Ryback pinned Big Show to retain the IC Title.
Jimmy Uso pinned Brad Maddox.
The Ascension pinned Los Matadores, then The Ascension were pinned by Curtis Axel and Damien Sandow in a three-way elimination tag team match.
R-Truth pinned Bo Dallas.
Dean Ambrose pinned Luke Harper
Neville pinned Stardust
Natalya made Alicia Fox tap out.
Roman Reigns pinned Bray Wyatt in a street fight.
Please credit me @chikarajack on Twitter.
Results from Saturday night’s show in Charlottesville, VA.
John Cena worked with no apparent sign of an injury after his match was temporarily stopped and he was hurt the previuos night.
Big E & Kofi Kingston b Lucha Dragons
Cesaro b The Miz
Fandango b Adam Rose
Dolph Ziggler b Rusev
Charlotte & Becky Lynch b Tamina Snuka & Sasha Banks
Sheamus b Jack Swagger
John Cena b Kevin Owens in a street fight
By Joel Kolsrud
Saturday, September 5, 2015Ashford University FieldClinton, Iowa Clinton, Iowa has no real wrestling heritage or history. It’s a town of 26,000 people in eastern Iowa, about forty miles northeast of the Quad Cities, which has had a wrestling heritage and history. It’s no different than any other town of this size, despite the recent downturns in employment with several industries having closed down in the past fifteen years. In fact, they no longer feature “Riverboat Days”, once Iowa’s largest 4th of July festival. It’s just the area Clinton is and everyone is used to it. One thing people aren’t used to, however, is live pro wrestling in Clinton. The AWA came here four times between 1968-1971, usually the night before heading down to Burlington, Iowa, a town with almost the same exact population, a two-hour plus drive. They came back in 1983, the night prior to a Fond du Lac, WI show as well. Around that same time, Ringside Wrestling Promotions, owned and operated by Randy “Rocky” Brewer of Clinton ran a few shows in the area. Brewer wrestled all over during the mid-to-late 1970s and into the early 1980s before starting up RWP. He was mainly a television enhancement talent, though once held the NWA Mid American Tag Team Titles with Pat Rose in 1980 for the Nick and George Gulas. The fall of 1985 saw the the birth of Midwest Championship Wrestling by Dale “Crybaby” Edwards (the late George Hill). They ran monthly cards in Clinton (and surrounding areas), including using Ox Baker a time or two. In a big surprise, they also got television on the (at the time) brand new Fox affiliate, KLJB-TV in Davenport. The promotion made a go of it, including once having the actual contract to become a legit member of the National Wrestling Alliance, though which never came to fruition. They mainly used area talent but also had some of Eddie Sharkey’s guys like Teijo Kahn and Ricky Rice. The promotion eventually folded in the summer of 1986. The AWA made a return on September 2, 1989 to what was then known as Riverview Stadium, the current Ashford University Field. It was a sold show with about 400 in attendance featuring name guys like Larry Zbyszko, Baron Von Raschke, Colonel DeBeers and Mike George. The non-name talent at the time were the likes of Paul Diamond, Derrick Dukes and The Destruction Crew, Wayne Bloom and Mike Enos. Between 2001-2003, Riverboat Days brought in an indie pro wrestling show. Because it was part of getting into the fair itself, the grandstands at the ballpark were full. Still, the lineups announced never even came close to the card presented. This included one show with the ridiculous billing of the Rock and Roll Express (yes, that Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson) by promoter Manny Fernandez (yes, that Raging Bull) claiming their failure to appear was due to having been in an auto accident. Another year had Harley Race become a no-show due to being injured, even though Race had been retired from wrestling by then. So, in 2015, we were fortunate enough to get Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling, the first pro wrestling event in Clinton in 12 years, and only the fifth in the past 30. About 300 fans turned out for a nice evening of old school wrestling, complete with an appearance by both Jarrett himself and Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Duggan was out front at his souvenir table prior to the show and was just like I remembered him back in the 1980s and 1990s for the WWF in both Peoria and the Quad Cities (Moline and Davenport) when signing autographs for fans. He seemed real glad to be there and when a few fans mentioned coming out specifically to see him, he quickly added that Jarret was there as well. This crew started in Cedar Rapids on Thursday, drove the hour to Waterloo