would be my line to the announcing team if I was running things.

Fat Dan was saying Brian Kenny's Showtime contract has expired & he's weighing options. I suspect he'll be one of the people on this Spike show. I'm hoping Sean O'Grady gets in there too. That guy is nothing if not a hyper of all things boxing.

And to steal a move from the UFC I think you wanna make the ring card girls famous if you can. Hardly anyone with a vagina is watching boxing & the few that do are likely to have a healthy appreciation for the female form like a good percentage of hetero or non-hetero women & obviously the guys would be on board with it. Something mad simple, but overlooked in boxing for some reason.

Production values? In boxing? What're you going to do hire Mr. Norman of Hollywood to come in and do a Liberace? Glitter and silks and dancing boys? Sheesh! How about you go back to putting on good fights and forget about all the horse-manure leading up to ring introductions? It's boxing not some poncey vegas show or rock concert!

Cap wrote:Production values? In boxing? What're you going to do hire Mr. Norman of Hollywood to come in and do a Liberace? Glitter and silks and dancing boys? Sheesh! How about you go back to putting on good fights and forget about all the horse-manure leading up to ring introductions? It's boxing not some poncey vegas show or rock concert!

I think there's some of that, but its about the fight itself to from what I can gauge. I think maybe there gonna be doing some new camera angles maybe or something idk tbh, I just know its been mentioned with both of these Al TV shows so I'm thinking these shows might look a lil different than previous shows. Maybe I'm off idk, but both pressers mentioned that specifically. Lets not forgot Al comes from the concert industry & he revolutionized that marketplace & created industries within an industry there.

Cap wrote:Production values? In boxing? What're you going to do hire Mr. Norman of Hollywood to come in and do a Liberace? Glitter and silks and dancing boys? Sheesh! How about you go back to putting on good fights and forget about all the horse-manure leading up to ring introductions? It's boxing not some poncey vegas show or rock concert!

Wladimir Klitschko's entrance would win him far more praise among casual fans than his fight would.

Of course the fights should be good quality matchups, but just because your production would be horse manure doesn't mean there aren't people out there who would do a much better job.

Boxing certainly needs commentators that stay positive about all things boxing while they are in front of the camera.
If they don't have anything positive to say then either say nothing at all or use sarcasm to make it clear what you think of the situation while staying positive.
Atlas-like rants should result in being fired the next day or even during the live broadcast.

Join the modern world and get some female commentators too.

Good sound. It may seem trivial but I think clearly hearing the impact of punches makes viewers perceive them as harder and more damaging, which in turn makes fights seem more entertaining. I generally like watching fights better on TV than in person due to the closer and more varied perspective offered by TV cameras, but that comes at the expense of hearing just how hard the fighters are hitting each other.

ReggieDiggs wrote:

punchoutsb wrote:For starter it would be nice if all the media people involved with boxing stopped talking about how much boxing sucks...

They need to start actually hyping people again, and not just on random boxing forms. An organization like the UFC gets it's fans (and casual followers, who are sometimes the most important) to believe anything they say. They can feed a chump to an up and comer and have you truly believe it's gonna be a good fight. Then after the inevitable destruction, every body is on the bandwagon.

Presentation basically comes down to the theatrics of the events. I always like the dancers they have at the Belle Center in Quebec. Make it a production again, rather than just going through the motions.

Sh!t I agree with all of this. You better build up the f#ck outta these PBC fights or get to the unemployment line would be my line to the announcing team if I was running things.

Fat Dan was saying Brian Kenny's Showtime contract has expired & he's weighing options. I suspect he'll be one of the people on this Spike show. I'm hoping Sean O'Grady gets in there too. That guy is nothing if not a hyper of all things boxing.

And to steal a move from the UFC I think you wanna make the ring card girls famous if you can. Hardly anyone with a vagina is watching boxing & the few that do are likely to have a healthy appreciation for the female form like a good percentage of hetero or non-hetero women & obviously the guys would be on board with it. Something mad simple, but overlooked in boxing for some reason.

