Hello boxing fans and dedicated haters. Here’s another week’s worth of my bulbous sack, bulging with gooey, salty truth, in your face. Enjoy. This week, we have comments/questions regarding Top Rank, Canelo-Crawford logistics, competing cards, and Jaime Munguia’s dirty test.
Top Rank/Canelo-Crawford Logistics/Competing Cards
Hi Paul.
I trust this finds you doing well.
A couple of thoughts as Boxing moves into its summer season.
– What's your take on Top Rank's seeming struggles to find a media outlet for their Boxing programming? Are they overvaluing the product or holding out for an announcement later this summer. My understanding is that their contract with ESPN expires at the end of July?
– There seems to be some mixed messages in the rollout and announcement of Canelo-Crawford. Who plans the promotional and organizational strategies for Turki and the Saudis? Do they have a plan? Or do they just throw around money everywhere?
– Why schedule dueling events on July 19 and August 16? Must fans pay for Usyk-Dubois and Manny-Barrios on July 19 and Tank-Roach and Teo-Haney on Aug. 16? Crazy stuff.
Thanks and take care.
– John
Hey John.
I’ll tackle these in order:
– Yeah, ESPN is done with Top Rank and their contract with them is over this summer. There’s wildly conflicting information floating around regarding where the Bob Arum company may land. Some are saying that they can’t find a broadcast partner. A recent report came out saying that, per Arum, there’s a deal in place which will see them put on up to 40 shows a year via three separate outlets. So, who knows?
Personally, I lean towards the latter more than the former, just because I find it hard to believe that with so many content-starved streaming services, there wouldn’t be at least one sucker, er, buyer. The “three separate outlets” part, however, leads me to believe that the broadcast arrangements are not very big or lucrative. After all, would a serious powerhouse broadcaster offering a powerhouse deal be okay with sharing their acquisition with two other outlets?
Either way, we should know soon enough about Top Rank’s plans.
– Well, it sure seems as though the only plan going on over there in Turkiland centers around Turki Alalshikh acting out on his naive whims and the yes men around him agreeing that his every move is genius.
As of right now, Turki has snatched the promotion from TKO Group and is keeping it Saudi-centric. The September 13 date has been secured, but not the location or the venue. Not having a clearly-defined promoter is a boxing nerd/media lament, but not knowing where the actual fight is going to be seems like a really big deal. It’s the beginning of June, but fans need to know pretty soon where the fight will be, so they can actually make plans to travel there.
And this is one of many problems with the Saudi boxing takeover. Turki and his people don’t seem tuned in, at all, when it comes to the wants, needs, and necessities of the fans (the consumers). This Canelo-Crawford procrastination is tone deaf in the same way that having three pay-per-views in the span of eight days was tone deaf. It’s tone deaf in the same way that having a NY Times Square card, but fencing it off entirely so only 300 VIPs could attend, was tone deaf. It’s as if this business is being run for the sole enjoyment of one person-- Turki-- and without regard to actually turning a profit or making the business long-term sustainable. And that could very well be the case.
The Saudi money will buy a lot of deference and, apparently, a clear path to do whatever the hell they want in the short term. But that money is nowhere near as robust or as unlimited as people have been lead to believe. At some point their boxing business will have to operate like a business. They’ll have to turn profits and actually care about the consumers beyond the current Turki-think of “Hey, look at this thing I bought, how cool am I?” That’s where they will flounder and fall because the man in charge (Turki) is an impetuous man-child who has zero tolerance for anyone telling him anything he prefers not to hear.
– Boxing is stupid and self-destructive. What else is there to say? Staging competing big ticket events on the same day-- often at the same time-- makes absolutely no sense. This sport is stupid to the point of being a lost cause. It’s absolutely amazing that we haven’t run ourselves into oblivion, although we sure seem to be making an effort to do so currently.
Jaime Munguia Pops Dirty
Hey Magno.
What a surprise that Jaime Munguia starts training with Eddy Reynoso and he suddenly comes up dirty for PEDs! People should be talking about this may more than they are and by that I mean media should be talking about it, as well as commissions and sanctioning organizations because the fans have been all over this.
– Steven M.
Hey Steven.
I said this recently on Twitter, but honestly, I'm more surprised when fighters DON'T test positive for something. You’d have to be terminally naive to think that the most poorly regulated “real” sport, where the bulk of the serious PEDs testing is conducted on a voluntary basis according to the whims and conditions of the fighters and promoters, is not brimming with juiced up athletes.
Whether Munguia is a cheat or Reynoso is complicit in his fighters’ dirty tests is beside the point. The issue is that boxing isn’t serious about antidoping measures and never has been. There was a point, around the initial Mayweather-Pacquiao discussions, where the time may have been right for a serious run at true PEDs testing. But insiders with a vested interest in not having real testing played certain media members like suckers, changing the direction of the public discourse and, thereby, leading the way to the ridiculous idea that voluntary additional testing was the right way to go.
Now, with the kids essentially running the proverbial candy shop by handling much of their own testing, there’s no way to really know who’s dirty and who’s not.
Got a question (or hate mail) for Magno’s Bulging Mail Sack? The best of the best gets included in the weekly mailbag segment right here at FightHype. Send your stuff here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com.