Larry Merchant "fell asleep" during Rigondeaux fight

Rigo is boring, but he does win and that is the aim of the game.

He'll never be a PPV attraction, but he might go down as an ATG.
Legacy over money any day of the week.

But from an entertainment perspective, Larry was spot on.

 

Rigo stood in front of Agbeko pretty much the entire time, and fired off hard, meaningful punches in every round. If King Kong wasn't able to find a way to avoid being picked off, or to mount a meaningful offense, that's on him...not on Rigo.

 

:thumbsup

Agbeko once brought the pressure like few others at bantam.

The effort he mounted last Saturday night did not live up to his near-prime reputation from when he left off.

 

i think the actual term for what merchant did is "passed out"

 

rigo is boring

 

Thankfully, HBO no longer employs Merchant. Too bad Top Rank does, however.

 

goodhappy

 

They were there for tapia, all of them and after he got routed they left crying...

 

If you think HBO and Showtime are giving us televised boxing cards from the goodness of their hearts, you better cancel your plans to sit on Santa's lap, and send that list to HBO instead.

HBO and Showtime want to get the best viewership they can, they don't want stinker fights, and you can take that to the bank.

Rigo is great, but he isn't the only great fighter out there, and since we don't get to see every fight on T.V. viewers get choosy. Saying that a person is just a casual fan because they would rather watch to people put on a good fight, rather than watch someone run and avoid a fight is understandable.

I don't mind watching Rigo Fight, but I'm not the one in charge of getting viewership and paying to hype and advertise fights. Not that you could entertain another persons perspective...

 

If you believe that by and large the viewership for HBO or Showtime (or ESPN2, or NBC Sports, or any other network carrying boxing) is contingent on their boxing programming or that any top executives for any of those networks believes it to be, then you are the one who is sorely deluded.

I love boxing. Most people don't. It's a tiny irrelevant niche. None of the people in the boardrooms of the corporations that own the channels that show us prizefights are sweating bullets over whether or not people find this or that boxer entertaining. Many of them probably aren't even aware they do have boxing on those channels as part of their net product, and if they do it's only an infinitesimal blip on their radar.

You just don't get it.

 

RUN they are fighting in the ring not on football field, if he can "run" thats on his opponents inability to cut the ring of which often means worse footwork which is big part of boxing skills, learn boxing!

 

Mike Tyson made the same point the other day in an interview with Max Kellerman. He said the best pros are exciting fighters. They may not be the most skilled fighters. But in the pros, you've got to exciting, you've got to be crowd pleaser to put the asses in the seats. And those are the guys that most people will remember. That is right out of the Cus D'Amato handbook.

Someone here said a few days ago, and I think it's true, that this is why when Floyd hypes his fights, he plays up the nationalistic/race angle (fighting Mexicans, white hype jobs, etc.) and he acts obnoxious and arrogant so people will tune in hoping to see him lose (a la Muhammed Ali) and is always talking about his 0, because he does not have a fan-friendly style. He knows that he does not have an exciting style that most people will want to watch, so he has to create interest in his fights some other way. And that's really just affirming what Merchant and Tyson are saying. To really succeed in pro boxing, one way or another, you've got to be exciting.

 

larry should just admit it... he doesn't like black ppl.

 

The best is the guy who wins, Donaire is more exciting to casual, lets even say in general but Rigo schooled him easy, so Rigo is the better fighter without a shadow of a doubt, and I'm glad that highest earner in the business is pure boxer.