The Pay-Per-View Era In Boxing: Origins, Current Standing, Outlook

Home pay for view boxing began aound 1987. Cooney/Michael Spinks was the first one I ever ordered. Before that, it was closed circuit. Closed circuit is considered a form of pay per view. Not aure when it started. The effect of home pay per view was that network free boxing went the way of the do do bird.

 

PPV is, in my view, a logical extension of Closed Circuit. Of course, closed-circuit theater shows for major bouts went on for decades. I seem to remember one of the closed-circuit big fights being the first to be shown in color, at least in my area. Maybe Leonard-Hearns or Holmes-Cooney. Something later than you'd think, now. Not sure why; obviously Frazier-Ali I and everything after were taped in color.

The first PPV that I remember was Hagler-Hearns. I went over to a friend-of-a-friend's house to watch it. Turns out he didn't order it and we listened to a scrambled-picture version. Now that I think about it, was Hagler-Hearns PPV? Or did that guy just pull the closed-circuit feed on his big ol' satellite dish?

As a young fan in the late seventies, there was a feeling that the closed-circuit era was over. Everything was on network television, starting in early 1977 (the seed was planted in 1975 with Ali-Lyle). Big fights like Norton-Bobick, Ali-Shavers, Ali-Spinks, Holmes-Norton, and Leonard-Benitez were on prime-time specials. Even the biggest fight of the era, Ali-Spinks II, was part of a prime-time ABC-tv extravaganza featuring several title bouts. The one biggish bout that wasn't was Holmes-Weaver, and that was because the U.S. networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) rejected it because they didn't think Weaver was a worthy challenger. So HBO picked it up. It was a stupid decision, in retrospect, as it was a great fight AND Duran-Palomino was on the undercard. It was a great time to be a fan. Lots of bouts - title bouts, bouts between contenders, prospects on the way up, amateur boxing - on during weekend afternoons. Regional bouts on UHF channels ("Boxing From the Olympic", I think it was called!) & on Spanish language channels. What a great time! ('Course we didn't have YouTube)

Then in 1980 things changed again. Closed-circuit shows were happening again, with Duran-Leonard, Holmes-Ali, Leonard-Hearns, Holmes-Cooney, and Hagler-Duran all on closed-circuit. HBO started grabbing the big but not ready for closed-circuit bouts, rather than having to settle for network-tv rejects. ESPN, instead of UHF, got the "rejects", which were still often great fights. This sucked because we didn't have HBO, or even cable, at our house. Soon nearly everything was on some sort of pay-tv - HBO, closed-circuit->PPV, Showtime, ESPN, USA. Free-tv shows became few and far between.

 

Bump