The state of boxing on free TV

Antonin · 01-04-2005, 07:54 PM

It's hard to follow the sport when you don't get to see many of the main players, past or present, perform. We don't have Showtime or HBO, and so there's not much boxing in our house. It's frustrating.

Tonight I checked out the electronic programming guide to see if Tuesday Night Fights is on. Remember that show? Instead, ESPN2 has Ali vs Blin, Ali vs Foreman and Ali vs Wepner, back to back. All fights that I have seen several times. I love Ali, but why keep re-playing the same fights by the same man? There are thousands of other important fights on tape. Ali is not he only man to ever put on a pair of gloves.

The other night there was...Ali vs Frazier in Manila, and the 15 second Tyson vs Johnson fight. Or was the guy's name Jackson?

I've read a billion articles recently on Bernard Hopkins, and he dominates my non-fictional TBCB middleweight division. But I've never seen him fight. I've never seen Kostya Tsyu, never seen Manny Pacquiao, never seen most of even the mid-level fighters in TBCB.

I used to love Friday Night Fights, but when I've checked recently it hasn't been on. I would watch the show and then go to TBCB to see if any of the fighters were in the game. Some were; many were not.

The point of this is just to express my frustration at the scarcity of boxing on free TV.

There is an entire channel devoted to...golf. And here in the US, they actually show poker games on TV. Why so little boxing? How I'd love to see more up-and-coming fighters. How expensive can it be to show such fights?

Mr Big · 01-04-2005, 11:15 PM

Antonin:

Loosen up the purse strings a little and get HBO and / or Showtime. It'll be worth it, I promise!

crusadecat · 01-05-2005, 01:05 AM

I may be too much of an optimist but I think its cyclical. Espn's ratings for FNF has been better lately and though we aren't getting as many now I think that will change. Nbc has some fights on in the summer and Espn plans on Tuesday night fights in the summer as well. Though the next great champ was horrible, I've heard the contender will be better, and will have some semi-names in the mix. The best damn sports show has had some fights and it would be great to see fox sports pick up some of the slack that is there now. I thought that having Max there would mean puttting a regular show on tv. I get Ballroom Boxing on tv here and though the competition isn't great its boxing on free tv. I'm not sure what channel but its on the upper dial. If you can afford the Hbo and showtime its worth the investment I agree, The other suggestion would be hunting down a sports bar that shows those fights for free. I go to a place where they show all the HBO and Showtime fights for free and they charge 5 bucks for the PPV.

sabotai · 01-05-2005, 01:32 AM

I've noticed boxing on FSN about once or twice a week. In fact, awhile ago when they had the "greatest card ever" (Byrd vs. Golota (?), Ruiz vs. Rahman, Hopkins vs. Joppy and a couple of others), they repleyed those fights a couple of times on FSN a few weeks later.

I also get boxing every once in awhile from the local cable station, CN8 (which actually shares broadcasting time on the same channel as FSN here.)

Anyway, check out other sports channels and local stations. You'll probably find boxing every once in awhile.

Bonedwarf · 01-05-2005, 05:42 AM

Try Canada! No HBO or Showtime here. Outside of PPV, you get boxing on TSN, but of course, that's a cable channel. Which means I'd wind up paying $25 a month for basic cable to get (along with the boxing) Curling, "World Strongest Man" competitions.. And, let's not forget... POKER!

I figure it's all downhill from now and they'll be televising "Go Fish" tournaments in a few years.

TV is crap. My cable got cut off on December 1st. I didn't even notice until December 8th. Had no TV for over a month now, and I love it.

dempsonny · 01-05-2005, 05:49 PM

Actually, boxing was ruined with it being overplayed. There were fights on all the time. It's downfall was attributed to the overexposure of it. Now it's being underexposed. Tuesday night used to always have old great fights on espn classic. It was a lot of the old fights over and over again. I don't understand it either. Apparantly the program director was not very creative. I think it would have been better showing the oldies like Dempsey, Marciano, Ali, Charles, Walcott and Frazier along with some great fights from the 80's like Hagler-Hearns, Mugabi, and Leonard. The Light HW division had some great fighters like Gregory (Muhammad), Franklin (Matthew Saad Muhammad), Braxton, Scott, Rossman etc. Some great MW fighters like Frank "the animal" Fletcher and JMW James "hard rock" Green. There was Duran, Wilfredo Gomez, Arguello, Pryor, Salvator Sanchez and the big and little Lopez brothers. I think a boxing revival could come about because people viewing these fights could get back into the sport.
Dempsonny

canadiancreed · 01-05-2005, 05:57 PM

Free TV? Whats' that?

