Underdog Showtime Won Its War With HBO, But the Victory Now Seems Hollow

Published

1 year ago

December 18, 2023

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Underdog Showtime Won Its War With HBO, But the Victory Now Seems Hollow

Carthage finally has fallen.

Not that many boxing fans are apt to compare the former arch-rivalry of premium-cable outlets HBO and Showtime with the three Punic Wars pitting the Roman Empire against the formidable North African city-state of Carthage from 264 B.C. to 146 B.C., but the analogy fits when certain modifications are taken into consideration.

During the 32 years when HBO and Showtime went head-to-head in much the same manner of the fighters they showcased, the more-established, better-funded HBO was the figurative representative of Rome’s omnipresent might, with Showtime cast as the gritty, determined equivalent of Carthage. But a near-century of intermittent conflict ended as it surely had to, with Roman legions finally laying waste to the most persistent obstacle to the quest for absolute control of an expanding and insatiable empire.

But upsets can and do happen in boxing, and the Rome vs. Carthage script flipped at the end of 2018 when HBO quit on its stool after 45 years in the fight game, its once-well-financed commitment to being the industry leader ebbing incrementally at the behest of an increasingly disinterested corporate ownership.

“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,” longtime HBO commentator Larry Merchant said as the end of an era came with the sound of a death rattle. “They were putting fractions – small fractions – of the money into it that they used to put into it.”

“It’s sad to see it all go away by its own hand and their own decision-making,” added Lou DiBella, a senior vice president of HBO Sports until his departure in the fall of 2000. “This is like the Yankees going out of business in a way, in terms of a brand … You would have loved to see them go out on top, not with a whimper.”

The demise of HBO Boxing opened the door for a dramatic rise in prestige for Showtime Championship Boxing and its much-respected, star-making adjunct, ShoBox, whose administrators and broadcast talent reveled in their figurative elevation from Carthage to Rome. But, as Spanish philosopher George Santayana once observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Just as HBO had abdicated its lofty place in the boxing stratosphere five years earlier, the curtain came down on Showtime, by turns reminiscent of its scrappy underdog period and its later heyday as the foremost televised purveyor of the sweet science. As was the case with HBO, the cause of its demise likely can be traced to profit-and-loss figures on a spreadsheet, not the love of a sport that always has needed to be embraced for reasons that necessarily supersede priorities established by upper management and accountants with sharp pencils and MBA degrees.

Voicing the same sort of sad farewell that Merchant and DiBella had offered up when HBO took its leave in 2018 is Showtime’s David Dinkins Jr., the Senior Vice President and Executive Producer for the entire 37-year run of its boxing operation.

“We should be recognized for our pursuit of excellence and attention to detail,” Dinkins said in an interview with The Ring. In our prime we were without peer – the best coverage, live and replays, best commentary and the best presentation from the ring walks to post-fight interviews.”

Well, some deposed HBO Boxing alumni might argue that point, but the net effect of Showtime taking the 10-count opens a Pandora’s Box of uncertainty that surely will affect the way the sport is made available to the public going forward, possibly more than anyone can imagine in the here and now.

On Dec. 7, Prime Video and Premier Boxing Champions announced what they described as a “multiyear rights agreement,” with Prime Video included in the Amazon Prime membership package. A series of PBC Championship Boxing events will be streamed, including PBC pay-per-view shows. Given the fact that Prime Video has more than 150 million subscribers in the United States, as reported by Thomas Hauser, the first reaction might be that boxing, unlike Carthage, is too resilient to ever be destroyed. But every move away from established norms to something new requires a period of adjustment, for those assuming the burden of proprietorship as well as fight fans who long have been asked to part with chunks of their diminishing disposable income to feed their pugilistic addiction.

Let history record that Showtime Championship Boxing officially breathed its last at 11:26 p.m. EST when its closing credits finished rolling, not long after WBA super middleweight champion David Morrell Jr.’s second-round stoppage of Sena Agbeko became the answer to a future trivia question as to which bout shoveled the last spade of dirt onto a grave worthy of a polished marble headstone.

