A bit more information from Kalle via Seconds Out- the first card of the new deal will be in London in May and will be headlined by a British fighter, “five or six” promoters were in the running for the Channel 5 deal, the undercards will not be on Channel 5 and Eubank Jr’s next fight in the Summer will be a PPV on Sky Sports Box Office (didn’t rule out Jr appearing on Channel 5 in the future). I can see Mick working with Sky/Boxxer moving forward given Hughie Fury is already on the network and they’d likely be interested in showcasing the McKenna brothers.
The no undercards is always a bit disappointing. The first fight will be Linus Udofia vs Denzel Bentley for the British belt
Agreed. Apparently they have spoken about putting them on one of Viacoms other channels. But its hard to get traction if you can only show one or two fights.
Mick has had the worst luck of any boxing promoter of the last 15-20 years. If you think of boxers who have had careers in that time, he has brought through a few of the best talents we’ve had (Fury & Froch stand out) but yet has not benefited from having them on the biggest stage once they’ve got there.
A bit like Channel 5 I have also returned to boxing recently. No more nonsense from me on here about discussions in boozers etc. I'm all about the boxing again. Good luck to all involved in the new broadcast venture - hope Mick lands on his feet too. All the best and thanks for the warm welcome back.
I actually like it. When you see the state of nearly every undercard in the country now due to so many cards I can't say I am particularly bothered
Channel 5 are never going to put four hours of boxing on the main channel on a Saturday night. Pluto TV may be where the undercards end up- at least they’d be in HD on there.
Wasserman's boxers are guaranteed good exposure on Channel 5 but I think the quality will be very similar to the UK show Wasserman had live on Secondsout.com. A good main event and very poor undercard.
Udofia-Bentley and Williamson-Kelly for British titles were good quality. Unfortunately aside from that these 7 cards last year were the definition of showcase and utterly predictable fare. Is the Wasserman channel 5 deal now done? I’ve always defended Channel 5 boxing because they put Fury-Chisora 1 and Eubank-Blackwell on live terrestrial but they’ve also put on a lot of low quality stuff featuring a “name” over the years. Would love to see them have a proper go again but unlikely.
