The next great champ or chump?

[crusadecat]

I see that The next great champ is going on a mini hiatus. Not sure if it is because of the World Series or because it is struggling in the ratings. For whatever reason they are moving it to a traditional death night for tv. Friday. Might work for a boxing show. I am not impressed with the quality of fighters they have on the program. What i have seen so far look pretty sloppy. I believe any solid 2 rated fighter would have a field day with any of these guys. The contender is supposed to have higher caliber boxers on their show . I like reality tv and love boxing but I don't like this show as much as I thought I would . Anybody else watch the show?

[erickdamac]

Ratings been great, its on hiatus because world series and oscar recent ko, according to fox, but the ratings been good real good.

[crusadecat]

thats good that the ratings are holding up. Sometimes it makes me think we are in the midst of a boxing revival with the Toney fight on best damn sports show 2 boxing reality shows hbo and showtime, Fnf got its best ratings in a while before that went on break too. Lets hope this encourages them to do a full year and put some $ behind it too.

[erickdamac]

yea, They had a whole show for oscar if he won, it was going to show his training, and ****, and him before the fight and then him after the fight him celebrating or whatever, well that didnt work lmao.

Reason why they moved it to fridays is because they play the replays on friday and the replays been getting better rating then the tuesdays one.

[Ric]

Originally Posted by crusadecat

The contender is supposed to have higher caliber boxers on their show .

Look out for the Aussie boy!

[Bam Bam]

Originally Posted by crusadecat

I see that The next great champ is going on a mini hiatus. Not sure if it is because of the World Series or because it is struggling in the ratings. For whatever reason they are moving it to a traditional death night for tv. Friday. Might work for a boxing show. I am not impressed with the quality of fighters they have on the program. What i have seen so far look pretty sloppy. I believe any solid 2 rated fighter would have a field day with any of these guys. The contender is supposed to have higher caliber boxers on their show . I like reality tv and love boxing but I don't like this show as much as I thought I would . Anybody else watch the show?

those guys stink..that guy Otis is OK...but none of them will go any farther than the show imo

the show is ok though,,,it gets a little catty for a bunch of guys,,,but at least they get to duke it out at the end...

[Bonedwarf]

Friday night. That show is dead then.

I did plan to watch it, but have managed to miss it all.

Probably going on hiatus for baseball, but from what I gather it's been a ratings disaster. Far better shows have died on Friday nights. (In fact the last one to succeed was, I believe, The X Files.)

[hamed]

I agree, it's not as interesting as I thought it would be. None of those guys look like can't miss prospects to me. I hope the NBC version is better!

[Cap]

Never saw the Stallone version. I watched about 20 minutes of the Oscar production. It seemed like a soap opera to me with a brief bit of "boxing" thrown in to keep us neanderthals happy. It failed to do so, however.

I have somehow managed to avoid watching any of the other so-called reality programming, and may yet live to a ripe old age.

[crusadecat]

Cap, Somehow it really didn't suprise me that you woudn't be a fan of reality shows : ) As far as I know the contender (The Mark Burnett, Sugar Ray, Sly Stallone effort) hasn't aired any episodes yet. Another thing I really can't stand is the way they edit the boxing matches with these slo mo , jump cut edits. Its like they are trying to artificially create excitement by making it look like Rocky vs. Clubber Lang or something.

[jofre]

I stopped watching after the first show. I swear the decision in the first fight they showed went to the wrong person. Several friends of mine thought so as well.

Also, read their bios on the Fox website... they’re all over the place. I also read somewhere that the contestant’s weights range from welterweight to cruiserweight.

My guess is the "Contender" will be a much better show. My understanding is they are going to start with 16 fighters (all in the same weight class). Fox started with 12 fighters.

I think Fox networks rush to get their show on TV before "The Contender”, which debuts in November, may have hurt the quality of their product.

[Bronx Bomber 15]

I like the show. Don't exactly know why, being that I despise reality TV.

I do feel that The Contender will be much better.

If they really wanted to promote boxing, they should make this type of show revolving around amateurs training for the Golden Gloves, or even the training camp of a well know pro getting ready for a title fight.

I guess a true boxing oriented program woudln't attract the masses, just the hardcore fans like us

[jofre]

Good point. I attended the audition for "The Contender" in Brockton and was impressed with their screening process and matchups of skills. Several entrants never made it into the ring to show what they had because their skills and/or experience were not considered equal to other entrants in the same weight class. Noone was allowed to fight outside their weight class regardless of their skill level.

The entrants did include amateurs, pros (journeymen and fringe contenders).

Here is a picture taken with Rocky Marciano's nephew Steve and Frank Stallone.

[Antonin]

I watched the show for the first five minutes or so of its last episode. I won't bother with it any more. It just seemed too silly. Too much phony drama and trash talking. Reality TV in general gets on my nerves.

This is OT, but what ever happened to boxing on regular cable? Friday Night Fights? I can't afford PPV; cable TV is too expensive as it is to cough up another $50 for PPV boxing.

[jofre]

Do you get the Spanish channel? They have a regular televised Friday night fight card (9:00 - 11:00 pm EST) and the fights are really good. You don't have to speak Spanish to enjoy the action.

[Bonedwarf]

NBC's version starts airing in November I believe. Which would lead me to believe they think it'll do well since that's sweeps.

I loathe all reality TV... Except Big Brother which I find hugely addictive. (And hate myself for.)

I get boxing on TSN up here in Canada. They show HBO's boxing I think. (Not watched much of it.) ESPN Classic Canada shows a lot of classic boxing too. Finally got to see Douglas knock out Tyson after all these years Too bad that I don't get the channel anymore

I've seen boxing on, I think, I TeleLatino up here too.

[Antonin]

Originally Posted by jofre

Do you get the Spanish channel? They have a regular televised Friday night fight card (9:00 - 11:00 pm EST) and the fights are really good. You don't have to speak Spanish to enjoy the action.

We do have Telemundo, plus another Spanish channel called WQHS. You mean one of those has boxing on Friday night?? I didn't know. The electronic program guide for Telemundo doesn't give any programming details. I sometimes watch WQHS for Mexican and South American soccer matches.

Bronx Bomber suggested boxing reality TV centered around amateurs training for Golden Gloves bouts, or a well known pro getting ready for a title fight. This would be much, much better than that Next Great Champ format. Profiling a well known pro would certainly stir up interest in the guy's fight.

We used to get ESPN Classic, where they showed a number of classic fights. But we had to scale back to a cheaper cable package.

[Ric]

I heard that a doco film was being made about Danny Green (WBC SM interim champ) the guy started it from the 2000 Olympics once he switch pro. But I have not heard anything for a while?

[Bronx Bomber 15]

An additional thought...wouldn't it be interesting to see a network air a show outlining the training camps of two fighters (who are training to fight each other), then actually air that bout? I bet after eight weeks of watching what these guys go through to prepare, even the most casual fan would be curious to see who wins the bout.

Geez, I need to buy a network station so we can get this stuff on TV.

[crusadecat]

Well I see Next great champ is gone from network tv. story over at boxrec.com they are moving it to FSN.