What circulated
around the Worldwide Web on Thursday was made official on Andre Ward's official
Twitter account (@andreward) that night regarding the WBA super middleweight champion’s
bout versus Carl Froch in the finals of Showtime's “Super Six” tournament:
"Bad News: I sustained a cut in sparring a few hours
ago...flew to LA to see the Doc. I got 7 stitches. I will let you know the new
date soon"
Y' know,
there have been some notable curses in sports, from the “Curse of the Bambino”
(which the Boston Red Sox expunged in 2004), the “Curse of the Billy Goat” (now
perhaps the “Curse of Steve Bartman” for long-suffering Chicago Cubs
loyalists), the “Electronic Arts Curse” (which seems to hit every NFL who gets
the honor of being its gaming cover boy for the season…be very careful, Peyton
Hillis) and being a top pick of the Clippers (which has no moniker other than simply
being called a “Clipper”). No curse is as alive and well as the one afflicting
this super middleweight scrum, which has seen its share of snafus since its
inception in 2009.
From the
withdrawals of Jermain Taylor, Mikkel Kessler and most suspiciously, Andre
Dirrell, this tourney has seen more than its share of bad luck. It almost seems
appropriate that this last bout be delayed from its original date of October 29th.
Showtime’s Ken
Hershman, who came up with the revolutionary modified round-robin, told
Maxboxing he had an ominous feeling on Thursday. "I sort of had a
suspicion when I got this call from my secretary that it was urgent, could Dan
Goossen (Ward's promoter) talk to me? And once you're in the promotion part of
the fight, you're talking about marketing and P.R. - there are no emergencies.
The only real urgent calls you get are these. I sort of steeled myself for the
inevitable, that there was some kind of injury. It's part of the sport. You go
with it and you gotta deal with it and you can't get yourself into too big of a
frenzy of it."
Moving
forward, Showtime now looks to reschedule this event, which was to take place originally
at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
"We're
looking at options. We're looking at things towards the end of the year and
trying to squeeze things in," said Hershman. "There's not a lot of
good options. As you saw from the dust-up connected to December 3rd (http://ringtv.craveonline.com/blog/169288-arum-vows-retaliation-against-golden-boy-showtime-)-
which in my mind is a fairly non-event to such a huge conflict with Top Rank- you
can see how challenged the dates are because we didn't set out to
counterprogram anyone. It's not our intent. Now we're even more against it
because we have yet another big, important fight to slot in somewhere."
Looking
ahead, Showtime has its “Championship Boxing” telecasts scheduled for November
5th (Lucian Bute vs. Glen Johnson and Robert Stieglitz vs. Mikkel
Kessler) and December 3rd (Abner Mares vs. Joseph Agbeko II).
Meanwhile, HBO/HBO PPV has shows scheduled for every week in November and
December 3rd and the 10th. OK, you figure that November
12th has to be ruled out since that's Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel
Marquez III, right? "I'm not telling
you anything. We're not ruling out anything," said Hershman, laughing at
the thought.
But the
process of rescheduling postponed bouts means making sure a lot of separate
pieces come together. Hershman explains, "In an injury situation like
this, you gotta first assess the nature of the injury, the degree of
impairment, when training can resume and then, sort of back into the date that
you can first start looking for an opportunity to slot the fight. Then you have
another guy on the end of it, right? So you gotta talk to him, then you have to
try and find a venue and a date on the network. So it's all of those
moving parts that have to come together and as you sort of near the
end of the calendar year, you have to budget issues to take into consideration
too. Because if you move this fight into next year, it sounds like a
simple thing, you're moving a big license fee into next year- which may impair
the other things that you were doing for next year, so it's already budgeted
for next year. It's taken into account and it's the end of the year. There's
not a lot to replace it. We don't necessarily give that up."
Just
looking ahead, the only week where this fight will not conflict with an HBO
telecast is December 17th, which is a week or so before Christmas, the
very same weekend last year when Showtime broadcast the first go-round between
Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal. Hershman admitted that he hoped for Ward-Froch
to be stay in the same location, the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
The latest
delay to the “Super Six” will bring about the chorus of skeptics who portend
this format, while great in theory, isn't so good in reality. That critique
seems to be a tad unfair because regardless of the hiccups, the “Super Six” has
brought us some good fights (Kessler-Froch, for instance), boxers who have been
exposed (Arthur Abraham) and ascended to potential stardom (Ward and Froch) and
a very good finals match-up. Perhaps you don't need a tournament bracket to
achieve this in the future but in regard to the 168-pound division, it provided
a framework for all this to take place since 2009.
"As
I've said, if you take the tournament layer off of the “Super Six,” you just
got lots of great fights and great in and out of the ring drama," said the
“Czar” of Showtime's boxing franchise. "And yeah, there're injuries but
injuries happen everywhere, happen in every sport, happen in every walk of life
for people. So it's just something you contend with. But this tournament, as
I've said, it's had its moments, had its ups and downs but there was no
shortage of drama- and why wouldn't you want drama? It's exciting. It's
interesting, challenging. It's difficult. That's what it is.
"And
again, whoever comes out at the end of this [will be a star]- whenever the end
is- it'll just be a few more months."