Antonin · 01-05-2005, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bonedwarf

Try Canada! No HBO or Showtime here. Outside of PPV, you get boxing on TSN, but of course, that's a cable channel. Which means I'd wind up paying $25 a month for basic cable to get (along with the boxing) Curling, "World Strongest Man" competitions.. And, let's not forget... POKER!

I figure it's all downhill from now and they'll be televising "Go Fish" tournaments in a few years.

TV is crap. My cable got cut off on December 1st. I didn't even notice until December 8th. Had no TV for over a month now, and I love it.

My job situation prevents us from being able to afford HBO or any of the channel 'packages' beyond plain old basic cable. Because of the shortage of good programming even with basic cable, we've considered getting rid of it entirely.

Curling and 'strong man' competitions, yeah, I forgot about those. And then you have 'extreme' or 'X-treme' sports, game shows where people jump off cliffs or take a bath in a tub full of centipedes or drink dog vomit, and reality shows about killer nannies and finding out who your mother is.

There SHOULD be more boxing on free TV, or even basic cable channels. How many college football or basketball games can a person watch? How can televised poker be more exciting than televised boxing?

Considering the millions of dollars made by guys at the top of the fight game, it's odd that so few of those top guys are seen or even known by the general public.

Bonedwarf · 01-05-2005, 07:54 PM

For me it's financial as well. We simply couldn't afford our cable bill and it got cut off. It's only, having lost it, that I realise it's not a big deal. Due to the bundling of the channels I wanted, we had to pay the full price just to get them. I'm a racing nut above all else, and Speed is in the highest tier. However, in the last two months, Speed have gone down the crapper. Basic cable is the best option. Most baseball airs on a channel in the next tier, so I'm going to spring for an MLB.TV subscription come baseball season. I think it'll be cheaper.

As for boxing... TSN here do a 30 minute weekly show, which is pretty good. And they show the weekly HBO boxing too. They also re-broadcast the big PPV fights a few weeks after the event. I believe that's it for their boxing output.

And, like you, I fail to fathom how poker is more interesting to people than boxing. Of course, I also fail to fathom how American Idol does so well... There's always debate over whether racing is a real sport. Not going to get into the issue, other than to say I'm pretty sure that anyone with a brain can see that racing is more deserving of the "sport" label than poker.

I just don't get how, in todays violence obsessed society, boxing isn't popular. Very strange.

crusadecat · 01-05-2005, 09:56 PM

Poker is one thing but how about the multitude of pro wrestling shows on. I understand that some of us here like it and all but I'd rather watch real drama that boxing offers than contrived stuff like that. ugggh.

Bonedwarf · 01-06-2005, 12:03 AM

I'm a wrestling fan. However, I do NOT watch WWE.

However, wrestling has more right to be on a sports channel than poker. Wrestling at least involves physical effort. (Unless Hogan is involved. LOL!)

Cap · 01-06-2005, 12:48 AM

Pro-wrasslin as sport. Hmm. Interesting concept.

We have your basic cable up here in the great white north. You'd think if they can find a niche for igloo-racing, blubber-eating, MP-tossing, electric-guitar smashing, beer-guzzling, AND poker, they could find a spot on the dial sometime during the wee hours for an hour or two of boxing. Maybe if they packaged it as reality TV...

erickdamac · 01-06-2005, 01:11 AM

I mean everyone have cable or Dish.

Cap · 01-06-2005, 10:24 AM

For our Canadian contingent.

TSN has boxing next week.
Wednesday 3:PM - Lerma-McKart (rebroadcast)
Thursday 3:PM - Oliveira-Tackie (rebroadcast)
Friday 11:30 PM - Ruiz-Golota card (rebroadcast)

Ch.22 Sportsnet Ont. will rebroadcast the James Toney-Rydell Booker fight from September on January 17th at 9:PM.

One more note. In This Corner with Russ Anber has been moved to 8:30 PM Monday nights.

That is all.

Bonedwarf · 01-06-2005, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cap

Pro-wrasslin as sport. Hmm. Interesting concept.

