HBO Boxing?s acclaimed 24/7 series returns to air this Saturday night on HBO. This installment will showcase the upcoming contest between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez scheduled for November 12, 2011. The fight will be the third in what has been so far an exciting series in which Pacquiao has earned a controversial draw and perhaps an even more controversial win.
HBO?s 24/7 franchise has grown from an exciting, innovative idea to promote the 2007 Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather PPV into a full fledged, regularly appearing, Emmy winning shot-in-the-arm to the promotion of the sport we know and love.
Boxing?s biggest fights and HBO?s 24/7 go together like peanut butter and jelly. They?re virtually inseparable. Nothing gets fans more excited about fight than the build-up the formulaic but intriguing franchise generates, and frankly an HBO Boxing PPV card without a corresponding 24/7 series would send the wrong message to intended consumers. It?d say this PPV isn?t important enough for 24/7.
Therein lies the problem.
As HBO?s stable of fighters remains relatively the same as years go by, the producers can?t help but show the same fighters over and over again. For instance, this upcoming show will be Manny Pacquiao?s fifth appearance and Juan Manuel Marquez?s second. So while fight fans will learn more about fighters they already love (or hate), the warmth of seeing Pacquiao?s posse intimately gather around a kitchen table to pray, or the shock of seeing Marquez drink his own urine because he believes it will help him win a fight, cannot happen again in a fresh, exciting way.
