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Underdog Showtime Won Its War With HBO, But the Victory Now Seems Hollow
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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Floyd Schofield Wins a Banger and Gabriela Fundora Wins by KO
Floyd Schofield Wins a Banger and Gabriela Fundora Wins by KO
LAS VEGAS-Shades of Henry Armstrong and Baby Arizmendi. If you don’t know those names, look them up.
Floyd Schofield battled his way past Mexico’s super tough Rene Tellez Giron who walked through every blow the Texan could fire but lost by decision on Saturday.
It was a severe test and perfect matchmaking for Schofield who yearns for the big bouts against the lightweight giants roaming the world.
Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs) remains undefeated and won the war over thick-necked Mexican Tellez Giron (20-4, 13 KOs) who has never been knocked out and proved to be immune to big punches.
In the opening rounds, the Texas fighter came out firing rapid combinations from the southpaw and orthodox stances. Meanwhile the shorter Tellez Giron studied and fired back an occasional counter for two rounds.
Tellez Giron had seen enough and took his stand in the third stanza. Both unleashed blazing bombs with Schofield turning his back to the Mexican. At that moment referee Tom Taylor could have waved the fight over.
You never turn your back.
The fight resumed and Schofield was damaged. He tried to open up with even more deadly fire but was rebuked by the strong chin of Tellez Giron who fired back in the mad frenzy.
For the remainder of the fight Schofield tried every trick in his arsenal to inflict damage on the thick-necked Mexican. He could not be wobbled. In the 11th round both opened up with serious swing-from-the-heels combinations and suddenly Schofield was looking up. He beat the count easily and the two remained slugging it out.
“He hit me with a good shot,” Schofield said of the knockdown. “I just had to get up. I’m not going to quit.”
In the final round Schofield moved around looking for the proper moment to engage. The Mexican looked like a cat ready to pounce and the two fired furious blows. Neither was hit with the big bombs in the last seconds.
There was Tellez Giron standing defiantly like Baby Arizmendi must have stood in those five ferocious meetings against the incomparable Henry Armstrong. Three of their wars took place in Los Angeles, two at the Olympic Auditorium in the late 1930s as the U.S. was emerging from the Great Depression.
In this fight, Schofield took the win by unanimous decision by scores 118-109 twice and 116-111. It was well-deserved.
“I tried to bang it out,” said Schofield. “Today I learned you can’t always get the knockout.”
Fundora
IBF flyweight titlist Gabriela Fundora needed seven rounds to figure out the darting style of Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz before firing a laser left cross down the middle to end the battle and become the undisputed flyweight world champion.
Fundora now holds all four titles including the WBO, WBA and WBC titles that Alaniz brought in the ring.
Fundora knocked down Alaniz midway through the seventh round. She complained it was due to a tangle of the legs. Several seconds later Fundora blasted the Argentine to the floor again with a single left blast. This time there was no doubt. Her corner wisely waved a white towel to stop the fight at 1:40 of the seventh round.
No one argued the stoppage.
Other Bouts
Bektemir Melikuziev (15-1, 10 KOs) didn’t make weight in a title bout but managed to out-fight David Stevens (14-2, 10 KOs) in a super middleweight fight held at 12 rounds.
Melikuziev used his movement and southpaw stance to keep Pennsylvania’s Stevens from being able to connect with combinations. But Stevens did show he could handle “The Bully’s” punching power over the 12-round fight.
After 12 rounds one judge favored Stevens 116-112, while two others saw Melikuziev the winner by split decision 118-110 and 117-111.
Super middleweight WBA titlist Darius Fulghum (13-0, 11 KOs) pummeled his way to a technical knockout win over southpaw veteran Chris Pearson (17-5-1, 12 KOs) who attempted the rope-a-dope strategy to no avail.
Fulghum floored Pearson in the first round with a four-punch combination and after that just belted Pearson who covered up and fired an occasional blow. Referee Mike Perez stopped the fight at 1:02 of the third round when Pearson did not fire back after a blazing combination.
Young welterweight prospect Joel Iriarte (5-0, 5 KOs) blasted away at the three-inch shorter Xavier Madrid (5-6, 2 KOs) who hung tough for as long as possible. At 2:50 of the first round a one-two delivered Madrid to the floor and referee Thomas Taylor called off the beating.
