A combination of the proposed Mora/Pavlik PPV fight and a thought-provoking article by Thomas Hauser on SecondsOut-dot-com has me thinking and a bit concerned. The article pretty much defends the Pavlick/Rubio and Cotto/Jennings fights as "reclamation" fights for guys that had just lost. Fair enough. It also praises Arum as forward thinking in combining the two cards to come away with 2 gates and a better (notice I did not say "good") PPV. I'm not so sure about that second one. I can see it as a step in the right direction, but mismatches are still mismatches. Anyway, the question of what to do with "no-hope" mismatches is not a new one, but if HBO makes a decision to move away from them, where should they go? - PPV: Even with lousy PPV numbers, I think the fighters/promoters make more with PPV, even when they're producing it. - ESPN? They have lots of time to fill, but likely wouldn't pay much. Should promoters take less for the better exposure? - HBO/Showtime: should they keep showing these, but just pay less for them? Or does it dilute their boxing product to show mismatches? In a perfect world, there would only be interesting fights. With this not going to happen, what's the best way to handle them?
ESPN and Versus - give Boxers that TV exposure they are looking for - but pay very little money compared to the HBO/SHO. If everyone is willing to take less money for TV Exposure - this would probably be the best road to take for these kinds of fights. Even ESPN has been stepping their game up a bit.
I agree, I just don't think it will happen. As long as they can still scrape up 150,000 buys on PPV, they will. That's my fear, anyway. ESPN running the Vitali fight is at least a positive indicator. But would they do it for anything other than a HW title fight? If only they covered things on the Froch/Pascal-type level.
If Adamek and Cunningham can fight on Verses, so can these other guys. They need to rid themselves of their myopic vision, and learn to think long term. The proposed Pavlik/Mora fight is a good example. As it stands I'm the one who started the boycott this fight thread. I will NOT by that ****. Put that same fight on Verses and I would not complain at all. That would be a good way to get KP some more of the kind of exposure he needs.
Versus IIRC has something similar to a exclusivity contract with Dan Goosen...so it's possible that they might not be able to showcase Arum and Gary Shaw based fighters.
