« San Diego Union-Tribune article on Evan Tanner’s death in the desert | Home | Sengoku & TV Tokyo »
MMA Weekly: Golden Boy working with Affliction
By Zach Arnold | September 13, 2008
Though no word has been forthcoming from either promoter, it is expected that the partnership would include events that commingle boxing and MMA bouts on the same fight card. The move of Affliction’s event gives the two time to work out details and strategies to make such a hybrid fight card possible for the January event.
This is a lousy concept and a cheap gimmick. Just because a promoter was able to make it work on a lower level at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas through sponsorship doesn’t mean that the concept will work on a bigger scale with fighters commanding higher salaries. If I’m watching an MMA show, I want to watch a full card of MMA. I don’t want to watch boxing and MMA together. If I want to watch boxing, I’ll watch a boxing show with hopefully more than one good bout on paper. There’s a difference between getting a cheap or free ticket to a live show with a mixture of boxing & MMA bouts as opposed to me shelling out $40-50 USD for what is supposed to be an MMA PPV.
On paper, Affliction announcing a partnership with Golden Boy has decent “shock value” in terms of PR. In reality, I’m not sure just how much Golden Boy is willing to put into the business relationship. For example, Golden Boy is reportedly not airing the Joel Casamayor-Juan Manuel Marquez PPV fight tonight in HD. The reason? A cost-cutting measure.
Topics: Affliction, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 60 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I’m inclined to agree with your assessment, Zach, but I’ll throw in the caveat that it MAY make a difference if this hybrid show idea is done at a higher level than has been offered so far.
I don’t think it will make a difference, but we’ll see.
Nah….. screw that. I don’t like this idea.
1. If Golden Boy was 100% devoted with MMA, they wouldn’t be making a partnership with Affliction. They would be signing the fighters to Golden Boy Contracts. This is a way for them to get a feel for the industry without taking a financial risk. That risk comes from Affliction. Smart move by GB. Affliction is just hoping for a prayer.
2. The pacing of a boxing & MMA card are very different. Boxing matches can be slow and methodical. MMA has a much quicker pace to both the fights and the telecasts. It will be nearly impossible to run a PPV properly that feels paced correctly.
3. One of the sports will end up looking stupid. Boxing will come across as boring and one-dimensional or MMA will look like amateur hour when they are striking.
4. Dave Meltzer made a great point a few days ago. He basically said that when you put fights with multiple rules on the same card, it ends up frustrating the viewer more then anything else. When the boxers clinch, the fans will say: “He could have been taken down”. When a MMA Fighter is in trouble while being out struck, the fans will say: “Oh, without the ground, he would have been finished”.
5. In the last few months, I went to my first big boxing fight. It was a very weird experience for myself (a long-time MMA fan). The crowd was mostly hispanic and older people. The MMA crowd is mostly young white guys (sorry for the mass generalization). You would think fight fans are fight fans, but each sport has a very different fanbase. It is more then likely that half the crowd will be bored for half the card.
For me personally, I typically don’t like boxing. I enjoy an occasional fight, but it’s just not my cup of tea. Most MMA fans I know are the same way. And I really don’t want to order a 4 hour PPV that is taken up by TWO 12-Round Boxing fights which I really have no interest in.
Interesting in concept, horrible in execution. It might get decent buyrates the first time around if they put big enough stars on the card, but in the long-run this just won’t cut it.
This smacks of desperation and feels like the final throes of death for Affliction.
MMA fans who pay, will pay for MMA fights. Boxing fans who pay, will pay for boxing. The hardcore boxing fans are dismissive of MMA, and vice versa. The cross over fans are far and few between.
Affliction is trying to tap a small segment of cross over fans. Good luck to them, because they will need it. All MMA organizations goes through several phases before they fold. The “gimmick” is the last and final phase before they go to the MMA grave yard. RIP Affliction.
They keep saying it’s a partnership, but it seems more like Golden Boy is saving Affliction from having to shut down right away.
If you have to totally change your product just to keep it from getting shut down, what is the point of wanting it to continue anyway?
They’re already crying uncle. I don’t know how they will make money off this. Even if it is a success, Golden Boy will just jerk ’em around and say it was their boxers that brought the money in.
Zach, do you think Tom Atencio was a mark? Ha ha. Do you think he just wanted to hang out with the fighters and do media interviews, or did he really think this would take off?
I’m beginning to think he is. Why else would he still keep it in business? He wants to do one last media blitz and shake the fighters hands again.