That can back fire just as easily as it can work...if you hype up a total dud then the casuals are going to go "well...that was a bit shit...and they said it was great so maybe this aint for me..." Imagine trying to hype the final 6 rounds of the Ibragimov Vs Klitschko bout...and then imagine actually convincing someone that it was good.

You need good action fights with good commentary who can boost a fight that extra 10%. I was recently rewatching the Taek Min Kim Vs Sonny Manakane fight and...well...if you had 1 of those type of fights on every US televised show the TV audiences would be insane as fans would know they were on the verge of something special

Boxing Prospect wrote:That can back fire just as easily as it can work...if you hype up a total dud then the casuals are going to go "well...that was a bit poo...and they said it was great so maybe this aint for me..." Imagine trying to hype the final 6 rounds of the Ibragimov Vs Klitschko bout...and then imagine actually convincing someone that it was good.

You need good action fights with good commentary who can boost a fight that extra 10%. I was recently rewatching the Taek Min Kim Vs Sonny Manakane fight and...well...if you had 1 of those type of fights on every US televised show the TV audiences would be insane as fans would know they were on the verge of something special

Well yea you can only polish a turd so much. What I'm saying is more along the Al Bernstein & Sean O'Grady line of boxing commentary. Or go watch Joe Rogan talk about MMA. I don't watch other sports outside of the combat sports realm, but I can't imagine there are NBA or NFL commentators that sh!t on their respective sport quite like boxing commentators do & I can't believe every NBA & NFL game is exciting that they couldn't sh!t on their sport if they wanted to. People always talk about boxers retiring. Some of these boxing commentators need to be retired.

I just want guys who love boxing, love the fighters & love talking about boxing. I think Al, Sean & Joe are all examples of guys who love their chosen sport & the glass is always half full for them. I'm exhausted with these Larry Merchant, Jim Grey & Jim Lampley type guys who will find the negative in any positive. I don't want a guy trying to make the Tyson ear biting episode out to be the most positive incident in boxing history, but there is a huge difference in my eyes to what Al is doing & what a guy like Larry used to do.

The more boring a fight is expected to be the larger the broadcast team seems to be. In the good old days of the Gillette Friday Night Fights you had one solitary guy doing all the commentary, and most of the time he could let the action speak for itself.

Cap wrote:The more boring a fight is expected to be the larger the broadcast team seems to be. In the good old days of the Gillette Friday Night Fights you had one solitary guy doing all the commentary, and most of the time he could let the action speak for itself.

Man, I've been saying FOREVER I'd love the ability to turn off the commentators & just get all the in the ring sounds. I think that will be "a thing" at some point, but not soon enough for me. Probably will even be able to pick your commentator team too at some point. I mean you go to the store & there are 500 types of toothpaste, but I gotta listen to these same 3 knuckleheads on a boxing telecast.

I mean I can understand the channels wanting a team to talk about a fight to dramatize what they wanna dramatize or even just to hype their own product, but it'd be beautiful to be able to turn it off completely or to be able to limit it at certain times & still hear whats going on.

Boxing Prospect wrote: That can back fire just as easily as it can work...if you hype up a total dud then the casuals are going to go "well...that was a bit poo...and they said it was great so maybe this aint for me..." Imagine trying to hype the final 6 rounds of the Ibragimov Vs Klitschko bout...and then imagine actually convincing someone that it was good.

You need good action fights with good commentary who can boost a fight that extra 10%. I was recently rewatching the Taek Min Kim Vs Sonny Manakane fight and...well...if you had 1 of those type of fights on every US televised show the TV audiences would be insane as fans would know they were on the verge of something special

Good action is obviously necessary...but boxing commentators are literally the worst at turning people off.

Again, look at the UFC; Joe and Goldie just about have aneurysms hyping up guys. I can't tell you the last time I saw a Wlad fight that DIDN'T start with "Now let's be honest, he's no Joe Louis." Come on man. Is there any other sport where the announcers say "This guy sucks compared to a guy 80 years ago that non of you young kids have heard of". At least try.

