Triller’s initial Fight Club pay-per-view on Saturday aimed to have a party vibe-- and it did. But it was the kind of party where obnoxious, drunk, rich fucks dance around with lampshades on their heads, wanting to be the life of the party. In other words, it was a really shitty party.
I mean, where do I start? It was long (the first nearly two-and-half hours of the show featured precisely one fight-- the two-round blowout of reggaeton star Reykon, who landed zero punches against Joe Fournier). It was also insipid, self-indulgent, and, most importantly, it just wasn’t very entertaining.
If you’re familiar with my work, you know that I have zero issues with sideshow events like Saturday’s. I even wrote an article during the week, saying that I thought this might be a fun evening for fight fans. But this show, coming live from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, didn’t really deliver anything to anybody.
Structured around forgettable musical performances and full-of-themselves celebrities telling each other how much fun we’re all having, there was very, very little meat on this bone for anyone-- particularly fight fans who, I assume, were the target market for this show.
If you were a boxing fan looking to get some value for your purchase, you got this:
– Boxing businessman Joe Fournier made easy work of Reykon, as mentioned above.
– Steve Cunningham carried Frank Mir for six boring rounds that were completely overshadowed by an apparently tipsy Oscar De La Hoya on the mic, who slurred his words, messed up Cunningham’s “USS” nickname repeatedly, and looked about one drink or one puff away from breaking out the fishnets and kitchen utensils.
– Regis Prograis beat Ivan Redkach in a disappointingly flat match that ended in a disappointing technical decision when the ref screwed up and let Redkach’s insistence of a low blow influence his call of a legal, belt-line shot.
– In the main event (!), YouTuber Jake Paul stopped dad bod-sporting former MMA champ Ben Askren in the first round. Oddly enough, it was Paul who best lived up to any sort of real boxing/fighting aesthetic this evening by clearly taking his bout seriously and actually going for the kill. His quick, fight-ending right hand behind the jab was very nice. Say what you will about the guy, but he DOES have some decent skills for a novice three-fight pro and seems to be taking his development seriously (It also must be said, though, that he’s yet to fight an actual boxer).
There WERE some memorable moments, however.
– Justin Bieber playing to a crowd that wasn't there..."Come on, let me hear you! I can't hear you!"
– Commentator Ray Flores’ cringy swearing on play-by-play.
– The running “joke” about getting commentator Al Bernstein high.
– Oscar De La Hoya’s trademark self-destructive buffoonery as he was supposed to be hyping his July 3 “comeback,” but, instead, made a sloppy-drunk fool of himself on commentary.
Unfortunately for the Triller people, none of these memorable moments had anything to do with the product they were selling and none were positives for the Fight Club franchise. The public relations people did a good job in reaching media and making the show accessible in this Covid era, but the show, itself, was bad...really bad...like, franchise-killing bad. And I don’t look forward to seeing how shitty Teofimo Lopez’s surrounding act may be for his Triller debut in June.
This Fight Club concept was born out of the atmosphere created during the Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. exhibition fight last November, which was fun and folksy and fortified by a nostalgia-heavy night of faux boxing. Saturday’s $50 PPV was just a bad caricature of that show.
There was nothing charming or endearing about what we saw on Fight Club. There was nothing boxing-positive about the show. It was just one big cluster fuck of celebs play-acting party at the expense of everyone’s good time. Even Fight Club part-owner, Snoop Dog, who came off as your cool weed-baked uncle at the family party for the Tyson-Jones show, tilted more towards obnoxiously “cool” than I-give-no-fucks fun. And, Mario Lopez? Come on. Mario Lopez is to boxing telecasts what a sprig of parsley is to your overpriced Planet Hollywood burger. He ads nothing. Surely, there’s another latino face man who can get a shot at talking boxing on TV.
Triller needs to tighten this shit up or scrap the concept for parts.
Near the beginning of the telecast, Snoop Dog told the camera (I’m paraphrasing), “Boxing ain’t what it used to be...that's why a card like this is about as good as you're going to get.” And, man, he wasn’t lying.
You know how they say that if you don't raise your kid, the streets will? Well, this card is what happens when boxing doesn't raise its kid and entertainment folk step in to raise him. Don’t blame the carpetbaggers for showing up to sell a product not being sold properly by its supposed caretakers.
“Real world” boxing can’t get its shit together and refuses to put on a quality show for its fans. So, the money and attention from a public that still buys into the idea of prizefighting goes elsewhere.
Make no mistake about, as bad as Triller’s Fight Club was, boxing could learn a thing or two from the effort. Like, primarily, about trying to add some value to their events as a whole and not making every card come off as a garbage dump prelude to a main event you don’t really want all that much, anyway. If you’re not going to give the fans the fights they want-- which is the sport’s primary problem in the present tense-- at least try to dress things up.
Boxing’s perpetual no-shows lead to shit shows like what we saw Saturday on Triller.
Got something for Magno? Send it here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com