Well, I’m one of those supposedly “very few crossover fans” & I think it’s a damned good idea that I think could be pretty successful if the right match ups are made.
Featuring a highly skilled, but rather dull, powder puff puncher like an Ivan “Iron Boy” Calderon on such a card would be rediculous for instance. But, placing an action packed, hard hitting, BOXING AFTER DARK-type main event amongst the faster paced MMA bouts could prove to add to the excitement of the show.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, “I agree with you 45 Huddle.” Hmm, I feel kinda wierd now. anyway…
As an mma fan that doesn’t miss a fight, I will not buy this PPV. I have zero interest in boxing and as a consumer, I will not pay for something I’m not interested in, even if there are 2 or 3 good mma bouts as well.
Horrible idea and if it actually happens, it will be their final show. Dana White is indeed a genius; welcome to the UFC Fedor (and Kimbo soon after). 2009 is gonna be wacky.
I agree with 45 Huddle for the most part, but one point of his I must argue:
“2. The pacing of a boxing & MMA card are very different. Boxing matches can be slow and methodical. MMA has a much quicker pace to both the fights and the telecasts. It will be nearly impossible to run a PPV properly that feels paced correctly.”
You can easily switch them around. Boxing matches (especially in the lower weight classes) can be fast paced and exciting and MMA can be boring as hell (lay and pray, or Tim Sylvia style jabbing outside the opponents range, which is more of a boxing thing).
If this type of show does get off the ground, I will watch it. But it will be a train wreck. This is bringing back memories of New Japan and Zero-One cards from the early two-thousands…
This is in no way meant to be racist so don’t even say it is. The likely reason that Casamayor/Marquez won’t be shown in HD is that I’m sure GB has done research and don’t believe that a significant part of the audience for that fight has HD capabilities. It does run up the cots quite a bit to provide the show in HD and if you aren’t getting a significant number of buys you are wasting money.
However, that said I agree that this is GB sticking their toe in the MMA water. So far Affliction has really not accomplished anything in MMA and if GB wanted to run MMA shows they could just start from scratch or wait until January when Affliction would run out of money on its own and poach the roster.
I disagree with the prevailing thought here that boxing/MMA cards can’t work. Several times over the past 3 years as the umber of MMA cards has increased there have been nights with MMA and boxing are both on and I watch both events and love it. I think this will open both sports to new fans. Also if the promoter lets people know when the fights will be on on i.e. the card runs from 9pm-1am it will open with a boxing match and close with a boxint match that will begin at 11:45pm. If all you want to see is MMA you know the MMA fights will run from 10-11:45. If you turn off the TV and don’t watch the boxing the promoter doesn’t care. Likewise if the boxing fans flip it on at 11;30 that’s fine for the promoter too.
If hardcore fans dictated the reality of the MMA landscape: Pride would have never died, Affliction would be the #1 promotion, MMA/boxing events would be the ends all combination, and Chuck Liddell would have knocked out Rashad Evans.
Unfortunately, the myopic world of the hardcores is a small one, and it has no bearing on reality.
I’m with Mateo. Gimmickry is the death rattle of a promotion. It’s like these guys just can’t learn the two main rules of MMA promotion:
1. UFC is successful.
2. If you want to be successful, you need to be like the UFC.
From there you need to live within your means and start local, but those are just reasonable business plans.
EliteXC had the right product, but didn’t have the personnel to keep their grass roots entities that should have propped up the main company running. It turns out that they just plundered those lower tiers for a couple fighters and maybe some business people, and more or less shitcanned what was left. That was just dumb business, like paying 1.5 million for your website (by buying a company that had run into massive debt trying to build the next Facebook).
I dont think this a good idea either. I think that having kickboxing and MMA on the same card diluted the K-1 brand. I can imagine it being a very akward show.
I can assure you the K-1 Dynamite show in Tokyo featured both Pride and K-1 fights and it was anything but boring. It all comes down to who is on the card. I just watched the first 10 years of pride documentary and it really reminded me how average the ufc is. I will give Golden Boy and Affliction a shot — who knows, it could be a good show.
^^^ may have been exciting, but it also may make it difficult to properly “brand” the MMA happening in your org, which was important in Japan and is still important in the USA. I can see Affliction’s point of view on doing this because they are bleeding cash. But I really wonder what Golden Boy thinks they are going to get out of this.
The press conference is done. Affliction and Golden Boy will co-promote 4 shows in 2009.