on Friday and then 2½ hours from there to Clinton. Not quite as bad as the old days. 1. Sonjay Dutt pinned DJZ (the former Xena Ion) at 7:20 after a tornado DDT.The ring was at homeplate of the ballpark and all fans were seated in the grandstands. Like the six matches featured this night, they all worked real hard playing to the crowd and encouraging their participation in the respective matches, but with the whole show itself. Fun match, especially the comedy with Dutt getting ahold of DJZ’ headphones and trying to mess up his hair. 2. Matt Bentley won a Triple Threat Match over Tommaso Ciampa and Kevin Matthews at 9:05, pinning Ciampa after hitting him with The Showstopper.Matt Bentley’s hometown is Clinton, Iowa and this was an unadvertised surprise. Bentley is the former Michael Shane, and is a first cousin with “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels, whose real last name is Hickenbottom, and who has family still living in the Clinton area. Bentley has short hair now and looked pretty good considering he rarely, if ever, wrestles anymore. It was mostly Ciampa and Matthews double-teaming the hometown guy, but they ended up turning on each other and Bentley scored the fall using his famous cousin’s finisher. Special Appearance: Hacksaw Jim DugganDuggan came out and thanked everyone, Global Force Wrestling, etc. and then in an about-face, started talking about world’s troubles with terrorists. This brought out Ariya Daivari, who then stole Duggan’s 2×4 (the very one he has always brought to the ring with him all these years, or so said Brandon Baxter) and ran off. It was almost more comical that all of the wrestlers were coming out of the same dugout, as opposed to the old days when the heels were in the visiting team side and the faces were on the home team side. 3. ODB pinned Mickie James at 9:56, rolling her up and holding her tights.This got little reaction and the action inside the ring was a little rough, as in, painful to watch. On that note, it was somewhat interesting to see a spot where the referee was breaking them up, and holding them apart from one another. In this attempt at comedy, however, he had one hand on the breast of both women while doing this. After a few minutes more, ODB then gave James a “titty rub”, all in front of the young kids, making up about 20-25% of the crowd. ODB kept drinking from a flask as well, so it was what it was, and what it was, wasn’t real good. Or entertaining. 4. Nick “Magnus” Aldis pinned Chris “the former Chris ‘Masterlock’ Masters” Mordetzky at 11:59 after a flying elbow drop from the top rope.This was pretty solid, much like the opener, and was mainly Mordetzky trying to put Aldis into the Masterlock. He did manage to get him into it twice, but Aldis escaped both times, which led to him winning the match. 5. The New Heavenly Bodies (Desirable Dustin and Gigolo Justin) defeated Zero Gravity (CJ Esparza and Brett Gayika) at 11:30 when Justin pinned Brett.This was a fun match as well, and pretty much all action the entire time. Zero Gravity are really small, but had some of the coolest double tag team moves. All four guys were in the ring at the same time pretty much the entire time, and while not a Texas Tornado Match, made it tons better than it might have been otherwise. Special Appearance: “Double J” Jeff JarrettJarrett came out and gave a real cool speech about presenting old time wrestling, how they’re just starting and then mentioned possibly returning in 2016. We’ll see, but I’d definitely go. He spoke about the upcoming main event with Colt Cabana, mentioning it would be entertaining and fun and that Cabana would make us laugh and cry and want to slap the person next to each of us lol. MAIN EVENT:6. Colt Cabana pinned Ariya Daivari at 15:37, with revenge interference from Hacksaw Jim DugganI’d never seen Colt Cabana before tonight. In fact, on the way through the parking lot heading towards the ticket window, my brother says, “Is that Colt Cabana?” and I’m like…I have no idea. I’ve only ever heard of him, but have never seen him. Of course, it was. And for anyone who’s never seen him, this was the most entertaining pro wrestling match I’ve seen in decades. Daivari wanted to pray on his rug, so Cabana put his sweat towel right next to him and did the same thing. It was hilarious and Cabana later on put Daivari’s turban-like headwear over Daivari’s face and then tied it with the necklace they played the blind angle for several minutes. Another deal was Cabana grabbing Daivari’s prayer rug and jumping off of the top rope with it and landing onto Daivari. So I’m guessing this was The Magic Carpet