HBO 24/7 - Good Idea or Not?

Depends on the fighters. the Jones Calzaghe one sucked... as would a Floyd-Marquez or a Cotto- Pacquio would because of people styles.

 

pac vs hatton actually built more around the fight and added to it. Lets face it, if there were no 24/7 people wouldnt have been able to see floyd sr and roach chirping each other....no one who is a casual fan of boxing watches pressers/weigh ins, and 24/7 helps them get into it.

 

it helps sell the fight. It also creates a lot of guys that think they are boxing experts over night. I really don't watch them anymore. I got bored of them. it's the same narrator using cheesy metaphors and language and they just seem a bit repetitive now.

I prefer the half hour countdowns there really isn't anything about the build up to a fight that you can't fit into a half hour.

 

i love watching them but only for the lack of boxing on tv. i enjoy any program focused on boxing since there's practically none besides a fight or 2 a week if we're lucky.

 

I like the "behind the scenes" look. Boxing like no other sport is very very personal, anything you can do to connect the audience with the fighter personally helps the sport and helps sell the fight/fighter. If the audience is personally attached to a fighter they are more likely to tune in for their next battle.

 

That backfires when you get something like DLH vs Mayweather. All this build up only to end up with a **** fight.

 

I do wonder if it can be distracting to fighters. I'm sure not everyone is an attention ***** that's after that kind of exposure... but it's become part of the job for big fights. It that sense, if one fighter deals with it better, he's just a better "big-time pro boxer".

As long as the HBO crew leaves when asked (I think Roach commented that they were good for this), I don't have a problem with it.

It'll be interesting if one is done for JMM/Floyd. It may not be JMM's cup o'tea.

 

24/7 should have been employed a long, long time ago.

I'm assuming that they saw how The Contender was able to attract many people who weren't even usually interested in boxing, and then set out to emulate the series. It's about prompting emotional investment in the audience, much like a good piece of fiction. Give them 'characters' to root for and characters to hate, give them insights into the psychological realm of the fighters, and most of all give them drama. This is what sells, and DLH/Mayweather proved that, despite the anti-climax that was the actual fight.

It's a shame that 24/7 wasn't around in the time of Prince Naseem. He would have really given us some entertainment.

 

That's HBO's fault, they have some bad managing in their sports department that they need to revisit. They've gotten better with their match-making recently though and as long as they look to put on good even-matched fights with quality talent they won't disappoint.
There was an article a while back detailing the relationship between Golden Boy Productions and HBO, and shed light on the lack of brain-power going into the fight selection process at HBO. Since then, actually, I've seen HBO match-making quality drastically improve.

 

It's great.

Some sucked, like Calzaghe-Jones. Jones IMO just isn't personable at all, and Calzaghe is an ass at times.

However, Hatton and Pac are both good choices, because they have lots of charisma and their trainers are so colorful. For some reason, I find watching Freddie Roach train fighters very interesting.

 

all the 24/7's sucked that didn't have Mayweather in it ... the more you watch it, the more you want to watch the fight to see if Floyd will get knocked out.

I think its good when you have two characters ... it adds alot of drama to the fight ... there needs to be someone like Paul Williams in a 24/7 ... Edwin Valero ... Antonio Taver ... Bernard Hopkins ... Kelly Pavlik ...

Guys who are confident and somewhat cocky to sell the fight ... guys with great personalities make for good 24/7's .... not nice guys who are willing to praise their opponents.

 

The 24/7s bore me, too slow paced, I just want the fight.

 

its a great concept but there is a need for really interesting personalities and people that can make a great fight greater and contribute hugely to building up the fanbase and aura around a fight


there are serious limitations tho which can make it more worthwhile to actually not do it like the issue of people not wanting to give too much away, people being boring, or the current problem of the same fighters appearing again and again which means it gets serouisly overdone

one or 2 hr countdowns are great. with 24/7s only for super fights