6 months into the exclusive sky deal

They announced an undercard with Macklin in a world title eliminator and he never signed a contract, and had Rhodes, Murray & Munroe vs TBA until 10 days before the fight. The card got pulled from PPV because the lack of an undercard. If Hattons did not have enough money to provide a good undercard thu shouldnt have agreed to do one in the first place.

 

Thought last nights card was great on paper which is really all a promoter can do, he can't get in there and fight for them.

An evenly matched main event and an evenly matched chief support, I'm not sure what more can be asked.

People have very short memories, this was head and shoulders above most of the bills put on sky sports over the last five years, have people honestly forgotten the **** that was churned out previously?

 

And fairplay the atmosphere and spectacle came across great until Bellew sucked the life out of the place

 

You could record it yes- if you knew to select the Spanish football on the planner and then select the boxing to record.

 

For a deal that states 20 shows in 12 months, it doesn't feel that way. No card that I can remember has blown me away but they are of a decent standard, with decent hype and good production. You've got to give it longer than 6 months to judge but so far its so so.

 

It was good

 

Macklin fight fell through, not Hatton's fault. Why did Munroe and others not have good opponents ? I would suggest it has more to do with the budget for the under card. Hatton started off well, he had some good entertaining shows and then a so-so patch.

But, I think it would be good for the sport to have Hatton in the Sky fold, he has the name, he is growing more into the promotional game and has good structure to his promotional team, resources and decent stable in place.

 

Yeah cant blame hearn for bellew underperforming and 2 draws in the big fights.So about as competitive as you can get which chucked in with a big noisy crowd equals good nights boxing
Just do away with prizefighter to free up more dates
And hearn-hatton-colwell vs ******-maloney-hennessey would be fun as well

 

The real litmus test for Matchroom is if they can deliver the big domestic fights that we all want to see, starting with Frampton-Quigg. No excuses. Plus, make Barker with either Lee, Murray or Macklin - one of those fights can be made this year.

 

Not sure if this have been covered but main event was way to late, should be starting 11pm at the latest when on normal sky imo

 

I really don't understand the issue with last night. Nobody had guns to peoples head as far as pressing the red button and watching the early undercard, which has always been and always will be of variable quality. In itself it can only be seen as a positive innovation, you're gaining something and losing nothing as a TV viewer. The same argument goes for the fans in the arena, who largely pay their money for a main event and in part the chief supporting act. That is to do with the culture of modern boxing rather than a strictly Matchroom crticism. We may ask Matchroom to change that type of thing for the better, but ultimately you're demanding standards far in excess of anything we see in boxing today. I do think that at some point, somebody is going to have to come forward, show some real balls and take risks as far as providing deep undercards. All around the world. It's going to be important to boxing, but its going to take time to expect Matchroom to be the ones to do that, you have to build a foundation first.

As for the 2 main fights, I don't see what the problem was. Derry/Crolla had its moments. It was more to do with the fact you saw a guy that got bashed up in the first fight, hurt multiple times. Is he really going to come out and do the exact same thing he did in the first one? Not if he's got a brain. And ultimately it was still an above average affair.

Bellew/Chilemba wasn't great, but that's something you would anticipate knowing how Bellew/Ajisafe went and it wasn't too dissimilar as a matchup. You're not going to get balls to the wall stuff from a Chilemba fight. I still don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people are making out either, found it perfectly watchable and only if you were expecting something it was never going to be was it particularly disapointing. This was a final eliminator so Matchroom really had no jurisdiction to try and manipulate an "entertaining on paper" matchup.

You've also got to remember Matchroom don't have a magic ball that accurately describes the entertainment value of a fight. The best evidence we had for Crolla/Derry says it would be an outstanding fight. Maybe it fell slightly short of that, but that is the nature of the sport. You can only stack the odds in your favour as a promoter for providing an entertaining fight.

To come on in hindsight and criticise the entertainment value of matches strikes me as slightly questionable logic. At least complain beforehand.

 

Hearn should be following the way Saulerland set up their fight nights. World title fight main event - if possible with double British interest unless it's vs champion or major contender. Undercard featuring 2 other title fights (European British or Commonwealth ) but focusing on all British match ups unless it's vs a champion. All these ' World Title Eliminators ' remind me of a time when Sky boxing was dominated by the WBU WBF and IBO which coincidentally was around the time Hearn Snr had a lot of shows on Sky ( Steve Roberts, the Booth Brothers, Richard Williams, the Asian taxi driver from Nottingham who's name I can't remember. This is not a ****** vs Hearn post, it's just Fast Eddie has a privileged opportunity , like Saulerland in Germany, and at the moment he's cocking it up. Next up Brian Rose as a main event in 3 weeks time and then Prizefighter again. It's not great is it ?

 

Nothing wrong with Brian Rose headlining a show! Prizefighter has to go though.

 

Reason people have a problem with Hean shows is there is not enough of them, so people have to wait 2/3 weeks per show sometimes, so the expectation is higher than if he had a show a week, nothing Hearn can do about that yet.

 

Was the card on later because of the Spanish football? Or was it Hearns decision?