Ride? They got down to wrestling with Daivari gaining the upper hand. The finish came down to a ref bump and Daivari grabbing the 2×4 he’d also brought out to the ring with him. Duggan, sitting in the dugout watching the match, came running out (well, running isn’t accurate, but ol’ Hacksaw is 61 years old these days and did the best he could), slid into the ring, grabbed the 2×4, gave a big “Hoooooooooooo!!”, whacked Daivari with the board, slid back out of the ring and the ref revived just in time to see Cabana covering Daivari and counted the fall. LAST NOTES:They allowed anyone who paid $20 to climb into the ring and get a photo taken with both Jarrett and Duggan. There must’ve been at least 50 people lined up (though some of them had photos taken as a group). Still, it was very impressive and everyone seemed to have a great time. Including yours truly, who has finally gone a wrestling show that was enjoyable for a change. Oh, and my brother never did follow through with slapping me, as Jarrett had alluded to earlier would happen watching a Colt Cabana match. Instead, he thanked me. Because we had fun. Joel KolsrudCamanche, IAlakedoorjournals@gmail.com
By Jeremy Wall
CBS aired a PBC card Sunday, September 6th at 4pm ET. It was a two-fight card headlined by Anthony Dirrell beating Marco Antonio Rubio via unanimous decision in a one-sided showcase fight for Dirrell. Dirrell was coming off a loss to Badou Jack on Spike TV in May, where Dirrell dropped the WBC Super Middleweight title via majority decision in the first loss of his career.
In the co-main, Jamie McDonnell retained his WBA Bantamweight title against Tomoki Kameda via unanimous decision. It was a rematch of a close fight that aired on CBS in May, which McDonnell also won via decision.
The show took place at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi. It was co-promoted by Tom Brown of TGB Promotions and Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing. Matchroom mainly does shows in Britain, but handles the promotion of McDonnell.
Dirrell had no problems with Rubio. Scores were three straight 100-90s. Dirrell improved to 28-1-1 (22 KOs) and Rubio fell to 59-8-1 (51 KOs).
Both Dirrell, 30, and Rubio, 35, were coming into the fight off losses. The difference is that Dirrell is in his prime and Rubio is washed up. Besides being five years older than Dirrell, Rubio looked bad getting made into a drama show by Gennady Golovkin in October. Golovkin knocked Rubio out in the second round after Rubio failed to make weight for the bout.
Against Dirrell, Rubio came into the fight the second heaviest he has ever been, weighing in at 169 ½ pounds. Dirrell weighed in at 169 ¾. Both guys were actually over the 168-pound limit for super middleweight (although no one seemed to care), so this was technically a light-heavyweight bout.
“I love boxing. I will get back in the gym and train for another fight because this is what I love to do,” Rubio said in the post-fight press release.
Boxing has a weird thing going on right where weight limits aren’t being respected and there are a ton of catchweight fights at unusual weights. The truth is that the championships and weights don’t mean as much in boxing as people think they do, unless it is a title held by someone forever, like Mayweather or Wladimir Klitschko. If two promoters get together to create a fight, they are going to have the weight limit as whatever is best for their fighters, unless they absolutely have to make weight for a major title. And even then, as Miguel Cotto has shown by demanding catchweight fights at less than the middleweight limit even though he is a major middleweight champion, weight limits can still be rendered meaningless for title fights.
It is because, of course, that promoters run boxing and decide what happens and not the athletic commissions. On top of that, boxing is so fractured with multitudes of promoters, which means that there is going to be a multitude of strange weight limit fights because the promoters are going to do what is best for business. If a promoter feels forcing their fighter (or fighters) to make weight will be bad for business because it will lead to a lame fight or because the fighter just doesn’t want to do it, they’ll do a catchweight fight instead.
Nevertheless, Rubio was clearly brought in to get Dirrell a win after Dirrell dropped the WBC title to Badou Jack. Against Jack back in May, much of the shoulder programming was based around the idea that Dirrell was a rising star who beat cancer early in his career to become the WBC champion. And then he turned in a mediocre performance and dropped the title to Jack.
