What's wrong with Adonis Stevenson fighting on Showtime?

Not sure why this is so hard to understand.

 

How is Stevenson to be held accountable for this particular situation though? I see why people are upset about all this, but Showtime offered him more money and Adonis took it. I see no wrong in that. It's hard enough to make money off of boxing these days and the fact that HBO didn't rate a Stevenson v Kovalev fight as highly as we do, is their fault and sadly our loss.

Taking the money at 36 years of age is perfectly reasonable and everybody else would've done the same. Shame on HBO for passing up on that fight.

 

So long as the Kovalev fight gets made at some point I don't care. Fight the damn thing on the moon with it being recorded on an I-phone, so long as the two best light-heavyweights fight each other before one of the two goes to ****.

 

if stevenson is truly making more money over there then yea its worth it but.
i dont see how any fight could pay him more then stevenson/kovalev.
unless hes looking at it as ima fight b hop get good money
then fight kovalev and get even better money. but kovalev need to move to sho

 

Thats... not what happened.

HBO, GYM, Main Events had already worked out a deal.

Fonfarra fight being aired on HBO was part of the deal. Kovalev/Stevenson fight was part of the deal.

Deal was not severable in the eyes of HBO, nor should it have been. Without a Kovalev fight, there is no reason for HBO to overpay for Fonfarra fight.

Stevenson decided he would not do a Kovalev fight, so HBO lost all incentive to pay for any of his other fights. The reason Stevenson needs to be held accountable, is because his team had committed to a Kovalev fight. However they continued to shop around after that commitment, and since they were able to get a deal that sounded better to them - broke their agreement.

The reason the deal fell apart is not because of money, or HBO unwillingness to pay. It fell apart because Stevenson will not face Kovalev.

This is not smart business, but GYM has their own lucrative local deal going so they really dont care about HBO or SHO. They are one of the few North American outfits that really doesnt need premium cable subsidies.

 

If he broke a commitment that couldn't be severed, then sue him. If there's no contract that was breached, then there was no real commitment.

Any evidence to support this reading of Stevenson's motives, aside from the declarations of message board posters that this was clearly a duck? It sure sounds to me like money had something to do with it seeing as how the Showtime offer has been described as significantly more than the HBO deal.

Would it have been smart business to accept less money for the Fonfara fight then?

 

I see

 

You are mistaking legalism for honesty.

Legally, you can often get away with saying one thing and doing another if you do not lock down a deal in legal trappings.

Of course there is a word to describe people who behave in such a manner: scum. People who advocate such behavior are also scum.

Stevenson got quite an investment and career boost from HBO based on the word and stated intent of his team. Playing people false is not something that should be admired.

 

Stevenson went to Showtime for *more money*. Like it or not, Stevenson Hopkins is bigger than Stevenson Kovalev.

If the idiots over @ HBO had not banned GBP/Al Haymon fighters from their network, Stevenson Kovalev could have already happened by now. It seems now that if Kovalev really wants Stevenson then he'll have to follow him over to Showtime...

 

Yvon Michel disputes the notion that Stevenson ever agreed to the January deal though, which would make the question of honesty irrelevant.

Further, I'm not about to shed any tears about any million dollar company being leveraged by a boxer. "It's just business" is the response offered again and again for the treatment of many fighters by both networks and businesses; economic reasons provide just as much justification for a fighter's behavior as they do for a network's. Stevenson's spot in the sport is more so the product of his own hard work than it is HBO's or anyone else's. The legal exhausts his obligation to them.

 

This is not true. Kovalev fans are the people who don't get the fight *they* want. Stevenson Hopkins is a bigger fight - which means boxing fans [of Stevenson and Hopkins] are getting the fight they want.

You can blame HBO for this one...

 

Stevenson v Kovalev could've happened this weekend, but Stevenson doesn't want it.
Stevenson most likely knows that he'd end up as another brutal KO on Kovalev's highlight reel.

 

:deal

If Showtime is going to pay Stevenson more money for his next fight than HBO would have and more money for a Hopkins fight than HBO would have paid him for Kovalev - why not take the higher bid?

FFS people, slavery is over. If HBO wants Steveson to fight Kovalev on their airwaves then all they need to do is un-ass that money.

1 + 1 = 2

I don't see a problem here...

 

I'd bet right now that should both fights happen, Kovalev-Stevenson surpasses the viewing figures of Hopkins-Stevenson.