It's more of a sport than poker

As for the Canadian stuff... If you can find me some on CBC or Global (the only two channels I can pick up right now) that'd be useful

CONN CHRIS · 01-06-2005, 12:59 PM

I miss the good old days of picking up wall-to-wall curling on Saturdays from the CBC when I lived in Northern Maine.

And in my opinion, even curling is more of a sport than wrasslin. Wrasslin is simply staged theatrics. Granted, the thespians are quite athletic, but it isn't a sport by even the loosest definition - no offense chum.

Cap · 01-06-2005, 01:06 PM

One of the things that should define a sport as sport is whether or not the outcome is decided beforehand. The ol' time wrassler Yvon Robert was a cousin of mine. No one can tell me that the matches today are not pre-arranged gymnastics performances.

But I don't want to spoil the fun for anyone. I used to watch Yukon Erik and Joe Leduc on local TV every Saturday when I was much younger. Now that was wrasslin'!

Cap

CONN CHRIS · 01-06-2005, 01:11 PM

Yeah, I know. I used to have a soft spot for the "Unpredictable" Johnny Roz. Come to think of it, he was quite predictable, but that's another story.

Antonin · 01-06-2005, 11:42 PM

Tonight I saw a number of TV adverts for some new x-treme fighting show. It amazes me that TV executives and apparently audiences could take something like that seriously when there are countless boxers toiling away at arenas throughout the US. Why should some loudmouth knucklehead part-time 'athlete' on some x-treme fighting 'reality' TV show, or some idiots who go to an island and do whatever it is they do be better known among US households than Bernard Hopkins?

I'm surprised that the powers-that-be in boxing are not making more of an effort to get the sport more visibility on television. I read somewhere that Don King is threatening to launch a boxing channel. I would love to see something like that on basic cable, but having to put up with his babbling might make it more trouble than it's worth.

I don't expect the big names in boxing to be available outside of overpriced PPV. But there are many midranked fighters who could use the national exposure.

Cap · 01-07-2005, 10:11 AM

It's mainly because industry whiz-kids see their market as single wired suburbanites between the ages of 18 and 32 who watch MTV, wear body scent, drink low-fat latte, own an i-pod and have plenty of disposable income. This demographics group does not want to watch boxing, unless celebrities are involved.

Cap

01-04-2005, 07:54 PM	#1 (permalink)
Antonin All Star Reserve Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: The Icy Cold of Space Posts: 857	The state of boxing on free TV It's hard to follow the sport when you don't get to see many of the main players, past or present, perform. We don't have Showtime or HBO, and so there's not much boxing in our house. It's frustrating. Tonight I checked out the electronic programming guide to see if Tuesday Night Fights is on. Remember that show? Instead, ESPN2 has Ali vs Blin, Ali vs Foreman and Ali vs Wepner, back to back. All fights that I have seen several times. I love Ali, but why keep re-playing the same fights by the same man? There are thousands of other important fights on tape. Ali is not he only man to ever put on a pair of gloves. The other night there was...Ali vs Frazier in Manila, and the 15 second Tyson vs Johnson fight. Or was the guy's name Jackson? I've read a billion articles recently on Bernard Hopkins, and he dominates my non-fictional TBCB middleweight division. But I've never seen him fight. I've never seen Kostya Tsyu, never seen Manny Pacquiao, never seen most of even the mid-level fighters in TBCB. I used to love Friday Night Fights, but when I've checked recently it hasn't been on. I would watch the show and then go to TBCB to see if any of the fighters were in the game. Some were; many were not. The point of this is just to express my frustration at the scarcity of boxing on free TV. There is an entire channel devoted to...golf. And here in the US, they actually show poker games on TV. Why so little boxing? How I'd love to see more up-and-coming fighters. How expensive can it be to show such fights?