These commentators are making a living from the sport so they should be talking the sport up not down. If employees at a restaurant say "don't eat here, the kitchen is dirty, the food spoiled and you are likely to feel sick afterwards", they would be out of a job instantly. When Howard Cosell got to the point where he couldn't deal with boxing, he quit. That is what some of the current crop of guys need to do. QUIT. If they won't do it voluntarily, then they need to be FIRED.

They say you can't polish a turd - but you can roll it in glitter.

Sure, production values can always be enhanced, but ultimately, the real production value is the action in the ring. Good examples of turds rolled in glitter would be for instance, Haye versus Klitchko. Boxing is after all the entertainment/events businesses and they did a real great job of the build-up and the pre-bout show. The entrance of each fighter was a production in itself. If i remember correctly it heavily featured Lewis & foreman too. But in the end up, the fight stank. Pretty much every Floyd fight has been like that since Hatton. Very good production value in the 24.7 documentaries (although i feel that's tiring). Floyd has followed a formula that works for him in the promotion of fights. Schaeffer and Goldenboy did a great job on the promotion of the Canelo fight with the tours, etc. But again, much like Klitchko, the actual fights stunk the joint out which has long term repurcussions with casual fans being let down on expensive PPV's.


There's alot of things that can be done to improve boxing as a sport, having 1 champion for a start, but ultimately, action in the ring is king.

Dennis wrote:These commentators are making a living from the sport so they should be talking the sport up not down. If employees at a restaurant say "don't eat here, the kitchen is dirty, the food spoiled and you are likely to feel sick afterwards", they would be out of a job instantly. When Howard Cosell got to the point where he couldn't deal with boxing, he quit. That is what some of the current crop of guys need to do. QUIT. If they won't do it voluntarily, then they need to be FIRED.

This may sound really out there, but when Floyd, Manny, Cotto to mention a few retire (especially Floyd) boxing will open back up and be better over-all. I would say the biggest single factor right now that has soured people from the sport is not being able to make the biggest fights. (Floyd vs Manny). When that nonsense is done, it will open up.

'In my days of boxing" , (1960 - 1974) Boxing was produced regularly on TV.....I think the overseas boxing scene with Mahommad Ali continually providing his incredible talent, credible title wins and hilarious comedic wisdom, definitely provided great interest and a surge in our sport.
In Auz, TV programs kicked in, GTV Channel 9 began an amateur program called Golden Gloves. Local kids got a smell of some boxing fame. TVRingside produced by Channel 7, then began to provide a huge advance to professional boxing participation within Australia. Talented Auz Boxers and credible imports from all corners of the world were competing each week. Pro Boxing on TV was also being provided by Channel 10.

So what went wrong ? Well I could diagnose, and write and write .....but to get down to the bones, or straw that broke our camels back....in my opinion, it is that boxing often fails to provide a wise, great, hero character like Ali...... think about this...... The percentage of our public, that don't like, or detest boxing, will shift and demand our sport to be televised, IF - a boxing character exists, who is credible in the opponents he fights, who is a real champion, and intelligent, wise and regularly comical.

I'm sure it'll be the hyped up drama presentation with a personal story attached to every event to try and lure in every female fan possible. Then add in some edgy, high contrasting visuals, and some modern music that hits teens in the core. Cos you know, you can't have combat sports without that 10000000:1 contrast ratio or some phat beats and downtuned guitars.

People are overthinking this popularity thing, and personality switch boxing needs to go through. Who wants to sit through 30 mins of crap just to get to one fight? All boxing needs is good fights in a good venue with loud fans. With the way the sport is going now, that formula can't be followed. Mismatches, cherry picks, low risk/high reward is what boxing is about now. Thank you, Al.

I don't think HBO or Sky do a bad job. Showtime isn't great though IMO. Froch Groves 2 at Wembley was a world class production to be fair to Hearn.

I've heard some people rave about the production in Germany but it's a bit too much for me. Seems a bit tacky!

As long as the fights are good and there's no mess ups with the live feed/cameras/replays etc then I'm happy.