I am reading various websites where people typically cheer anything that goes up against Zuffa. And even these hardcore fans think this is a horrible idea. Most of them are saying that they don’t like boxing and won’t be purchasing the card.
“The press conference is done. Affliction and Golden Boy will co-promote 4 shows in 2009.”
I’ll give it a shot and keep an open mind.
Here’s hoping that it goes well.
And let me note for the record, just to balance this discussion panel out a little bit, that I much prefer boxing to MMA.
That sounds like a horrible idea. I’m trying to picture how AA vs Barnett would look to a boxing fan; it’s not good. Boxing fans are going to be even worse than uneducated UFC fans when it comes to grappling, and they’ll openly mock the inferior stand-up skills of the MMA fighters.
I think boxing and MMA can co-exist, but I didn’t mean like this. Most fans of either sport are going to get annoyed. Only the fans located in the small, overlapping center of the Venn diagram are going to be happy with the result.
Good lord.
1) Golden Boy isn’t “running the PPV”. HBO is broadcasting the PPV. Its their crew. If you’re gonna talk about boxing BIZ, at least learn enough about it to not make stupid claims.
2) K-1 has done it both in Japan and the US, Superbrawl/ICON did it, It’s Showtime, Cagewarriors, etc etc etc have done mixed shows. PRIDE’s early events were all mixed shows. In fact, they’ve even had special rules contests since (IE Yoshida/Gracie).
3) Blaming dilution of K-1 on having MMA and kickboxing matches instead of, oh, I dunno, old sumos, Bob Sapp, K-1’s heavyweight division going to shit, etc. seems ridiculous to me.
4) The UFC is the UFC. You can’t outdo them on what they are. If you’re gonna change the balance of the industry, merely copying them isn’t gonna work. And you know what? EliteXC with its array of title belts was a lot closer to the UFC than it was a boxing production model.
5) Last I checked, EliteXC isn’t dead, kiddos, regardless of what you imagine the next CBS rating might be. When Kimbo is good and gone, then we’ll talk.
Golden Boy has some power, but part of their power source is HBO. If HBO isn’t interested in the mixed cards, then what exactly is the level of involvement going to be here for Golden Boy other than the discussed 50/50 split? Realistically, unless HBO or someone else jumps aboard full-throatedly to back Golden Boy on the Affliction deal, I don’t see where the true power is here other than helping out on the production end of the spectrum.
Kickboxing fights generally have more action than a standard boxing fight, no? Which is why the K-1 comparison here makes little sense. Plus, it’s Japan — which is an entirely different audience with different expectations than a North American crowd.
It’s all but dead at this point, especially given the complete lack of promotion for the 10/4 show (which faces stiff local competition from the Hurricanes/FSU game).
Wow. I guess the word here is “Negative”.
Why be positive on this deal? Apparently the only reason promotions should exist is so they can fail and we can say “I was right”.
Wallow in your own despair.
Double R
An MMA upstart runs one show, then cancels/reschedules their second show, and then announces a deal with a partner in the fight industry not involved in their sector in previous dealings.
There’s plenty of reason for skepticism.
Skepticism? Sure. But what you and others have written is bordering on disdain.
Instead of saying the glass is half empty and is half full of piss and is going to fall, breaking into a million pieces…how about something with at least a hope that this works and there is more and better product?
Unless you don’t want that?
Double R
I’m reminded of Inoki’s experiment five years ago when he tried to do “Ultimate Crush” MMA fights alongside basic pro-wrestling matches at the Tokyo Dome. As the venerable Jimmy Hart once said to me in an interview, how can you keep the fans interested in doing a wrestling match, then MMA, then wrestling, then MMA, etc?
The reason there’s ‘disdain’ (I wouldn’t call it that, I’d call it more or less bafflement) about the mixed boxing/MMA concept is because there’s less of a crossover between those two industries than there is with MMA/pro-wrestling. If the mixed format doesn’t work with two natural crossover businesses, how or why would it work with boxing? It just doesn’t make sense at all.
You have to admit that doing split cards is a gimmick. The gimmick is that each party wants to expand each other’s base by capturing those other fans (GB with MMA fans, Affliction with boxing fans). The problem is that boxing and MMA have two completely different sets of constituents.
I hope it fails because I want to watch less high level MMA.
Explain to me the concept of how a split boxing/MMA card is going to produce more high-level MMA.
The lack of HBO involvement is the biggest sticking point to this entire deal.
When Golden Boy has a star they want to have compete, with will want to get the maximum dollar value for the deal. This means HBO will be involved and no MMA on the card.