01-04-2005, 11:15 PM	#2 (permalink)
Mr Big All Star Starter Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 1,235	Antonin: Loosen up the purse strings a little and get HBO and / or Showtime. It'll be worth it, I promise! __________________ The M.O.B. Isaiah 54:17

01-05-2005, 05:49 PM	#6 (permalink)
dempsonny Major Leagues Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: long island, n.y. Posts: 321	The State Of Boxing Actually, boxing was ruined with it being overplayed. There were fights on all the time. It's downfall was attributed to the overexposure of it. Now it's being underexposed. Tuesday night used to always have old great fights on espn classic. It was a lot of the old fights over and over again. I don't understand it either. Apparantly the program director was not very creative. I think it would have been better showing the oldies like Dempsey, Marciano, Ali, Charles, Walcott and Frazier along with some great fights from the 80's like Hagler-Hearns, Mugabi, and Leonard. The Light HW division had some great fighters like Gregory (Muhammad), Franklin (Matthew Saad Muhammad), Braxton, Scott, Rossman etc. Some great MW fighters like Frank "the animal" Fletcher and JMW James "hard rock" Green. There was Duran, Wilfredo Gomez, Arguello, Pryor, Salvator Sanchez and the big and little Lopez brothers. I think a boxing revival could come about because people viewing these fights could get back into the sport. Dempsonny __________________ A house without a dog is not a home.

01-06-2005, 12:48 AM	#12 (permalink)
Cap Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Large Province in God's Country Posts: 4,004	Pro-wrasslin as sport. Hmm. Interesting concept. We have your basic cable up here in the great white north. You'd think if they can find a niche for igloo-racing, blubber-eating, MP-tossing, electric-guitar smashing, beer-guzzling, AND poker, they could find a spot on the dial sometime during the wee hours for an hour or two of boxing. Maybe if they packaged it as reality TV... __________________ "...There were Giants in Those Days.."

01-06-2005, 10:24 AM	#14 (permalink)
Cap Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Large Province in God's Country Posts: 4,004	For our Canadian contingent. TSN has boxing next week. Wednesday 3:PM - Lerma-McKart (rebroadcast) Thursday 3:PM - Oliveira-Tackie (rebroadcast) Friday 11:30 PM - Ruiz-Golota card (rebroadcast) Ch.22 Sportsnet Ont. will rebroadcast the James Toney-Rydell Booker fight from September on January 17th at 9:PM. One more note. In This Corner with Russ Anber has been moved to 8:30 PM Monday nights. That is all. __________________ "...There were Giants in Those Days.." Last edited by Cap : 01-06-2005 at 10:26 AM.

01-05-2005, 01:05 AM	#3 (permalink)
crusadecat All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 799	I may be too much of an optimist but I think its cyclical. Espn's ratings for FNF has been better lately and though we aren't getting as many now I think that will change. Nbc has some fights on in the summer and Espn plans on Tuesday night fights in the summer as well. Though the next great champ was horrible, I've heard the contender will be better, and will have some semi-names in the mix. The best damn sports show has had some fights and it would be great to see fox sports pick up some of the slack that is there now. I thought that having Max there would mean puttting a regular show on tv. I get Ballroom Boxing on tv here and though the competition isn't great its boxing on free tv. I'm not sure what channel but its on the upper dial. If you can afford the Hbo and showtime its worth the investment I agree, The other suggestion would be hunting down a sports bar that shows those fights for free. I go to a place where they show all the HBO and Showtime fights for free and they charge 5 bucks for the PPV.

01-05-2005, 01:32 AM	#4 (permalink)
sabotai All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: South Jersey Posts: 653	I've noticed boxing on FSN about once or twice a week. In fact, awhile ago when they had the "greatest card ever" (Byrd vs. Golota (?), Ruiz vs. Rahman, Hopkins vs. Joppy and a couple of others), they repleyed those fights a couple of times on FSN a few weeks later. I also get boxing every once in awhile from the local cable station, CN8 (which actually shares broadcasting time on the same channel as FSN here.) Anyway, check out other sports channels and local stations. You'll probably find boxing every once in awhile.

01-05-2005, 05:42 AM	#5 (permalink)
Bonedwarf All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,320	Try Canada! No HBO or Showtime here. Outside of PPV, you get boxing on TSN, but of course, that's a cable channel. Which means I'd wind up paying $25 a month for basic cable to get (along with the boxing) Curling, "World Strongest Man" competitions.. And, let's not forget... POKER! I figure it's all downhill from now and they'll be televising "Go Fish" tournaments in a few years. TV is crap. My cable got cut off on December 1st. I didn't even notice until December 8th. Had no TV for over a month now, and I love it.

01-05-2005, 05:57 PM	#7 (permalink)
canadiancreed Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 9,864	Free TV? Whats' that?