The tripleheader of televised fights, all won by southpaws, was a fitting farewell. The 25-year-old Morrell (10-0, 9 KOs) might seem too early in his professional career to have already logged five title defenses, but the transplant from steamy Cuba to the wintry frigidity of his adopted home base of Minneapolis was 130-2 as an amateur and has the look of a possible future superstar. Fighting for the sixth time in the comfy confines of the sold-out Armory (all 5,314 seats filled), Morrell (pictured) dispatched Agbeko (28-3, 22 KOs) with a display of power punching that had him clamoring for a non-alphabet championship matchup that conceivably could take place sometime in the about-to-become new year.

“In 2024, I want to fight Benavidez. One hundred percent,” Morrell said of a pairing for the all-David 168-pound crown, with a shot at undisputed super middleweight champ Canelo Alvarez presumably awaiting the winner. But Benavidez (28-0, 24 KOs) is coming off a sixth-round stoppage of Demetrius Andrade on Nov. 25 and is hopeful his next bout will be with Alvarez, without the necessity of going through Morrell first.

The co-main event, pitting Chris “Primetime” Colbert against Jose “Rayo” Valenzuela in a WBA lightweight eliminator, was a do-over of their closely contested and controversial first meeting on March 25 of this year, when Colbert overcame a first-round knockdown and a couple of other shaky rounds to pull out a unanimous decision by identical 95-94 scorecards from the three judges. Although Colbert said he’d never give “sore loser” Valenzuela a rematch, the opportunity to be a part of the historic Showtime exit card was too much for Colbert to say no to, although he may have come to regret his acquiescence.

The larger and stronger Valenzuela, as in their first bout, dropped Colbert in the first round and thereafter he waited for his opportunity to unveil a previously sheathed weapon, a right hook, whenever Colbert switched from orthodox to southpaw, which he did in the sixth round. With Colbert’s protective left hand down, Valenzuela flung himself forward to land a crushing hook that sent his opponent crashing to the canvas, unconscious, his head draped over the bottom stand of the ring ropes.

“The second time he turned left he saw I was gonna throw a jab so he could catch it up front, but I dipped a little bit and shot the right hook,” Valenzuela said of his put-away bomb.

After Colbert came to and met with Valenzuela in the center of the ring, he said, “We’re 1-1, let’s run this back.” That request didn’t gain any traction with Valenzuela, who said, “I beat him twice. I was patient for a reason. This was a title eliminator and I want to fight for a title. So Tank Davis (the WBA lightweight ruler), let’s get it on, man.”

The opener, pitting a pair of 40-year-old former world champions, was a rematch of a bout that took place 11 years earlier, when Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (38-6-1, 20 KOs) scored a 12-round unanimous decision over Andre Berto (32-6, 24 KOs). The oldies-but-used-to-be goodies may not be all that they once were, but both showed sporadic flashes of their prime selves with Guerrero winning a wide 10-round unanimous decision.

Now that Showtime has joined HBO as boxing entities that are no more, it is worth mentioning that their frequent skirmishes behind the scenes were often as noteworthy as, say, the confrontations that paired aging promotional lions Don King and Bob Arum. One such incident took place in 2005, when I was president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.

The BWAA almost always has staged its annual awards dinner in New York City, but I concluded that Las Vegas was long overdue to be the host city for such an affair, but only if it could come in conjunction with a corresponding fight important enough to attract a sizable media gathering. Officials at both HBO and Showtime were made aware of the BWAA’s intentions and were given a time window in which a suitable bout could be arranged as an accompaniment for the awards dinner.

Jay Larkin, then the senior vice president and executive producer of Showtime Sports, was so enthused about his company’s possible participation that he vowed to up his normal budget for that particular show by a half-million dollars, with the Mandalay Bay to serve as the host venue for what proved to be the first matchup of Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo on May 7, 2005. We shook hands and that was that. Or at least it should have been.

A few days later, someone purporting to be representing HBO – I should stress it was not someone directly affiliated with HBO – contacted me and said that HBO honchos had reconsidered and wanted in. The fight tie-in would have been at the MGM Grand on May 14, 2005, and featured Felix Trinidad against Winky Wright. That was nice, I said, but I already had agreed to the date with Showtime for the previous week.

“But did you sign a contract?” the guy asked. “If you didn’t sign a contract, you can switch to the following week. And Trinidad is a bigger name than the two guys on the Showtime card.”