Iriarte, from Bakersfield, Calif., could not miss with left uppercuts and short rights as New Mexico’s Madrid absorbed every blow but would not quit. It was just too much firepower from Iriarte that forced the stoppage.
Photos credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy
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Results and Recaps from Turning Stone where O’Shaquie Foster Nipped Robson Conceicao
Top Rank was at the Turning Stone casino-resort in Verona, New York, tonight with an 8-bout card topped by a rematch between Robson Conceicao and O’Shaquie Foster with the victor retaining or recapturing his IBF world junior lightweight title. When the smoke cleared, the operative word was “recapturing” as Foster became a two-time title-holder, avenging his controversial setback to the Brazilian in Newark on July 6.
This was a somewhat better fight than their initial encounter and once again the verdict was split. Foster prevailed by 115-113 on two of the cards with the dissenting judge favoring Conceicao by the same margin. Conceicao seemingly had the edge after nine frames, but Foster, a 4/1 favorite, landed the harder shots in the championship rounds.
It was the thirteenth victory in the last 14 starts for Foster who fights out of Houston. A two-time Olympian and 2016 gold medalist, the 36-year-old Conceicao is 19-3-1 overall and 1-3-1 in world title fights.
Semi-wind-up
SoCal lightweight Raymond Muratalla (22-0, 17 KOs) made a big jump in public esteem and moved one step closer to a world title fight with a second-round blast-out of Jose Antonio Perez who was on the canvas twice but on his feet when the fight was stopped at the 1:24 mark of round two. Muratalla, a product of Robert Garcia’s boxing academy, is ranked #2 by the WBC and WBO. A Tijuana native, Perez (25-6) earned this assignment with an upset of former Olympian and former 130-pound world titlist Jojo Diaz,
Other Bouts
Syracuse junior welterweight Bryce Mills, a high-pressure fighter with a strong local following, stopped scrawny Mike O’Han Jr whose trainer Mark DeLuca pulled him out after five one-sided rounds. Mills improved to 17-1 (6 KOs). It was another rough day at the office for Massachusetts house painting contractor O’’Han (19-4) who had the misfortune of meeting Abdullah Mason in his previous bout.
In a junior lightweight fight that didn’t heat up until late in the final round, Albany’s Abraham Nova (23-3-1) and Tijuana native Humberto Galindo (14-3-3) fought to a 10-round draw. It was another close-but-no- cigar for the likeable Nova who at least stemmed a two-fight losing streak. The judges had it 97-93 (Galindo), 96-94 (Nova) and 95-95.
Twenty-one-year-old Long Island middleweight Jahi Tucker advanced to 13-1-1 (6 KOs) with an eighth-round stoppage of Stockton’s teak-tough but outclassed Quilisto Madera (14-6). Madera was on a short leash after five rounds, but almost took it to the final bell with the referee intervening with barely a minute remaining in the contest. Madera was on his feet when the match was halted. Earlier in the round, Tucker had a point deducted for hitting on the break.
Danbury, Connecticut heavyweight Ali Feliz, one of two fighting sons of journeyman heavyweight Fernely Feliz, improved to 4-0 (3) with a second-round stoppage of beefy Rashad Coulter (5-5). Feliz had Coulter pinned against the ropes and was flailing away when the bout was halted at the 1:34 mark. The 42-year-old Coulter, a competitor in all manner of combat sports, hadn’t previously been stopped when competing as a boxer.
Featherweight Yan Santana dominated and stopped Mexico’s Eduardo Baez who was rescued by referee Charlie Fitch at the 1:57 mark of round four. It was the 12th knockout in 13 starts for Santana, a 24-year-old Dominican father of three A former world title challenger, Mexicali’s Baez declines to 23-7-2 but has lost six of his last eight.
In his most impressive showing to date, Damian Knyba, a six-foot-seven Pole, knocked out paunchy Richard Lartey at the 2:10 mark of round three. A right-left combination knocked Lartey into dreamland, but it was the right did the damage and this was of the nature of a one-punch knockout. Referee Ricky Gonzalez waived the fight off without starting a count.
