HBO Hires Thomas Hauser as a Consultant.

Hauser is a great writer, the life and times book on Ali is very good.

peace.

 

wasnt this the guy who said oscar was 'roiding?

 

Wow.. if true, and they listen to him, it's a great move.

 

Some of his endlessly repeated criticisms of HBO over the years are on-point, others are incredibly dumb. As far as actual positive ideas however, most of his suggestions come off as extremely naive and unlikely to make the slightest bit of difference.

 

Good move

 

His main criticism with HBO surrounds how they are trying to manufacture stars, instead of allowing them to develop naturally via exciting fights. And that is ABSOLUTELY a problem right now. HBO spends boatloads of cash on Andre Bertos and Devon Alexanders in the hopes they end up becoming fan favourites, and it falls flat on its face.

 

Excellent news. Hauser has his head screwed on.

 

IMO, I think hiring Hauser was a good move...He usually doesnt show any bias IMO and will be a great addition to HBO.

 

Thing is, they threw a big multi-fight contract at Alexander BEFORE he fought Bradley, or anyone of note other than Urango. Now they have to keep buffing him up to make people believe he's still the real deal.

 

I like Hauser.

 

Which is fine, but I believe that most of the sources Hauser cites authoritatively aren't mad about HBO building up fighters in general but mad about HBO not building up their fighters.

Thus he complains that HBO should only be concerned with making good fights, not good fighters, then acts like the network got their just desserts for losing Pacquiao-Mosley when they would not accept a Cotto mismatch.

He also contradicts himself when he suggests the network should do their best to make sure the best fight the best and then turns around and acts like Bradley-Alexander was the worst thing to happen to boxing in 2011. In his article on "What HBO Should Do Now" he managed to approvingly cite DiBella stating the network should only make entertaining fights and Shaw saying matchmaking should be meritocratic. These positions are clearly not consistent with one another. Presumably Hauser was sympathetic with whichever line of thought was more useful for criticizing Davis and Greenburg at a given point in time.

Finally, I'll just repeat my complaints about his weak constructive ideas in "What HBO Should Do Now":

 

ken hershman is the man i'm glad they hired him, he did great things at showtime.

 

He's a tremendous writer and some of his criticisms of HBO have been very valid. I'm not sure what difference this will make, if any, but I like it. It can't be a bad idea to get input from a guy as knowledgeable as him.

 

yes...he has an open contract for oscar to release his drug test records.