“Maybe so, but I gave my word,” I replied. The way I was raised, if you give your word, that should count for something, and I wasn’t about to renege on a verbal agreement that, to my way of thinking, was as good as a signed, sealed and delivered piece of paper.

Not that anyone could have predicted how everything would shake out, but Corrales-Castillo I turned out to be an epic, Fight of the Year lollapalooza. The BWAA dinner at the Mandalay Bay the night before was also a smash hit, with a ring set up in the banquet hall that made for a photo op that included Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, James Toney, Vitali Klitschko, Chris Byrd, Shane Mosley, Winky Wright, Zab Judah, Hasim Rahman and master of ceremonies Jimmy Lennon Jr., among others. The following week, Trinidad turned in possibly the worst performance of his career in losing a one-sided, unanimous decision to Wright.

But the thing is, had HBO made the earliest proposal and I shook hands on it, that also would have been as good as a signed contract. Jay Larkin – who was fired by Showtime later in November 2005 because of job cutbacks, and died of brain cancer at the too-young age of 59 on Aug. 9, 2010 – kept his word to me, and I wish he had been included when Showtime’s closing credits rolled late Saturday night.

Carthage has fallen, probably forever, and I can only say that I will miss the in-fighting that took place when HBO and Showtime competed so fiercely that they made boxing, and their own operations, better. It was a grand time, often chaotic, but never lacking in entertainment. The sun still comes up every morning, but somehow the world seems just a bit different. Time will tell just how different, and whether those of us who love the sport of crooked noses and indomitable hearts will be satisfied with whatever comes next.

—
Bernard Fernandez, named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the Class of 2020, was the recipient of numerous awards for writing excellence during his 28-year career as a sports writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. “Championship Rounds, Round 4,” the fourth installment of Fernandez’s four-volume anthology, is now out and available via Amazon and other book-selling outlets.

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Usyk Outpoints Fury and Itauma has the “Wow Factor” in Riyadh

Published

1 hour ago

December 21, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Oleksandr Usyk left no doubt that he is the best heavyweight of his generation and one of the greatest boxers of all time with a unanimous decision over Tyson Fury tonight at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But although the Ukrainian won eight rounds on all three scorecards, this was no runaway. To pirate a line from one of the DAZN talking heads, Fury had his moments in every round but Usyk had more moments.

The early rounds were fought at a faster pace than the first meeting back in May. At the mid-point, the fight was even. The next three rounds – the next five to some observers – were all Usyk who threw more punches and landed the cleaner shots.

Fury won the final round in the eyes of this reporter scoring at home, but by then he needed a knockout to pull the match out of the fire.

The last round was an outstanding climax to an entertaining chess match during which both fighters took turns being the pursuer and the pursued.

An Olympic gold medalist and a unified world champion at cruiserweight and heavyweight, the amazing Usyk improved his ledger to 23-0 (14). His next fight, more than likely, will come against the winner of the Feb. 22 match in Ridayh between Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker which will share the bill with the rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.

Fury (34-2-1) may fight Anthony Joshua next. Regardless, no one wants a piece of Moses Itauma right now although the kid is only 19 years old.

Moses Itauma

Raised in London by a Nigerian father and a Slovakian mother, Itauma turned heads once again with another “wow” performance. None of his last seven opponents lasted beyond the second round.

His opponent tonight, 34-year-old Australian Demsey McKean, lasted less than two minutes. Itauma, a southpaw with blazing fast hands, had the Aussie on the deck twice during the 117-second skirmish. The first knockdown was the result of a cuffing punch that landed high on the head; the second knockdown was produced by an overhand left. McKean went down hard as his chief cornerman bounded on to the ring apron to halt the massacre.

Photo (c): Mark Robinson

Itauma (12-0, 10 KOs after going 20-0 as an amateur) is the real deal. It was the second straight loss for McKean (22-2) who lasted into the 10^th round against Filip Hrgovic in his last start.

Bohachuk-Davis

In a fight billed as the co-main although it preceded Itauma-McKean, Serhii Bohachuk, an LA-based Ukrainian, stopped Ishmael Davis whose corner pulled him out after six frames.