So what will be left for boxers on this GB/Affliction card? Obviously nobody of the highest level that we are accustomed to watching on HBO.
So basically we are left with:
1. Better Production Values
2. Less MMA Fights
3. A few boxing fights that nobody in the arena will care to watch.
“Sure. But what you and others have written is bordering on disdain.”
The hopeful side wants to shame the doubtful side into remaining silent instead of bothering to explain why it’s a great thing that a company that started with a 100 percent MMA product is now becoming a 50 percent MMA product.
Are fightopinion.com, bloodyelbow.com and fiveouncesofpain.com going to start devoting half their coverage to boxing news? Of course not, they know their readers want MMA related news, articles and interviews.
The only MMA company so far that seems to think MMA fans want boxing in equal proportions is Affliction. I think that’s because they were going to the poorhouse quickly in their previous form, not necessarily because they think it’s a great idea. It’s not shocking that the only ones hailing this as great news so far are MMA fans who also follow boxing.
“The reason there’s ‘disdain’ (I wouldn’t call it that, I’d call it more or less bafflement) about the mixed boxing/MMA concept is because there’s less of a crossover between those two industries than there is with MMA/pro-wrestling. If the mixed format doesn’t work with two natural crossover businesses, how or why would it work with boxing? It just doesn’t make sense at all.”
My respectful opinion is that you’re way off there. MMA is more like boxing in that the outcomes aren’t predetermined. EVERYBODY in America knows that pro wrestling is basically a joke; it’s really not a sporting event. That’s about as big a difference as there could be. Just as kickboxing is not boxing, pro wrestling is not puroresu.
Ron Borges? Why is he allowed on television?
My respectful opinion is that you’re way off there. MMA is more like boxing in that the outcomes aren’t predetermined. EVERYBODY in America knows that pro wrestling is basically a joke; it’s really not a sporting event. That’s about as big a difference as there could be. Just as kickboxing is not boxing, pro wrestling is not puroresu.
Basketball, football, and amateur wrestling are also not predetermined. However, that doesn’t mean you can combine any of those sports with MMA.
MMA fans prefer quick action and enjoyh it because it’s as close an emulation of real fighting as possible. Boxing has devolved into point fighting with an arbitrary rule set (punches only).
The best fighter in boxing, Mayweather’s strategy is to outpoint the other fighter and not get hit. There are no sudden victory conditions in boxing. Upsets are highly unlikely in boxing as well with big underdogs.
There are so many differences between the two sports that anyone who thinks they both appeal to the same audience is delusional.
I found it an interesting concept. In Scandinavia I have been to several fighting cards that have different martial arts e.g Thai boxing, K-1 rules and Boxing that have been succesful.
Also K-1 issues MMA and K-1 rules matches regularly on the same cards.
However the hardcore MMA audience might not like having Boxing matches on the same PPV.
Golden Boy has some power, but part of their power source is HBO.
HHBO is beholden to them, not the other wway around. GBP promotes many of HBO’s bbiggest stars and has thusly recieved tthe vast majority of their television dates. When they werent’t interested in Juarez/Marquez, GBP went to Showtime. HBO took note of that, no question.
Realistically, unless HBO or someone else jumps aboard full-throatedly to back Golden Boy on the Affliction deal, I don’t see where the true power is here other than helping out on the production end of the spectrum.
Golden Boy has plenty of money should they wish to invest it, and if the shows are a finacial success, HBO will likely tag along. If they continue to stall, De La Hoya can take his ball and leave. His ball, at this point, is that he basically gets free reign to do whatever he wants from journalists, particularly given that he owns the biggest magazine in the sport.
Kickboxing fights generally have more action than a standard boxing fight, no?
According to who and on what basis? K-1’s problem is that the heavyweights are, in general, painful to watch both because they look bad and fight worse. Compare that to your average Juan Diaz or Antonio Margarito bout.
Plus, it’s Japan — which is an entirely different audience with different expectations than a North American crowd.
So Hawaii doesn’t count?
It’s all but dead at this point, especially given the complete lack of promotion for the 10/4 show (which faces stiff local competition from the Hurricanes/FSU game).
Like I said, I’ll wait till I actually see EliteXC do a 1.5 to claim that its all over for them. If we come back from that with another 6 million person performance, I’ll make sure bring this back up.
