Boxing's Huge Numbers Are Telling
Moments after I took my HBO seat ringside at "The Joint" in the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas (for Joan Guzman - Ali Funeka 2) it was apparent that I was present at another sold-out boxing card. More importantly, casino management indicated that fight cards were bringing more business (buzz; as they referred it) to the complex. An outside observer would need only to look at the past few months to assess the business of boxing.
The mammoth event held at Cowboy Stadium topped by the Manny Pacquiao - Joshua Clottey fight was attended by 51,000 fans, and purchased by over one million homes (in the U.S). One week later, heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko defended his belts against his mandatory challenger "Fast" Eddy Chambers in front of over 50,000 people in Germany. The champ ko'ed Chambers in the final round and was watched by the now-standard 20 million home viewers on terrestrial tv.
In Germany alone. The theater in Madison Square Gardens was at capacity for the recent Gamboa/Lopez featherweight double-header as was the Arena at the Mohegan Sun Casino (Devon Alexander k.o. of Juan Urango). The Bell Centre in Montreal (Bute - Miranda) and the Pepsi Centre (Lucas - Andrade) are almost completely sold out in Quebec. Further to this trend, promoter Bob Arum has a big card at Yankee Stadium in June featuring Miguel Cotto (on Puerto-Rico festival weekend) versus his Israeli 154 pound opponent Yuri Foreman. Expect 45 - 60,000 fans for the first big stadium fight in New York since Ali - Norton in 1976.
As the economy takes a bite out of N.F.L./M.L.B./N.B.A. attendance numbers across the board, boxing numbers are growing. The United States and Ontario had fallen behind the real growth numbers of Europe and Quebec over the past decade,primarily because of the lack of Olympic stars or viable heavyweights. A bigger problem was the alarming lack of televised boxing over that period, especially on free (terrestrial/antenna) tv.
This situation has astoundingly reversed itself, albeit on cable,in the past six months. Old faithful (ESPN 2) is doing it's thing on Friday nights, but has been joined by the new(Spanish)"Solo Boxeo" series on Telemundo and the new Fox Sports Net series. Add those televised bouts to the healthy roster provided by the twin titans (HBO and Showtime) and there is as much product for boxing fans as ever. Hopefully some of this (other than taped ESPN 2 fights on TSN) can be viewed by the lucrative/maligned/shut-out market of Ontario, Canada. I don't see why Roger's Sportsnet can't put their partner's(Fox Sports) no-cost product on the air instead of poker or darts. And I will surely poke my eye out with a dart if I have to endure more low-level homo-erotic mma pap that has been over-saturated as the product plummets in value.
Be very clear that the exact situation that happenned with Extreme games and networks in the 90's is being duplicated now with mma. The new- era management placed teenage growth blips (like skate-boarding and hula-hooping in earliar blips) ahead of tried and true data (like real boxing revenues/ratings) to a lot of network time and advertising dollars. I don't care which flavour du jour fad/sport that is pandered to(be it tractor-pull or mma) it will eventually taper off and leave a small footprint residue like it's predicessor (roller-derby) did in the 70s.
Bawdy Shots:
I just love being at a brawl and it is suddenly decided by a wicked body shot. The jr.welter scrap between Marcos Maidana and the undefeated Victor Cayo in Vegas last week fulfilled. Cayo was very game until the moment Maidana cut him in half with that body shot...
Lennox Lewis and I ran into Floyd Mayweather jr. at an eatery in the Hard Rock Casino and grabbed two adjoining booths to eat and talk. Floyd had no clue that there was a fight the next night (?) but was eager to tell Lennox about his next big fight (Pacquiao). There is still that little matter of getting by "Sugar" Shane Mosley, whose resume reads like a dream list compared to Floyd. It is going to take a sharp, smart effort to out-box (Floyd will never stop Shane) and evade danger for Floyd to advance to riches. Little Floyd mentioned splitting 100 million dollars with Manny Pacquiao later in the year...
Speaking of hundreds of millions of dollars; Dana White's bosses and chief share holders in the UFC are bleeding money. They have recently borrowed several hundreds of millions to cover their casinos and their fledgling fight league. Add to this the flip-flopping of the Vancouver event,the lucrative province of Ontario dismissing the thought of sanctioning the renegade sport, New York State also demurring to legalise the same, failure to lure a strategic partner/investor, fighters balking at their laughable pay scales and fleeing to other leagues, lack of consistency among the few name (to the general public) stars, injuries and you have serious problems in Dana Valley...
I am off to Montreal next week to catch the Lucien Bute bout against tough puncher Edison Miranda. It will be an entertaining bout with Bute picking apart his very dangerous foe in eight rounds. Lennox Lewis will be doing the broadcast which will also feature a split feed with the other HBO commentating crew calling the Kelly Pavlik middleweight defense against Sergio Martinez in Atlantic City. Also a great fight...