01-05-2005, 07:54 PM	#9 (permalink)
Bonedwarf All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,320	For me it's financial as well. We simply couldn't afford our cable bill and it got cut off. It's only, having lost it, that I realise it's not a big deal. Due to the bundling of the channels I wanted, we had to pay the full price just to get them. I'm a racing nut above all else, and Speed is in the highest tier. However, in the last two months, Speed have gone down the crapper. Basic cable is the best option. Most baseball airs on a channel in the next tier, so I'm going to spring for an MLB.TV subscription come baseball season. I think it'll be cheaper. As for boxing... TSN here do a 30 minute weekly show, which is pretty good. And they show the weekly HBO boxing too. They also re-broadcast the big PPV fights a few weeks after the event. I believe that's it for their boxing output. And, like you, I fail to fathom how poker is more interesting to people than boxing. Of course, I also fail to fathom how American Idol does so well... There's always debate over whether racing is a real sport. Not going to get into the issue, other than to say I'm pretty sure that anyone with a brain can see that racing is more deserving of the "sport" label than poker. I just don't get how, in todays violence obsessed society, boxing isn't popular. Very strange.

01-05-2005, 09:56 PM	#10 (permalink)
crusadecat All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 799	Poker is one thing but how about the multitude of pro wrestling shows on. I understand that some of us here like it and all but I'd rather watch real drama that boxing offers than contrived stuff like that. ugggh.

01-06-2005, 12:03 AM	#11 (permalink)
Bonedwarf All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,320	I'm a wrestling fan. However, I do NOT watch WWE. However, wrestling has more right to be on a sports channel than poker. Wrestling at least involves physical effort. (Unless Hogan is involved. LOL!)

01-06-2005, 01:11 AM	#13 (permalink)
erickdamac All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 1,592	I mean everyone have cable or Dish.

01-06-2005, 12:59 PM	#16 (permalink)
CONN CHRIS Global Moderator Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 21,322	I miss the good old days of picking up wall-to-wall curling on Saturdays from the CBC when I lived in Northern Maine. And in my opinion, even curling is more of a sport than wrasslin. Wrasslin is simply staged theatrics. Granted, the thespians are quite athletic, but it isn't a sport by even the loosest definition - no offense chum. __________________ REC World Prizefighter Rankings

01-06-2005, 01:06 PM	#17 (permalink)
Cap Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Large Province in God's Country Posts: 4,004	One of the things that should define a sport as sport is whether or not the outcome is decided beforehand. The ol' time wrassler Yvon Robert was a cousin of mine. No one can tell me that the matches today are not pre-arranged gymnastics performances. But I don't want to spoil the fun for anyone. I used to watch Yukon Erik and Joe Leduc on local TV every Saturday when I was much younger. Now that was wrasslin'! Cap __________________ "...There were Giants in Those Days.." Last edited by Cap : 01-06-2005 at 01:08 PM.

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01-06-2005, 01:11 PM	#18 (permalink)
CONN CHRIS Global Moderator Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 21,322	Yeah, I know. I used to have a soft spot for the "Unpredictable" Johnny Roz. Come to think of it, he was quite predictable, but that's another story. __________________ REC World Prizefighter Rankings

01-06-2005, 11:42 PM	#19 (permalink)
Antonin All Star Reserve Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: The Icy Cold of Space Posts: 857	Tonight I saw a number of TV adverts for some new x-treme fighting show. It amazes me that TV executives and apparently audiences could take something like that seriously when there are countless boxers toiling away at arenas throughout the US. Why should some loudmouth knucklehead part-time 'athlete' on some x-treme fighting 'reality' TV show, or some idiots who go to an island and do whatever it is they do be better known among US households than Bernard Hopkins? I'm surprised that the powers-that-be in boxing are not making more of an effort to get the sport more visibility on television. I read somewhere that Don King is threatening to launch a boxing channel. I would love to see something like that on basic cable, but having to put up with his babbling might make it more trouble than it's worth. I don't expect the big names in boxing to be available outside of overpriced PPV. But there are many midranked fighters who could use the national exposure.

01-07-2005, 10:11 AM	#20 (permalink)
Cap Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Large Province in God's Country Posts: 4,004	It's mainly because industry whiz-kids see their market as single wired suburbanites between the ages of 18 and 32 who watch MTV, wear body scent, drink low-fat latte, own an i-pod and have plenty of disposable income. This demographics group does not want to watch boxing, unless celebrities are involved. Cap __________________ "...There were Giants in Those Days.."