HBO’s Exit From Boxing More Proof That All Empires and Title Reigns Eventually End

Whoever first coined the phrase “All good things must come to an end” might have been talking about the 1,500-year run of the Roman Empire

Published

6 years ago

September 29, 2018

Bernard Fernandez

Whoever first coined the phrase “All good things must come to an end” might have been talking about the 1,500-year run of the Roman Empire, the somewhat more abbreviated domination of Major League Baseball by the New York Yankees or the even shorter reigns of even the greatest and most enduring of boxing champions. But Thursday’s announcement that HBO would shut down its boxing operation by the end of 2018, after a mostly successful (if not so much lately) 45 years, nonetheless sparked multiple expressions of sadness while raising questions as to why and how such a thing could come to pass.

“There was a time when everything HBO Boxing touched turned to gold,” said promoter Lou DiBella, 58, founder and chief operating officer of DiBella Entertainment and a longtime senior vice president of HBO Sports until his departure in the fall of 2000. “I’m sad. This is like the Yankees going out of business in a way, in terms of a brand. HBO was the most powerful brand in televised boxing throughout the world, not just the United States. And now it’s going away. That’s pretty amazing.”

The same sentiment was more or less echoed by Larry Merchant, 87, the erudite former newspaperman who served as an analyst for HBO’s boxing telecasts until he left the premium-cable channel in December 2012.

“I was part of something that worked out well for me for 35 years,” Merchant said from his home in Santa Monica, Calif. “The way I try to put it is that we were once a good-looking prospect, then a challenger, a champion and a great and long-time champion. Then we were an ex-champion and a has-been who finally retired. All I can say is, `So long, champ.’”

HBO’s abdication – and that’s essentially what it is, the one-time “Heart and Soul of Boxing,” as it once billed itself, quitting on its stool at the same time that Showtime, Fox, ESPN and various streaming services are investing significant resources into the sport – hardly comes as a surprise to those who have been tracking its incrementally decreasing commitment in recent years. At the height of its involvement with the sweet science, with which it had become inextricably identified, HBO’s deep-pocketed, blow-the-competition-out-of-the-water approach came with an annual budget of $80 million for marketing and rights fees. But as its corporate identity changed (HBO and its parent company, Time Warner Inc., were acquired for $85.4 billion by AT&T Inc. in June), boxing’s place in the HBO lineup became less about the good old days and more about a diminishing bottom line.

“I don’t know, that’s above my pay level. I don’t work at HBO anymore,” Merchant said when asked why the plug was being pulled and what might have been done to prevent death by disinterest. “But just as (the new executives in charge) became hard-core numbers guys, where the original executives had a passion and a vision in their approach to boxing, things changed.

“They haven’t had many prime-time heavyweights from America for some time. The (ratings and income generated from boxing) have gone down. HBO is now a mature company, and the guys who care just about the numbers decided that boxing wasn’t popular enough to keep going. They were putting fractions – small fractions – of the money into it that they used to put into it.

“Today the real opposition for HBO is Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and so on. The people in charge of HBO now are trying to see the future from the present, not the past. We’ll see if the paltry amount of money they were putting into boxing recently is put to better use elsewhere. But it is interesting that Fox comes in with some serious money, as is ESPN, Showtime and some streaming entities. Somebody obviously cares about boxing. Fox isn’t putting tens of millions of dollars into it because they don’t want to make money. They want to make money. So the sport, like water, will find its own level. It always has.”

The timing of HBO’s announcement, with a release from HBO Sports executive vice president Peter Nelson, 37, on the New York Times web site, is especially curious in light of the fact that it was largely obscured by the overriding national interest in the he-said, she-said testimony in Washington involving Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault in an incident dating back 36 years to when both were in high school. One former HBO official, who asked not to be identified, called the timing of the announcement “cowardly,” comparing it to the massive television coverage of June 17, 1994, car chase involving football legend and accused killer O.J. Simpson. As untold millions of eyes followed the path of that now-infamous white Ford Bronco and its celebrity occupant, several important sports events going on that same day were basically overshadowed, including the New York Rangers’ Stanley Cup Parade, the World Cup Opening Ceremony, Game 5 of the World Series and Arnold Palmer’s final U.S. Open round.

“It’s sad to see it all go away by its own hand and their own decision-making,” DiBella said. “You would have loved to see them to go out on top, not with a whimper.”