Also, one other note: LOL on people everywhere talking about how MMA fans aren’t interested in “single fight cards”, as if your average UFC undercard bout is markedly different than a boxing undercard bout. Last night, Contender Season 1 champ and WBC 154lb champ Sergio Mora fought former undisputed welterweight champ Vernon Forrest as the chief support bout for Casamayor/Marquez. Meanwhile, fights like Franklin/Lutter are apparently way more meaningful? Huh?
What can I say, D.? I’ve never heard of either Sergio Mora or Vernon Forrest. Nor Casamayor or Marquez.
I have heard of Franklin and Lutter though.
D,
Everything you are saying is nice. But it would require GB to jeopardize their relation with HBO in order to push their MMA. And it is already established that GB is not fully devoted to MMA (if they were affliction wouldn’t be involved). So it is HIGHLY unlikely that GB would risk Millions of dollars and a long lasting relationship with HBO for this current business model. Business wise it doesn’t make sense.
Have you heard of Manny Pacquiao or Oscar De La Hoya? Ricky Hatton maybe, hes bigger than Jesus in the UK. How about David Haye who is moving up to heavyweight and if he wins the title there has talked about fighting MMA? Maybe Bernard Hopkins? Heres one you admitted you don’t know but should – Juan Manuel Marquez – Go check out Pacquiao vs Marquez 1 and 2. Maybe Israel Vazquez vs Marquez’s little brother Rafael Marquez fights 1 through 3, and they are already talking a 4th. What do they all have in common aside from R. Marquez? They are all signed to Golden Boy and they are all big names that sell fights.
There are a great many fighters that fit very very well on an joint card where more than anything people want action. Many of these fighters listed above, (DLH not withstanding but somehow he sells over a million PPVs every time he fights), have been in some boxing matches that have provided action in much greater doses than even the best MMA.
As for Mora/Forrest… I was there live for their first bout. It put the entire audience to sleep. The fight stunk. The only reason it was on this card was to give it more name value. If either Mora or Forrest were remotely exciting fighters, they wouldn’t have been on the undercard.
Just DLH’s promotional power alone provides more advertising for Affliction. They are also now making T-shirts for Golden Boy fighters so they made more money via this deal that way.
“Wow. I guess the word here is “Negative”.
Why be positive on this deal? Apparently the only reason promotions should exist is so they can fail and we can say “I was right”.”
Truth be told though, I want promotions that don’t give me what I want to fail; they’re diluting the market. If promotions consistently make good MMA cards, I don’t mind at all if they stick around.
Affliction is one of the companies I’d like to see go under. I’m not interested in being forced to watch boxing matches when all I’m really interested in is MMA, and I don’t want to watch half as many MMA fights per PPV. It’s that simple.
If they go under, a promotion like the UFC that consistently has solid matchmaking can pick up the fighters they have under contract and set up big fights with them. To put a twist on what Zack said in post 25, I hope it fails because I want to watch more high level MMA.
45’s comment about Mora and Forrest is the first thing i’ve ever agreed with him on. That fight was like Heath Herring vs Jake O’Brian except perpendicular to the ground instead of parallel.
IceMuncher how many matches do you get on a UFC card? 5 – generally 6 right? Affliction can put 6 MMA fights and 2 headliners on a card and 3 boxing matches with 1 headliner and you’ll actually SEE all the fights. So you’ll still be able to watch 6 fights. Just like your beloved UFC.
Let’s look at the length of each fight to see what can be fit into a 4 hour time slot.
3 Round MMA Fight
1. Fighter Entrances – 4 Min
2. Fighter Introductions – 2 Min
3. Fighting – 15 Min
4. Between Rounds – 2 Min
5. Post Fight – 5 Min
Which means the maximum it could take is 28 Minutes for a fight. Let’s call it 30 minutes for the sake of arguement.
For a title fight, add an additional 12 minutes, or 40 Minutes Maximum.
12 Round Boxing Fight:
1. 6 Minutes Pre-Fight
2. 36 Minutes Fighting
3. 11 Minutes Between Rounds
4. 5 Minutes Post Fight
Total of 58 Minutes. Let’s just call it an hour to make things simple.
So if you put two boxing fights on the card, already we have 2 hours of the program potentially with boxing in it. And I’m sorry, but for a pure MMA fan, to have an hour break for a boxing fight is BORING.
So the telecast starts and they have a 10 minute introduction. Start off with a MMA fight that takes 30 minutes. Put in 2 boxing fights, and already the telecast is 2 hours 40 minutes in. That leaves us with 1 regular MMA fight and 1 MMA Title Fight. And that is if everything runs perfectly smooth.
