Forgot about Mathysse vs Provo. Bradley vs Chavez is not a good match up. All I knew about Chavez was the foul-fest against Rios. Kovalev-Hopkins was last year, I'm talking about this year. Although that was a great match up.
Oh and I agree that HBO overall is better than PBC but you do have to take into account that it's free.
Thurman/Guerrero . To be honest, it was an okay fight, but it happened too late. Thurman already beat Soto Karass who went through Guerrero's resume in a much better fashion. Peterson/Garcia was an okay fight, but it had to be said that Garcia ducked Postol to fight Peterson. Postol would've been the tougher bout, and people don't criticize Garcia enough for giving step-aside money to someone who held a huge stylistic advantage over him. :rofl You actually wanted to see Broner/Porter? That was a mismatch, and only idiots who think Broner is legit thought he'd win. Broner had no chance, hence the catchweight and trying to drain Porter. Porter should've fought someone like Thurman. It was a waste of time that fight. These aren't "high-quality matchups." The fact that you think that shows you don't even follow this sport.
Chavez gave Thurman his toughest fight to date according to Thurman. Chavez was robbed against bradley according to many. Psst.. I thought you said HBO put on worse matchups in 2014 which is incorrect
I'm talking from the more casual view of the sport. Certainly guys who study the sport know these fights weren't extremely high quality, but in terms of name value they were good.
My point is just that in many cases there's a bit of luck involved when crating match ups which is the reason across all networks 2014 was lacking. Their were 4 high quality match ups that year Brook-Porter, Kovalev-Hopkins, Froch-Groves 2, and Pac-Bradley. that's it.