Both fighters were coming off a loss in fights that were close on the scorecards, Bohachuk falling to Vergil Ortiz Jr in a Las Vegas barnburner and Davis losing to Josh Kelly.

Davis, who took the fight on short notice, subbing for Ismail Madrimov, declined to 13-2. He landed a few good shots but was on the canvas in the second round, compliments of a short left hook, and the relentless Bohachuk (25-2, 24 KOs) eventually wore him down.

Fisher-Allen

In a messy, 10-round bar brawl masquerading as a boxing match, Johnny Fisher, the Romford Bull, won a split decision over British countryman David Allen. Two judges favored Fisher by 95-94 tallies with the dissenter favoring Allen 96-93. When the scores were announced, there was a chorus of boos and those watching at home were outraged.

Allen was a step up in class for Fisher. The Doncaster man had a decent record (23-5-2 heading in) and had been routinely matched tough (his former opponents included Dillian Whyte, Luis “King Kong” Ortiz and three former Olympians). But Allen was fairly considered no more than a journeyman and Fisher (12-0 with 11 KOs, eight in the opening round) was a huge favorite.

In round five, Allen had Fisher on the canvas twice although only one was ruled a true knockdown. From that point, he landed the harder shots and, at the final bell, he fell to canvas shedding tears of joy, convinced that he had won.

He did not win, but he exposed Johnny Fisher as a fighter too slow to compete with elite heavyweights, a British version of the ponderous Russian-Canadian campaigner Arslanbek Makhmudov.

Other Bouts of Note

In a spirited 10-round featherweight match, Scotland’s Lee McGregor, a former European bantamweight champion and stablemate of former unified 140-pound title-holder Josh Taylor, advanced to 15-1-1 (11) with a unanimous decision over Isaac Lowe (25-3-3). The judges had it 96-92 and 97-91 twice.

A cousin and regular houseguest of Tyson Fury, Lowe fought most of the fight with cuts around both eyes and was twice deducted a point for losing his gumshield.

In a fight between super featherweights that could have gone either way, Liverpool southpaw Peter McGrail improved to 11-1 (6) with a 10-round unanimous decision over late sub Rhys Edwards. The judges had it 96-95 and 96-94 twice.

McGrail, a Tokyo Olympian and 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medalist, fought from the third round on with a cut above his right eye, the result of an accidental clash of heads. It was the first loss for Edwards (16-1), a 24-year-old Welshman who has another fight booked in three weeks.

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Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?

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1 day ago

December 20, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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In professional boxing, the heavyweight division, going back to the days of John L. Sullivan, is the straw that stirs the drink. By this measure, the fight on May 18 of this year at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was the biggest prizefight in decades. The winner would emerge as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis out-pointed Evander Holyfield in their second meeting.

The match did not disappoint. It had several twists and turns.

Usyk did well in the early rounds, but the Gypsy King rattled Usyk with a harsh right hand in the fifth stanza and won rounds five through seven on all three cards. In the ninth, the match turned sharply in favor of the Ukrainian. Fury was saved by the bell after taking a barrage of unanswered punches, the last of which dictated a standing 8-count from referee Mark Nelson. But Fury weathered the storm and with his amazing powers of recuperation had a shade the best of it in the final stanza.

The decision was split: 115-112 and 114-113 for Usyk who became a unified champion in a second weight class; 114-113 for Fury.

That brings us to tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 21) where Usyk and Fury will renew acquaintances in the same ring where they had their May 18 showdown.

The first fight was a near “pick-‘em” affair with Fury closing a very short favorite at most of the major bookmaking establishments. The Gypsy King would have been a somewhat higher favorite if not for the fact that he was coming off a poor showing against MMA star Francis Ngannou and had a worrisome propensity for getting cut. (A cut above Fury’s right eye in sparring pushed back the fight from its original Feb. 11 date.)

Tomorrow’s sequel, bearing the tagline “Reignited,” finds Usyk a consensus 7/5 favorite although those odds could shorten by post time. (There was no discernible activity after today’s weigh-in where Fury, fully clothed, topped the scales at 281, an increase of 19 pounds over their first meeting.)

Given the politics of boxing, anything “undisputed” is fragile. In June, Usyk abandoned his IBF belt and the organization anointed Daniel Dubois their heavyweight champion based upon Dubois’s eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic in a bout billed for the IBF interim title. The malodorous WBA, a festering boil on the backside of boxing, now recognizes 43-year-old Kubrat Pulev as its “regular” heavyweight champion.

