The only way to stop the kind of obscenities that HBO Sports has been pulling on boxing fans recently is to shine a bright light on it and scream very loudly.
The only bout that the network that has dubbed itself ?The Heart and Soul of Boxing,? has on its schedule for 2017 is a Jan. 28 card featuring Francisco Vargas against Miguel Berchelt for the WBC super featherweight title.
That?s a decent enough fight, though it pales in comparison to the four quality shows that rival Showtime has already announced for 2017. Showtime will broadcast a super middleweight unification bout between Badou Jack and James DeGale on Jan. 14.
It will have a superb doubleheader on Jan. 28, featuring a rematch of the great bout between Carl Frampton and Leo Santa Cruz in the main event. Mikey Garcia will meet Dejan Zlaticanin in another intriguing match in the opener.
On Feb. 11, Showtime has Adrien Broner against Adrian Granados and on March 4, it will have the welterweight unification bout between Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman. There remains the possibility that bout may be moved to CBS, but still.
The real crime here is that HBO has signed off on a bout between Miguel Cotto and James Kirkland for Feb. 25 in Round Rock, Texas.
Cotto hasn?t fought since losing to Canelo Alvarez on Nov. 21, 2015. Kirkland hasn?t fought since being knocked out in the third round by Alvarez on May 9, 2015.
If that were an HBO fight, there would be few complaints even though Kirkland isn?t relevant anymore and the bout would have no significance within the sport. Kirkland fought once in 2012, sat out 21 months, fought once in 2013, sat out 17 months and then last fought in 2015 against Alvarez.
But HBO and promoters Roc Nation Sports and Cotto Promotions have the gall to put this on pay-per-view and make fans cough up extra for the privilege of watching.
It?s outrageously bad judgment.
Most fans who would be interested in the Cotto-Kirkland fight are already HBO subscribers who pay a fee that could range anywhere from $12 to $20 monthly for the service. Now, on top of that, for a bout between two fading fighters with no significance, you?ll have to pay an inflated pay-per-view price.
The price hasn?t been announced yet, but whether the PPV is priced $49.95, $59.95 or $69.95, it?s $49.95, $59.95 or $69.95 too much.
How Peter Nelson, the executive vice president of HBO Sports, ever thought this would be an acceptable idea is lost on me.
Sign me up instead for Showtime?s 2017 plan, which includes more fights more frequently and fewer on pay-per-view.
The success of a handful of fighters, notably Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, Mike Tyson and Oscar De La Hoya, on pay-per-view, created a false impression of what pay-per-view is among fighters and part of the boxing fan base.
It?s not a destination to aspire to, as in, ?Hey, I want to fight six or eight times on HBO or Showtime and then go fight on pay-per-view.?
The absolute biggest fights, where it would be impossible for a company like HBO or Showtime to pay a fee to acquire its rights, are the only ones that should be on pay-per-view.
The Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev bout in November is another that should have been on HBO and not on pay-per-view. The same is true of the July super lightweight unification bout between Terence Crawford and Viktor Postol that went on PPV because HBO declined to buy it.
Stephen Espinoza, the general manager and executive vice president of Showtime Sports, opines that the plethora of pay-per-views that have been on is puzzling.
?I?m not quite sure we?re seen a market quite like this,? he said. ?It?s a little confusing for fans and people within the sport alike. We?re coming off of an era where we had a couple of pay-per-view megastars in Floyd and Manny and we got in the habit of expecting these pay-per-view mega-fights. But we?re now in a new era, where we?re cycling through and building up new talent.
?It seems that pay-per-view is being misused. Just because a fight is on pay-per-view doesn?t make a fight better than it would be not on pay-per-view. And I think there is a little confusion where people are mistaking pay-per-view fights for quality fights. And there are a lot of fights which shouldn?t be on pay-per-view which are going on pay-per-view.?
There are a few different scenarios in which a fight could wind up on pay-per-view. First, though, it?s important to understand how the money works on a pay-per-view bout.
