Probably some truth in there. I wonder if ESPN is cool with their boxing guy working for another station?! Anyway, Dan knows what the fans want so hopefully that translates in the matchups if/when he starts working for them.
He can't do any worse than whoever does it now. rejecting Martinez vs Zbik or Lee but showing Lee vs McEwan, and Martinez vs Manfredo or Ishida. And Julio "biggest ****ing hype job ever" Chavez Jnr gets to fight Zbik even though HBO have said that neither of them are very good? It's crazy Not to mention the awful matchups HBO have shown involving Berto. Judging by the size of Dan I'd say yes.
I think it's legit. Fans were asking Zab over twitter what they could do to see the Marquez-Zab fight happen and Zab responded that they should talk to HBO and Dan Rafael. I was wondering why he included Dan but now it makes sense.
This is why Showtime is taking over as the better boxing network. Showtime is bringing the best matchups. HBO spends too much time trying to create these f'n hype jobs and not enough on putting together the quality meaningful fights. I personally don't care for Rafael. Sometimes he says things that make sense but some of his divisional ratings are laughable... especially when he ranked Alfonso Gomez as a top 10 welterweight prior to fighting Cotto. He'll fit right in at HBO.
If this were to happened I think it could be a good thing. Rafael does have some biasedness and can be uneccesarily rude at times but he knows whcih fights fans want to see. He probably interacts with fans more than any other boxing insider so he understands that fans want to see the best matches and not just HBO fighters getting easy fights. I don't know if this plays out, especially with Rafael already employed by ESPN, but I think it has some potential to improve the quality of HBO matches.
We're not talking about commentating here broseph, we're talking about making fights behind the scenes. Something I think Rafael would excel at.
Dan Rafael does ***** on David Haye too much for someone in his position. Fair enough calling him out if he feels he's made a bad decision but he badmouths alot and then as stated before when he came within touching distance of the man he shut right up. How you gonna call Haye cowardly when you can't even ask questions of him man to man, it's really not like he's the type of guy to spark out a journo, he knows he could lay fat dan out and has nothing to prove to him.
Dan can be biased, but he's a boxing fan too, I don't have a problem with him calling David Haye a ducker. He did in fact, not fiction, back out of two fights with the K bros. He called it right, now the fight is going to happen finally, or at least it seems that way. His job gives him more access to the business of boxing and regardless of what we think he knows way more about it than any of us. He's not my favorite writer, but he could do good with this I believe, he does interact a lot with the fans and knows what fights should be made.
People that dont like Rafael often do so because he wont suck off their favorite fighter. He calls it like he sees it, thats what a writer should do.
WTF? Terrible, terrible idea. Seriously, have they gone completely mad? First HBO needs no freaking match-maker, boxing and it's promotions have enough, let them do their job and HBO should stick to network business. Also, Dan is a serious fanboy who loves or hates a fighter or simply don't care, completely biased with national preference for US, Mexicans, PR fighters over Europans or technical fighters for that matter, plus he doesn't really give a crap about anything below the Mexican border or Asia, two regions with a lot of excitements and the P4P#1 and #2. And you want THIS GUY coming up with fights for the network with the largest budget in the boxing world? This content is protected Lunacy!
Good Lord... If Dan was the judge Berto would've won. He should stick to being a writer. If he suck at judging fights he'll do worst as a matchmaker atschatschatsch
probably won't make much of a difference... like the articles writer said, Greenburg gets the final say as always, and Rafael really isn't qualified, he's just a writer. very weird.