If the objective is to leave something in better shape than when you arrived, then HBO should feel good about its 45-year investment in boxing.
The premium cable network announced this week it will no longer broadcast live boxing events after 2018. The decision comes when boxing is clearly on the upswing, which makes the network’s departure less catastrophic.
Competition is supposed to be good for business and it has been for boxing, but not for HBO, which would rather spend its financial resources on developing original programming than trying to out-bid other networks and digital outlets for fights.
It’s sad news for longtime employees who need to find new jobs. HBO carried boxing during the decades when so-called “free” television turned away from the sport following the death of Duk Koo Kim, who died from injuries sustained in a nationally televised fight with Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini in 1982.
From the first telecast of Joe Frazier against George Foreman in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1973, to the rematch between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin earlier this month, HBO has been a boxing destination.
Larry Merchant, the former Post boxing writer and longtime ringside analyst for HBO, summed it up this way: “Once upon a time, we were a promising kid; then a challenger; then a champion; a great champion; a longtime champion. And then a has-been who finally retired. So long, champ.”
Those involved in boxing don’t seem to stay retired, so who knows what the future will bring. For now, boxing can bid goodbye to its one-time savior, knowing an exciting future awaits.
A glimpse of that future arrives in Manhattan on Tuesday when WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury stage a press conference at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. The public is invited.
Their much-anticipated fight will take place Dec. 1 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Showtime will distribute the pay-per-view telecast. It’s being called the biggest heavyweight fight in the United States since Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis met in Memphis, Tenn., in 2002.
Of course, that wasn’t much of a fight. Tyson was a has-been who finally retired, and the division floundered until this year, when unified champion Anthony Joshua became a huge star in the United Kingdom. Fury returned to the ring after a long absence to deal with personal issues, and Wilder proved himself to be a credible belt-holder with an impressive win over Luis “King Kong” Ortiz.
The 6-foot-7 Wilder and the 6-foot-9 Fury both like to talk loudly and are sure to get the kind of crossover attention boxers and promoters covet for a big fight — the kind of fight that certainly would have been on HBO in its heyday.
But it’s just one of several major fights that figure to be on the horizon over the next 12 to 18 months, highlighted by a welterweight division that includes Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Terence Crawford and Shawn Porter.
The impact of Top Rank aligning with ESPN+ and Matchroom Boxing teaming with DAZN will be interesting to watch. But there figures to be no shortage of decent fights to make or platforms on which to view them.
Even women’s boxing, long shunned by HBO, is finally getting recognition. Two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields will face Christina Hammer in a matchup of unbeaten fighters for the undisputed world championship in the women’s 160-pound division. The Nov. 17 fight will be held in Atlantic City and shown live on Showtime.
“I want to be part of the biggest fight in women’s boxing history,” Shields said. “I want to be undisputed world middleweight champion. I want women’s boxing to reach new heights, and the only thing standing between me and the achievement of all those goals is Christina Hammer.”
https://nypost.com/2018/09/29/boxing-has-exciting-immediate-future-despite-hbo-departure/
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