Anybody under 40 who is a pure MMA fan, will buy one of these PPV’s and stick to the UFC from there.
What can I say, D.? I’ve never heard of either Sergio Mora or Vernon Forrest. Nor Casamayor or Marquez.
I have heard of Franklin and Lutter though.
And you’re a hardcore MMA fan who doesn’t watch boxing. Also, pro-tip: Probably not good to play the “no one knows who they are!” game when Sergio Mora has sparked bigger ratings for ESPN than either Lutter or Franklin ever did on free TV.
Everything you are saying is nice. But it would require GB to jeopardize their relation with HBO in order to push their MMA.
45, I understand you do not know anything about boxing, but again, a repeat: HBO needs De La Hoya. They gave him all the dates and all the money because he’s best provided for them what they want. They want him both as fighter and promoter, they want his fighters because they’re the biggest stars that they can regularly rotate on the schedule, etc etc etc etc. De La Hoya does not need HBO to survive because HBO no longer has anyone to go to. Arum wants to run his own PPVs half the time and has butted heads with the HBO folks countless times when his fighters ended up bouncing on him to start their own promotional deals (see also: Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather). DiBella and King have almost no one of value. K2, Goosen/Tutor, Warrior’s Boxing, all the rest are filled with generally marginal talents and few that will gain interest among the HBO crowd. Not only that, De La Hoya owns and operates the gold standard of boxing journalism, thus making him untouchable. In the United States, Oscar runs the show. Period. HBO is cognizant of that and thus has no choice right now but to deal with him.
Also, a final item: Has no one noticed that De La Hoya owns The Ring magazine? I half expect Fedor to toss his WAMMA title for a sanction fee-less Ring Heavyweight MMA title in January. Do that while Oscar goes on the PR attack trying to hand titles to Anderson Silva and George St. Pierre and the media will have a field day.
IF HBO had “no choice” but to deal with GB and ODLH, then they would have said yes to MMA on the undercard. Obviously they have leverage. And GB needs HBO more then you think. Without the countdown shows and without the free exposure for a lot of their up & coming fighters, eventually GB will decay.
As for ODLH owning The Ring Magazine… I also read that recently. Talk about a conflict of interest, especially since they have “The Ring World Champions”. Those defacto title belts have to be considered pointless now due to a conflict of interest. I guess boxing will always be a mess.
IF HBO had “no choice” but to deal with GB and ODLH, then they would have said yes to MMA on the undercard.
It establishes that HBO has control over their broadcasts and what they want, and little else.
Obviously they have leverage. And GB needs HBO more then you think. Without the countdown shows and without the free exposure for a lot of their up & coming fighters, eventually GB will decay.
45, stop digging this hole. HBO does those shows because they as a PPV distributor make a sizable sum off the purchases of PPVs. It is in their best interest to advertise cards they are putting on. They are not going to stop doing such cards because they make a tremendous amount of money for the company and they cannot simply stop dealing with GBP because the subscriber base wouldn’t tolerate having all his name talent go over to Showtime, thus depriving them of future/current subscribers and PPV moneys recieved by getting such events. Either they deal with Oscar or they decide to take a hit on the books every year.
As for ODLH owning The Ring Magazine… I also read that recently. Talk about a conflict of interest, especially since they have “The Ring World Champions”. Those defacto title belts have to be considered pointless now due to a conflict of interest.
Go tell ESPN, USA Today, and virtually every website that and see what they tell you, 45.
You’re pushing this DLH connection to Affliction way too far. We don’t even know what the commitment is, though it’s entirely reasonable to guess it is a very small one. It’s likely a small time deal to give Golden Boy a chance to promote MMA without paying a lot for it. If the first show ends up being a big success then maybe Golden Boy will get really into it and push for HBO, but this is hardly the beginning of a turnaround.
It reminds me of people acting like the Trump connection would bring them NBC. You know, he did have the apprentice! This is not a game changer.
You’re pushing this DLH connection to Affliction way too far.
I’m not pushing anything. DLH’s value to boxing is pretty certain and he has the talent to potentially excite fans of the sport to spend, regardless of whether or not there are MMA bouts on the card. Will he work with HBO on doing MMA? Maybe and maybe not. He doesn’t need to if he doesn’t want. Showtime would be more than willing to do it or they can run it themselves. If he wants to run MMA cards, HBO can be as angry as they want to be. Either they cope with it or they’re running Wes Ferguson/Edner Cherry III on BAD.