BoxRec

The fight is in less than 4 weeks and they still haven't determined whether they will show it on Showtime and HBO. What's the deal here? Both networks are losing advertising opportunity here, since this fight should have been on the calendar probably since January.
This is probably one of the biggest Heavyweight fights in recent history and ZERO PROMO. And then people ask why boxing is dying in the US.

klitoris wrote:This is probably one of the biggest Heavyweight fights in recent history and ZERO PROMO. And then people ask why boxing is dying in the US.

It will be held outside US ("wrong" time zone), none of the boxers is American, and Wlad is known to have extremely boring style. And I am not American, just listing the logic behind it.

And another issue is that while I agree this will be probably the biggest HW fight this year, it still does not mean it will be a good one...

I thought AJ had a deal with showtime

I did too. I thought they had the rights to all of his fights.

Ossyrules wrote:I thought AJ had a deal with showtime

He does, wlad has a deal with HBO and the network's are bickering. They both want it,

Joshua (Showtime) vs. Klitschko (HBO) and even Stephen Espinoza doesn't know what's going to happen.

The real issue here is that there isn't strong demand for this fight in the US so networks are balking at overpaying for it. Two of joshua's fights were the lowest rated boxing events on showtime. Google the numbers.

marvelous marv wrote:The real issue here is that there isn't strong demand for this fight in the US so networks are balking at overpaying for it. Two of joshua's fights were the lowest rated boxing events on showtime. Google the numbers.

I don't understand what you mean by overpaying. Even if both networks don't pay some number that both K2 and Hearn were hoping for, isn't it still in their interest to offer the fight to both (as well as any other network that might be interested) and then award it to whoever pays most for it? I don't get how "no money and no exposure" is better than "some money and exposure". Are they worried people in the UK will stream showtime and hbo?

For Klitschko exposure in the US is probably not that big of a deal considering hes probably got like one more fight in him after this, but if I'm Hearn, why in the hell would you not have a US network airing the fight by now. Does he want to keep Joshua away from the US and Haymon? Lol

marvelous marv wrote:The real issue here is that there isn't strong demand for this fight in the US so networks are balking at overpaying for it. Two of joshua's fights were the lowest rated boxing events on showtime. Google the numbers.

that's not it at all.