Another difference between tomorrow’s fight card and the first installment is that the May 18 affair had a much stronger undercard. Two strong pairings were the rematch between cruiserweights Jai Opetaia and Maris Briedis (Opetaia UD 12) and the heavyweight contest between unbeatens Agit Kabayal and Frank Sanchez (Kabayel KO 7).

Tomorrow’s semi-wind-up between Serhii Bohachuk and Ismail Madrimov lost luster when Madrimov came down with bronchitis and had to withdraw. The featherweight contest between Peter McGrail and Dennis McCann fell out when McCann’s VADA test returned an adverse finding. Bohachuk and McGrail remain on the card but against late-sub opponents in matches that are less intriguing.

The focal points of tomorrow’s undercard are the bouts involving undefeated British heavyweights Moses Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) and Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs). Both are heavy favorites over their respective opponents but bear watching because they represent the next generation of heavyweight standouts. Fury and Usyk are getting long in the tooth. The Gypsy King is 36; Usyk turns 38 next month.

Bob Arum once said that nobody purchases a pay-per-view for the undercard and, years from now, no one will remember which sanctioning bodies had their fingers in the pie. So, Fury-Usyk II remains a very big deal, although a wee bit less compelling than their first go-around.

Will Tyson Fury avenge his lone defeat? Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and the unofficial czar of “major league” boxing, certainly hopes so. His Excellency has made known that he stands poised to manufacture a rubber match if Tyson prevails.

We could have already figured this out, but Alalshikh violated one of the protocols of boxing when he came flat out and said so. He effectively made Tyson Fury the “A-side,” no small potatoes considering that the most relevant variable on the checklist when handicapping a fight is, “Who does the promoter need?”

The Uzyk-Fury II fight card will air on DAZN with a suggested list price of $39.99 for U.S. fight fans. The main event is expected to start about 5:45 pm ET / 2:45 pm PT.

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

The Dec. 14 fight at Tijuana between Jaime Munguia and Bruno Surace was conceived as a stay-busy fight for Munguia. The scuttlebutt was that Munguia’s promoters, Zanfer and Top Rank, wanted him to have another fight under his belt before thrusting him against Christian Mbilli in a WBC eliminator with the prize for the winner (in theory) a date with Canelo Alvarez.

Munguia came to the fore in May of 2018 at Verona, New York, when he demolished former U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali, conqueror of Miguel Cotto. That earned him the WBO super welterweight title which he successfully defended five times.

Munguia kept winning as he moved up in weight to middleweight and then super middleweight and brought a 43-0 (34) record into his Cinco de Mayo 2024 match with Canelo.

Jaime went the distance with Alvarez and had a few good moments while losing a unanimous decision. He rebounded with a 10th-round stoppage of Canada’s previously undefeated Erik Bazinyan.

There was little reason to think that Munguia would overlook Surace as the Mexican would be fighting in his hometown for the first time since February of 2022 and would want to send the home folks home happy. Moreover, even if Munguia had an off-night, there was no reason to think that the obscure Surace could capitalize. A Frenchman who had never fought outside France, Surace brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but he had only four knockouts to his credit and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records.

It appeared that Munguia would close the show early when he sent the Frenchman to the canvas in the second round with a big left hook. From that point on, Surace fought mostly off his back foot, throwing punches in spurts, whereas the busier Munguia concentrated on chopping him down with body punches. But Surace absorbed those punches well and at the midway point of the fight, behind on the cards but nonplussed, it now looked as if the bout would go the full 10 rounds with Munguia winning a lopsided decision.

Then lightning struck. Out of the blue, Surace connected with an overhand right to the jaw. Munguia went down flat on his back. He rose a fraction-of-a second before the count reached “10,”, but stumbled as he pulled himself upright. His eyes were glazed and referee Juan Jose Ramirez, a local man, waived it off. There was no protest coming from Munguia or his cornermen. The official time was 2:36 of round six.

At major bookmaking establishments, Jaime Munguia was as high as a 35/1 favorite. No world title was at stake, yet this was an upset for the ages.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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