SCHEDULE
Here's a
look at the November and December schedules for HBO and Showtime:
November 5th:
Bute vs. Johnson, Stieglitz vs. Kessler (Showtime)/Alfredo Angulo vs. James
Kirkland (HBO)
November 12th:
Pacquiao vs. Marquez III (HBO PPV)
November 19th:
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Peter Manfredo (HBO)
November 26th:
Adrien Broner vs. TBA
December 3rd:
Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito II (HBO PPV)/Abner Mares vs. Joseph Agbeko
II (Showtime)
December 10th:
Amir Khan vs. Lamont Peterson (HBO)
As referenced
in Satterfield's story, Bob Arum was none too happy about what he believes is
blatant counterprogramming by both Showtime (who he was rather cozy with in the
first half of 2011) and his archrivals at Golden Boy Promotions. What really bothers
Top Rank is not only did they move their card with Nonito Donaire from November
5th to October 22nd ( which will be on HBO) to accommodate
Showtime, they say that their past agreements with the network forbade them
from counterprogramming and that Showtime themselves didn't adhere to such
stipulations.
When asked
about Arum's statements, Hershman stated, "I was surprised. I was very
surprised. I didn't think it was appropriate. It is what it is."
That said,
WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios will no longer be on Showtime on December
10th and instead will be moved to the Cotto-Margarito II undercard
at the Madison Square Garden in New York the previous week.
As for the
seemingly thawing “Cold War” between Top Rank and Golden Boy…well, with Golden
Boy leaning on AEG to get the Nonito Donaire-Omar Narvaez fight out of the Home
Depot Center in Carson and now this, I wouldn't expect talks between the two
regarding Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Saul Alvarez- or other potentially great
fights- to go very far.
The more
things change, the more they stay the same...
WOO-HOO
A few
thoughts:
- Did
anyone really think that an Al Haymon fighter was going to appear on a Top Rank
show?
- This is
interesting…so Dan Goossen really thought that Ramos was to receive $225,000
for himself? OK, maybe he did but based on that number, for Ramos to receive
that kind of money now, a purse bid of right around $500,000 will have to
be put in for that to occur. Now, would anyone in his right mind put
anywhere near that type of money up for that track meet?
- Yeah, I
know, Ramos-Rigondeaux is one of those “skillful” and “important” fights some
folks yearn for but the 98 percent that watch this sport are the winners here.
Now, in place of Ramos-Rigondeaux, we get a fan-friendly fighter who is
must-see TV every time he laces them up. The only downside is - and this was mentioned
to me on Twitter- fans inside the Garden lost their piss/food/smoke break with
the loss of Ramos-Rigondeaux.
Still, this
here is a win-win situation for everybody involved- except Goossen, who may now
have to put up his own money for a fight there may not be much demand for. You
can call this addition by subtraction (and then addition by addition).
FIRE SALE
While Lou
DiBella keeps telling everyone that his show on Saturday featuring middleweight
champion Sergio Martinez and Darren “Come on down!” Barker is doing well at the
box-office, you have to wonder just how well. On Friday, it was announced by DBE that anyone with a proof of purchase
of tickets for the cancelled fight on October 29th (which DBE had
nothing to do with) will receive a 30-percent discount for this weekend’s card,
in addition to a discount for firefighters and policemen.
I wouldn't
say they couldn't give Martinez-Barker tickets away but they sure are going
through some unusual measures to get people to buy them. For Barker, maybe at
30 percent off, the price is right (Yeah, horrible pun. I couldn't resist) but
in addition to being a fight that is thought to be obviously lopsided (Barker
is a steep, steep underdog), Martinez, for all his talents, is nowhere near a
draw. And his representatives still haven't figured out that fighting twice a
year on HBO isn't the way to build a star or enough of a cache to lure the
likes of Miguel Cotto into the ring.
It's
interesting but I keep hearing how Martinez is “important” (another Harry
Hardcore catch phrase) for HBO and how he needs to be showcased. Well, if he's
so “important,” why doesn't anyone except a very vocal minority (that to their
credit make up the crowds that come to his events in half-filled ballrooms)
seem to give a damn about him?
Meanwhile,
Martinez’s promoter seems to be pontificating on every subject (from mandated
blood tests for Victor Ortiz should he rematch Andre Berto to his predictions
on a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight). Maybe he should focus more on his clients’
activities and this upcoming promotion.
FINAL
FLURRIES
Jorge Arce,
ol' man (bloody) river just keeps flowing, doesn't he?...By the way, if DiBella
is an agent of change, is random Olympic-style testing for Martinez-Barker
available?...Maybe it's just me but I thought the bout between Vicente
Escobedo was a lot closer than the scorecards had it (for Escobedo).
@InSwiderBox tweeted that Escobedo-Juarez wasn't so much a crossroads match but
a cul-de-sac bout...I though the post-fight “24/7” for Floyd Mayweather-Victor
Ortiz was excellent. I hope HBO does more of these in the future for their big
pay-per-view bouts...Speaking of which, some of the stuff said by Ortiz in the
aftermath, well, leaves me scratching my head a bit...Ortiz and Oscar De La
Hoya will be having a conference call with reporters this week to talk about
the fight. Uh, isn't this about a week late?...Call Life Alert; the Red
Sox have fallen and they can't get up!...Once again, the September Heisman
Trophy goes to Denard Robinson of Meatchicken...Based on strength of schedule,
LSU is my top team... Is Clemson this year’s Auburn? Tajh Boyd is for real and
Sammy Watkins is a freshman star...Folks, I told you months ago; the Buffalo
Bills are a team to contend with in 2011 and I think the Detroit Lions are for
real...
