Adam Smith's Reign at Sky: Progress Report

Not giving us Haye v Klit because of Khan/royal wedding is a pretty big gaff

 

As I stated on an earlier thread Mee is wasted on Sky, they should have him doing a bit on Ringisde like "On this day" or "This week" in boxing years gone past, for instance the 60th anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day massacre is next Monday and I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere.

 

Haye would have just found another excuse not to fight Wladimir.

As for the progress report, I've been pleasantly surprised with some of the tweaks they've made - Ringside seems to be getting better each week and we've seen some fresh faces both in the studio and at ringside.

There's still more work to be done, providing more information about fights going on across the world, and also playing hardball with these promoters that are determined to take their money and offer very little in return.

They need to basically tell them the fights that they want and to get them made, otherwise no TV money. HBO forced Khan to fight Maidana by doing much the same thing.

The ''I won't make it until it's massive'' shouldn't be stood for under any circumstances. Not every fight has the potential to be Leonard/Hearns I, and not every fighter is capable of reaching world level.... it will help restore some credibility to the domestic titles too.

Basically boot out Maloney and a lot of problems will be solved at a stroke!

 

Agreed with Beeston, after watching all the crap on the under card Saturday I thought to myself that there needs to be some independent body that says get these fights made next or don't fight. I just realised there's about a 100 different boxing bodies that do that very badly, maybe Sky is the answer, they'd do it right away if it was there only option of getting paid.

However Sky wouldn't be able to put on as many shows and a more competitive domestic scene would probably not bring as many new fans as the lesser amount of shows would take away.

 

Although I agree Bob Mee and Richie Woodhall are great additions, as i questioned on Satruday night...do they really need to be there?? To many cooks for me. They has a 9 man analysis team on saturday. Could the budget not be spent more wisley. I am pretty sure Woodhall or Watt would have been able to spot a cut and explain some rules.

I would like to see Woodhall in the co commentary role where is the no.1 in the world. Have him rotate with Watt who they should begin to faze out, and have Smith & Rawling on commentary.

One thing that deffinatley needs a revamp is the sky website. all in all its a bit of a mess. there could be allot more in terms of pre fight analysis. Also the Rankings that sky sometimes post up should be on the website and they should tie them in with the BBBofC for the domestic titles.

In terms of PPV the acid test will be the undercard. Haye vs Harrison fair enough it sold a **** load and whatever we thought of it it was a big fight. But why was there only 1 undercard live fight? why did we only see 4 rounds of the British title fight? We shall see what gets put together for Khan vs McCloskey. I think if your putting on a PPV there should be a minimum of 3 undercard title fights and if the promoter (Hayemaker/Khan Promotions) are not capable of putting that together they should be forced to make a deal with the Hattons, Maloney etc to put it together.

I personally do not like the idea of Prizefighter the Journeyman. Think that needs a seperate thread but I think most agree the Light Heavys was one of the worst and its because there were severall journeyman taking part.

 

I agree Rob, but the problem is that a lot of people don't buy a PPV for an undercard.

An alternative is to demand a co-feature, and don't automatically promise people that their fights will be on PPV.

Force promoters to work together, if they and the fighters want to get paid they'll have to fight, simple as that. They can't milk anything because there'll be nothing to milk!

Jeff did a really good thread a few months ago asking who people want to see and possible improvements that could be made by both Sky and promoters.

Frank Maloney often posts on Boxrec and is pretty hostile towards people that criticise, saying that they dont really understand boxing and that it's managers refusing to put their men in there that is the problem.

Would be good if a promoter invited a fan to spend a week or weekend on work experience and report their findings to the guys on here.

 

picking khan-mccloskey over haye-klit is disgraceful, if he announces that froch is going to be on sky then that's all good, still don't like smith 1 bit

 

I seem to remember Frank Maloney inviting people on here to a face to face meeting a few months ago. Did anyone take him up on it?

 

I get that people don't buy PPV's for the undercard (except for the recent Warren shows) but surley the realise the benefit of the exposure gained.

700,000 PPV's were sold for Haye vs Harrison. Lets say theres an average of 4 people in each home watching. That means over 2.5million will have watched Groves vs Anderson, and they all will have enjoyed the fight. Also boxing infront of 20,000 at the MEN. When its annouced this week that DeGale is fighting Groves allot of the public will know about both fighters not just DeGale becuase of the exposure he recieve.

Surley that same level of exposure could have been granted to other fighters?

 

I asked a few people who bought it if they watched the Groves fight and I don't think any of them had.

 

Yeah that was pathetic.

At least he has left the commentating though. Don't get me wrong, Rawlings is dreadful but Smith is god awful and I'd rather Rawlings anyday.

 

Obviously he has been proactive in the implementation of changes and tweaks to the coverage but there are a few things i would like to see

I think Sky basically having a monopoly in boxing on television in the UK need to push more for certain fights/opponents rather than leaving promoters to their own devices. Burns Laryea isn't good enough for a world title fight end of.

It hard for me to speculate to what level they do insist on certain matchups but from the evidence i have it sems minimal. they need to say to Warren Maloney Hatton . We want to see Price fight a top 10 level domestic opponent in his next fight etc etc we want more of this less of this.

Get behind a small number of top prospects and push them hard

 

I'd like to see Sky get more fights or see a legit contender come and take over. Setanta was a legit contender for a long time and was covering the top fights that Sky don't cover.

The likes of
Cotto vs Mayorga,
Donaire vs Montiel,
Alvarez vs Hatton,
Rigondeaux vs Casey,
Martinez vs Dzindziruk,
Vitali vs Solis
Marquez vs Morales
McBride vs Adamek

All of these fights are at risk of not being shown by Sky. I would say that at least half won't be shown.