How tired are you of spending hard-earned cash for a pay-per-view fight only to be treated to a virtually worthless undercard? You spend $50 for a significant main event, but the three other fights usually stink, on paper and in the ring.
Top Rank and Golden Boy, who put on the majority of major pay-per-views these days, have been foisting these terrible undercards on us for several years. It always has been a bone of contention for me and many of the Fight Freaks, who should expect value for their money.
Instead of using the undercard spots to put on meaningful fights that promise action, the promoters usually make mismatches or put on fights simply because they fit the budget or take care of a contractual obligation. There is little regard for the paying customers.
I’m not sure whether it’s ever going to change for good, but we have to give Golden Boy’s Richard Schaefer credit for trying with the undercard for the Juan Manuel Marquez-Juan Diaz rematch on HBO PPV on Saturday night (9 ET, $49.95) at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
From the moment the main event was made, Schaefer told me he would strive to put on a “Freak card,” his tip of the cap to the Fight Freaks who participate in my ESPN.com boxing chats on Fridays.
Schaefer reads them. He even has been a guest in them. And he took to heart the demand of the fans for a worthy undercard.
My rule of thumb for a pay-per-view undercard is that at least one fight other than the main event should be HBO- or Showtime-worthy. Too often, none are.
But in the case of Saturday’s card, all three undercard fights pass the test. And it’s about time.
“We at Golden Boy made a huge financial commitment to this card to really deliver to the fight fans what they want and what they deserve,” Schaefer said.
We can argue that this should be the norm, but at least the effort was there for this card.
We already know about the main event: The participants, Marquez and Diaz, waged the 2009 fight of the year. It was a sensational fight that Marquez won via ninth-round knockout. And even though both men are coming off losses in heavier weight classes (Marquez to Floyd Mayweather Jr. at welterweight and Diaz to Paulie Malignaggi at junior welterweight), they figure to put on another exciting fight for Marquez’s lightweight championship. Although it would have been nice for the rematch to be televised on regular HBO (as the first fight was), it still is a worthy pay-per-view fight.
And the rest of the show, at least by today’s lesser PPV undercard standards, is outstanding. It’s no 1980s or ’90s Don King undercard, but it’s still pretty darn good. I believe it’s worth your time and money if you’re a fight fan.
In fact, Schaefer said he used to watch King’s epic shows and thought about them when he was putting together Saturday’s card.
“Don King used to put on these great, great cards, and I think people — fight fans — still talk about those cards,” Schaefer said. “And if we can go back to these cards — which really wasn’t [just] the main event, but it was just an event top to bottom, the kind of fights you just wanted to see every single one — then I think that’s maybe a way boxing is going to evolve and hopefully be able to bring new fans, additional fans, to the sport of boxing.”
Each of the televised undercard bouts Saturday is interesting.
The co-feature of 2009 ESPN.com prospect of the year Daniel Jacobs against Dmitry Pirog for a vacant middleweight title is a legitimate fight. Both guys are undefeated. Both guys were good amateurs. And now they are in a meaningful fight that could be pretty good. Jacobs, if you ask me, has serious star potential.
The junior welterweight fight between Joel Casamayor and Robert Guerrero, both former two-division titleholders, is the epitome of a crossroads fight. Casamayor is the aging veteran and probable Hall of Famer in the winter of his career facing a hungry young fighter in his prime who is trying to make a bigger name for himself. I have no idea who is going to win, and that’s how I like it.
The show opener, a lightweight match between former two-division titlist Jorge Linares and perennial bridesmaid Rocky Juarez also is somewhat interesting. Linares was one of the hottest fighters around until a shocking, first-round junior lightweight title loss last year. He has won one fight since, but now he’s back on a big stage against Juarez, who is getting one more chance after so many disappointments in important fights. This one is sort of like a loser-go-home fight.
Schaefer is proud that Golden Boy is delivering a worthy top-to-bottom PPV card, one that the company has invested heavily in, to the tune of about $4 million.
“The promise that I made was that we were going to put together an undercard which is worthy of the fight of the year [rematch], basically a card which will include fights where each one of those could be featured on an HBO or on Showtime,” Schaefer said. “And that’s exactly what we accomplished here. I believe that we have put together the best undercard, top to bottom, of any fight card that we here at Golden Boy have ever put together — and that was a commitment we made to the fight fans out there. That’s exactly what we wanted to achieve.”
Oscar De La Hoya, the Golden Boy president and company founder, hit it on the head when he said, “Everybody knows these fights are exciting. Everybody knows these fights can go either way. These fights are not mismatches. These fights are not fights where we know who is going to win. … We didn’t think about or care about how much money we spent. We just wanted to make sure that we have great fights, that the fans are happy, because it’s good for boxing.”
De La Hoya was overdoing it a little, because Golden Boy absolutely cares what it is spending on the card. But for whatever reason, the company has made a big investment in this show.
Schaefer and De La Hoya said one reason behind some lackluster cards is that when promoters from different companies get involved and have input, things get bogged down. Schaefer said that’s what often happened when Golden Boy and Top Rank co-promoted major events together.
We don’t have to worry about that for the time being, as the firms are entrenched in Cold War II these days.
“Golden Boy had the freedom of putting on a spectacular show,” De La Hoya said. “So as long as we can have the freedom, as long as we can make sure that we’re putting our fighters [in good fights] and we’re matching them up against hard, tough competition, we’re going to see some great cards. And when you have that freedom, it’s a beautiful thing because we don’t have to answer to anybody. We don’t have to go out and ask for permission to put on this guy and that guy. It makes it much better for the promoter; it makes it much better for the fans.”
If you want to see these kinds of quality cards continue, the way to make it happen is to buy the Marquez-Diaz show, Schaefer said.
“This is a major financial commitment on our part, and we do hope that the fight fans, those who always complain out there — ‘Well, there wasn’t really a good card or this wasn’t good or that wasn’t good’ — are going to come out and really support that card. Because at the end of the day, who likes to lose a few million dollars? Nobody,” Schaefer said. “So I do hope that when we give the product and we do have the product, that we are going to be proven right and that we will be encouraged by the fight fans by their support for this amazing card, that they’re going to say, ‘We like it,’ through their actions, by buying the pay-per-view.
“If that’s going to be the case, I give you my word — I give you my word that this is going to be the norm and not the exception. But if fight fans are going to be like, ‘Oh, I’m not really going to buy it and so on,’ then it becomes a huge loss for us. Then I really don’t want to hear any more, ‘Well, you know what? This is not good or that is not good.’ We are trying to basically sell an event from top to bottom, and I hope the fight fans, the Fight Freaks, are going to embrace it.”
If you want more cards like it, you ought to.