Knyba, 28, improved to 14-0 (8 KOs). A native of Ghana coming off his career-best win, a fourth-round stoppage of Polish veteran Andrzej Wawrzyk, Lartey declined to 16-7 with his sixth loss inside the distance.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 303: Spotlights on Lightweights and More
Those lightweights.
Whether junior lights, super lights or lightweights, it’s the 130-140 divisions where most of boxing’s young stars are found now or in the past.
Think Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather.
Floyd Schofield (17-0, 12 KOs) a Texas product, hungers to be a star and takes on Mexico’s Rene Tellez Giron (20-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round lightweight bout on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.
DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotion card that includes a female undisputed flyweight championship match pitting Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz and Gabriela Fundora.
Like a young lion looking to flex, Schofield (pictured on the left) is eager to meet all the other young lions and prove they’re not equal.
“I’ve been in the room with Shakur, Tank. I want to give everyone a good fight. I feel like my preparation is getting better, I work hard, I’ve dedicated my whole life to this sport,” said Schofield naming fellow lightweights Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
Now he meets Mexico’s Tellez who has never been stopped.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” said Tellez.
Even in Las Vegas.
Verona, New York
Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a WBC junior lightweight title rematch finds Robson Conceicao (19-2-1, 9 KOs) looking to prove superior to former titlist O’Shaquie Foster (22-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y. ESPN+ will stream the Top Rank fight card.
Last July, Conceicao and Foster clashed and after 12 rounds the title changed hands from Foster to the Brazilian by split decision.
“I feel that a champion is a fighter who goes out there and doesn’t run around, who looks for the fight, who tries to win, and doesn’t just throw one or two punches and then moves away,” said Conceicao.
Foster disagrees.
“I hope he knows the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. That’s the name of the game,” said Foster.
Also on the same card is lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla (21-0, 16 KOs) who fights Mexico’s Jesus Perez Campos (25-5, 18 KOs).
Perez recently defeated former world champion Jojo Diaz last February in California.
“We’re made for challenges. I like challenges,” said Perez.
Muratalla likes challenges too.
“I think these fights are the types of fights I need to show my skills and to prove I deserve those title fights,” said Fontana’s Muratalla.
Female Undisputed Flyweight Championship
WBA, WBC and WBO flyweight titlist Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz (15-1, 6 KOs meets IBF titlist Gabriela Fundora (14-0, 6 KOs) on Saturday Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. DAZN will stream the clash for the undisputed flyweight championship.
Argentina’s Alaniz clashed twice against former WBA, WBC champ Marlen Esparza with their first encounter ending in a dubious win for the Texas fighter. In fact, three of Esparza’s last title fights were scored controversially.
But against Alaniz, though they fought on equal terms, Esparza was given a 99-91 score by one of the judges though the world saw a much closer contest. So, they fought again, but the rematch took place in California. Two judges deemed Alaniz the winner and one Esparza for a split-decision win.
“I’m really happy to be here representing Argentina. We are ready to fight. Nothing about this fight has to do with Marlen. So, I hope she (Fundora) is ready. I am ready to prepare myself for the great fight of my life,” said Alaniz.
In the case of Fundora, the extremely tall American fighter at 5’9” in height defeated decent competition including Maria Santizo. She was awarded a match with IBF flyweight titlist Arely Mucino who opted for the tall youngster over the dangerous Kenia Enriquez of Mexico.
Bad choice for Mucino.
Fundora pummeled the champion incessantly for five rounds at the Inglewood Forum a year ago. Twice she battered her down and the fight was mercifully stopped. Fundora’s arm was raised as the new champion.
Since that win Fundora has defeated Christina Cruz and Chile’s Daniela Asenjo in defense of the IBF title. In an interesting side bit: Asenjo was ranked as a flyweight contender though she had not fought in that weight class for seven years.
Still, Fundora used her reach and power to easily handle the rugged fighter from Chile.
Immediately after the fight she clamored for a chance to become undisputed.
“It doesn’t get better than this, especially being in Las Vegas. This is the greatest opportunity that we can have,” said Fundora.
It should be exciting.
Fights to Watch
Sat. ESPN+ 2:50 p.m. Robson Conceicao (19-2-1) vs O’Shaquie Foster (22-3).
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Floyd Schofield (17-0) vs Rene Tellez Giron (20-3); Gabriela Alaniz (15-1) vs Gabriela Fundora (14-0).
Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy
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