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Al Haymon’s CBS special full of Al Haymon Specials was garbage compared to UFC

By Zach Arnold | April 4, 2015

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I loved the UFC Fairfax, Virginia show on Fox Sports 1. Mornings & afternoons aren’t my thing but the crowd was great and there were some wild moments that made the show completely worth watching.

And then there was the Al Haymon Special on CBS that was full of Al Haymon Specials that boxing fans have had to choke on for the last few years. Al Haymon promoting fights that Al Haymon the advisor allegedly gets a cut of. What an industry.

The Jorge Masvidal vs. Al Iaquinta fight was a textbook example of how MMA judges look for completely different standards when scoring a fight. This was a pro-Iaquinta crowd. One judge scored the fight 30-27 in favor of Masvidal. The crowd agreed. The other two judges scored the fight 29-28 in favor of Iaquinta. The crowd was super pissed. Masvidal tried to bolt out of the cage only to be stopped by someone. Iaquinta got pissed at the crowd booing and told them to stick it Hogan NWO-style. He left the cage after Masvidal. This was spectacular television. A built-in re-match.

Julianna Pena returned and was a wrecking machine. We basically saw the end of Gray Maynard. Ricardo Lamas is a good fighter who is no longer a serious contender. Chad Mendes delivered when it counted. I came into the show with few expectations and was pleasantly surprised.

I came into Al Haymon’s CBS show with a limited amount of expectations. His show turned out to be a dud. Mismatches galore for his event on CBS at Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City. Adonis Stevenson had his squash match with 15-to-1 underdog Sakio Bika. Artur Beterbiev dispatched of Gabriel Campillo with ease. Julian Williams housed Joey Hernandez. What a snore-fest.

NBC took pains to try to build up the fighters with some video packages on their telecast. CBS didn’t even bother. They labeled the event a “CBS Sports Spectacular,” which is the same vernacular they use to market rodeo or skiing events that air against Fox NFL games for filler. Fans are conditioned to look it as a low level deal when they see the “sports spectacular” phrase. The only positive for the show was Kevin Harlan & Paulie Malignaggi working the mic.

The telecast went out of its way to avoid using sanctioning body names although they couldn’t hide the shirt patches that the refs were wearing. There were fighters cutting promos for fights on other networks but they couldn’t say what those networks were. There was only a brief mention of upcoming events after the end of R1 of Stevenson/Bika.

Bizarrely, it appeared that the ring announcer was not in the ring again just like the NBC event. Haymon’s McMahon-esque quirks.

In a three hour block of paid TV time, it hardly appeared that Haymon’s operation was able to obtain significant sponsorship at all. His strategy of buying TV time everywhere at some point has to return an investment to his money marks. PPV is the only vehicle to pull this off. The CBS event came across as just another sanitized boxing show. Boxing writer Steve Kim says a big part of the fun with boxing is covering the carnival-like atmosphere. You certainly don’t get that with Haymon’s shows. But hey, ESPN has killed off Friday Night Fights to take the Haymon TV pay days. What will happen if Haymon’s deal implodes and TV networks demand promoters pay them as opposed to paying promoters to produce shows? Scorched Earth.

Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

4 Responses to “Al Haymon’s CBS special full of Al Haymon Specials was garbage compared to UFC”

  1. DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

    FYI, last weeks Bellator’s Tokoro vs Davis and Warren vs Galvao were better than ufc’s Jorge bellator cast off masvidal vs mr conservative and Mendes vs Lama.
    Both split decisions went to the wrong guy.

  2. sweetviolenturge says:

    Man, I don’t know about anyone else, but I thought today was great. I wish every Saturday could be like it.
    It just so happens that I usually sleep in til about 10:30 & today was no different. So, I hopped out of bed, turned the television on to catch the second half of the pre-fight show while I made some coffee. Of which I grabbed my largest mug of to enjoy with my wee bit of a wake ‘n bake. Just in time for the prelims.
    Which weren’t too bad. I enjoyed the lot as a whole.
    But, not nearly as much as I did the main card. That was just a really enjoyable show with a nice flow from one fight to the next, with only Guida’s win being a bit of a drag because of the monotony.
    And the sudden, unexpectedly quick end of the main event was a bit of a shock. I really thought it was going to be a five round barn burner, with maybe a late round finish. But, a KO1? Didn’t see that coming at all.
    Then it was time to say goodbye to the UFC & watch the fights on CBS by restarting them to make sure to catch the Beterbiev prelim & just as expected, the Russian assassin kept his KO record perfect by destroying former two time world titlist Gabriel Campillo in four rounds.
    Yeah, turned out to be mismatch, but Campillo was/is no joke man. He’s usually a tricky, capable boxer who was rated as the #2 contender in the world coming into today’s fight. So, I won’t complain about Haymon’s match making on this one.
    But, that main event? UGH!
    What a drag man. If I hadn’t kept my good buzz going into the afternoon, that fight might have threatened to sour the whole day. LOL. Yeah, it was THAT much of an ugly affair, dragging on for 12 turgid rounds with only the occasional burst of violence to keep my eyes on the screen.
    Haymon had better not serve up too many more of these sort of meaningless time wasters or this whole glut of boxing that he’s unloading onto all these various networks will be seen as nothing more than a colossal wasted opportunity.

    Peace.

  3. DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

    Boy ufc 186 looks great!

    T.J. Dillashaw vs Renan Barao
    Demetrious Johnson vs Kyoji Horiguchi
    Rampage Jackson vs Fabio Maldonado.
    Hector Lombard vs Rory MacDonald
    Michael Bisping vs C.B. Dollaway

    oh wait,

    Demetrious Johnson vs Kyoji Horiguchi
    Michael Bisping vs C.B. Dollaway
    Patrick Cote vs. Joe Riggs
    Sarah Kaufman v Alexis Davis
    John Makdessi vs. Shane Campbell

    boy the ufc is desperate… They sign guy who is still under contract with bellator. And again they go with the fly weight bantamweight double title fight main event that fails EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!

    Anyone who buys a ticket or ppv should get 50% off, since this card is on the cheap. Imagine how much money ufc will save on fighter salaries! Of course no one will buy the crummy thing.

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