It´s been rumored for a while now. Top Rank had a solid start on ESPN, but gradually their ratings dropped, and so did the quality of fights that were being offered. Guys like Pedraza should not have been headlining as many cards as they did. And ratings magnets like Lopez, were often in fights that fans were not interested in. This content is protected This content is protected
Bob drives his best fighters away and his best days, as the head of Top Rank, are clearly behind him. How old is Arum anyways, a hundred?
It's an end of an era but for some reason this doesn't feel even a tiny fraction as sad as the death of HBO Boxing. (nor Showtime, for that matter)
I feel nothing. Heck, I think I am actually somewhat glad and relieved. Now when they closed FNF so that PBC could buy airtime - now that hurt. I still miss FNF.
To be honest, it was tough to watch sometimes anyway. The commentary and the shilling for the home fighter made it feel like watching old wrestling squash matches - a total energy suck, when one guy is consistently being lauded and praised by Tessitore and Bradley and the other guy being ignored. It actually made it into a pretty bad advert for boxing when they rendered every fight as seeming uncompetitive like that - or even worse, when they insulted the viewers intelligence by telling them they were seeing something that clearly wasn’t playing out as they were describing. the other thing was, the US sports/ESPN utter obsession with stats and other irrelevant factoids (who really needs to hear “this guy has never been stopped, let’s see if …. Can be the first person to stop him” from like round 2 onwards?!). And also, the instant replays taking up 2/3’d of the screen whilst the live action is letterboxed somewhere. I will not miss Top Rank on ESPN, I’m sorry to say.
Is ESPN now out of the boxing biz? Seems like every major American TV network has ended their boxing programming. Netflix, Peacock and Amazon now show boxing so maybe that is just the way it goes. Does seem weird that ESPN, a major sports network may not have boxing. Personally hoping its DAZN so I don't have to add a streaming service
Yeah. Losing HBO and Showtime felt like major losses as they represented boxing as a premium product. Felt like they were the right homes for boxing. ESPN was way too focused on its brand of stats and **** and playing to casuals, so it always felt…dull? PBC started out splashy but went budget and lowbrow. DAZN is ok, but not a patch on HBO or Showtime in terms of overall production. Still feels like a more natural home than the other platforms tbh.