Not that boxing on HBO started out on top, even if it’s first telecast, the Jan. 22, 1973, heavyweight title bout in Kingstown, Jamaica, in which George Foreman dethroned Joe Frazier on a brutal second-round stoppage that saw Smokin’ Joe floored six times, was an aesthetic success for action-craving fight fans. Many Americans were reluctant to take the leap of faith to pay extra to receive programming for access to a new phenomenon known as premium cable. When HBO officially launched on Nov. 8, 1972, the time between the movies that constituted the bulk of its programming was filled by video of a bicyclist’s ride through New York’s Central Park, the taped feed coming from a camera mounted on the handlebars. Hardly cutting-edge stuff.

Foreman, now 69, not only appeared as a boxer on HBO in both phases of his remarkable career, but as a color commentator. He said he was not surprised that HBO was bailing because the network had “used” boxing until it had served its purpose, and is now casting it aside as so many other media outlets have in the past.

“Joe Louis-Max Schmeling really made boxing on radio important,” Foreman opined. “The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports made boxing on television important in the 1950s and ’60s, as did ABC’s Wide World of Sports a little later on. HBO wasn’t really HBO until it started putting boxing on with me and Joe Frazier. That was the beginning of building something and making it extra-special.

“But whenever (those media outlets) make it on a bigger scale, what do they do? They drop boxing, which is a reason they got big in the first place. What’s happening now is nothing new. I’m surprised they just announced it.

“For years I traveled around the country and people told me, `George, I don’t really care that much about HBO, but because you’re on it, I’m going to buy it.’ They were probably saying the same thing to other fighters who were bringing (subscribers) to HBO. The (heavyweight unification) tournament with Mike Tyson really sealed the deal.”

Foreman cited former HBO Sports executive Michael Fuchs, who paid Tyson an almost-unthinkable $26.5 million to cover his appearances on the network for 1987 and ’88, as being an important factor in HBO’s emergence as the dominant force in TV boxing, as well as the golden era heyday of DiBella and former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham. They were as bottom-line conscious as their successors at HBO’s corporate headquarters, but they brought a passion to their work that some say has not been maintained at the same level. Business is business, but unbridled enthusiasm is an ingredient that is imperative to the success of any venture. The guys at the top of the boxing operation might have gotten the most credit for those decades of success, but they had a lot of help along the way.

“It’s sad because it’s the end of an era,” acclaimed former HBO Sports director Marc Payton, 69, said of HBO’s impending exit from boxing. “I’m sad for friends of mine that are still at HBO who will be affected by the loss of its boxing programming. For me it was an era that was an incredibly fun time. I was there for 35 years doing boxing and made a lot of great, lifelong friends and with whom I shared a lot of great memories.

“The economics of the business, such as the deal Top Rank recently cut with ESPN, I’m sure contributed to the decision on HBO’s part, as well as the loss of some of its marquee fighters which diminished the star value at the network. (HBO mainstays Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin became free agents with the conclusion of their Sept. 15 rematch, and another headliner, Sergey Kovalev, lost for the third time in his last five bouts when he was stopped in seven rounds by Eleider Alvarez on Aug. 4).

“We were the home of the stars for so long. We had Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, Roy Jones, Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather. We did the Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward trilogy, and Tyson from the time he was a young challenger to becoming a champion before he went to prison. We had them all!”

To date, HBO has televised 1,111 fights, an ironic figure indicative of its former No. 1 status in an industry that is proclaiming its continuing health by branching out and lapping up new revenue streams. Oh, there is one more event on the schedule, on Oct. 27 from the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden headlined by the scrap for the vacant IBF middleweight title between Daniel Jacobs and Sergey Derevyanchenko. There might be another farewell fight or two scheduled between then and the end of the year, but Foreman’s hope that boxing will again find its way back to HBO beyond then, and to any significant degree, appears to be wishful thinking. Like all love affairs, when it’s over, it’s over.

“To have the tremendous legacy and incredible history that HBO had … certain fights we did became the sport’s Super Bowls,” a reflective DiBella said. “Boxing on HBO was must-see programming as much as The Sopranos was must-see programming.”

But Tony Soprano is gone, as is the deceased actor who superbly played him, James Gandolfini. The king is dead, long live the king, whoever and whatever that is.

Bernard Fernandez is the retired boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. He is a five-term former president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, an inductee into the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame and the recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing.

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Bernard Fernandez

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Devin Haney Speeds Past Tijuana’s Juan Carlos Burgos

Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

5 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

In-a-Shocker-Ryan-Garcia-Confounds-the-Experts-and-Upsets-Devin-Haney

Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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