Badou Jack is set to make the first defense of his title on the pay per view undercard of the Mayweather-Berto fight on September 12th. He will be facing George Groves. Dirrell would seem to be the logical next opponent for whoever wins the title.
You can see a major difference here comparing the matchmaking of PBC and the UFC. In UFC, if a previously undefeated fighter dropped his title in a close decision to an underdog, the champ would likely get an immediate rematch. If not, in most cases the champ would be paired with someone near the top of the rankings, with the winner being in the mix for the next title shot. That’s not always the case with the UFC, as the attempted Pettis-Myles Jury fight earlier this year illustrates, but that is their typical booking pattern for a former champ who just lost his title.
In PBC, they don’t bother booking the former champ in an immediate rematch or against another top competitor. They book him against a jobber to give him an easy win on network television. Part of that is because boxing is so fractured that many of the top competitors in any given weight class fight for different promoters, making it difficult to frequently put together competitive matches unless the money is there.
If UFC and the major boxing groups (mainly PBC and HBO) were in direct competition with one another (they are in more ways than people think), then UFC has a distinct advantage here because of the nature of their two respective industries. UFC is able to book better fights more frequently, while still protecting their stars if they choose to since UFC calls all the shots, has nearly all the best fighters, and doesn’t have to co-promote with anyone else. In boxing, no group has most of the top fighters and promoters frequently have to work with one another to get a fight made, even when they don’t want to.
The co-main between McDonnell, 29, and Kameda, 24, for the WBA Bantamweight belt was a much better fight than Dirrell-Rubio. McDonnell and Kameda had an exciting fight on CBS in May. This time, the bout wasn’t quite as exciting, but it was just as close. They went to a close decision, with McDonnell scoring a knockdown in the twelfth round. Many people watching the fight, however, thought Kameda won, including colour commentators Paulie Malignaggi and Virgil Hunter. Scores were 117-110, 116-111, and 115-112 for McDonnell.
““I thought I won this fight a lot more clearly than the last fight,” Kameda said in the post-fight press release.
McDonnell obviously disagreed. “I didn’t think it was a controversial decision, because I always felt in control and I believe that I won the fight comfortably.”
McDonnell improved to 27-2-1 (12 KOs) and Kameda fell to 31-2 (19 KOs).
It is hard to say if this will lead to a third bout between the two. The first fight was close and a lot of people thought Kameda won the second bout. Both guys have upped their profiles by having two good fights on network television this year, but I wouldn’t say either of them are stars in the making or anything like that. McDonnell is from Britain, but is not that big of a deal there. Kameda is Japanese, but moved to Mexico at the age of fifteen and has lived there ever since. He speaks fluent Spanish and is popular with the Mexican audience. He also has two brothers who have held world titles in boxing. His brother Daiki Kameda lost a split-decision on Sunday’s show in a fight that didn’t air on TV.
The belt the two were fighting over is not actually that big of a deal. It is the “regular” version of the WBA Bantamweight title. The WBA awards two belts for each weight division, one “super” champion who is widely considered the real champion, and one “regular” champion who is widely considered not a champion at all. I guess they do this to collect more sanctioning fees, although it completely ruins any prestige that most of the WBA belts have. McDonnell retained the regular belt. The super belt is held by Juan Carlos Payano. Payano is also a PBC fighter who beat Rau’shee Warren on a PBC on Bounce show in August.
Being that both Payano and McDonnell are both PBC fighters they could feasibly be matched against one another. I’m not sure how that would work with the WBA, though, since I’m assuming they want two separate champs in each weight division to collect twice the sanctioning fees.
This is where having titles controlled by outside groups doesn’t really work. I know people argue that having titles controlled by sanctioning bodies and not promoters means the promoters can’t manipulate titles. But the sanctioning bodies are manipulating the titles in a way that damages boxing’s reputation anyway. Plus the UFC is a promotion that handles its own titles and frequently has better title fights and better matchmaking compared to boxing.
I think PBC is going about things incorrectly when it comes to matchmaking. They are putting on mostly lousy showcase fights. I don’t have a problem with television squash matches being used to build guys. But if PBC is competition for the UFC and the UFC books competitive fights more often than not, then PBC has to match them. Also, HBO has probably booked better competitive fights this year compared to PBC and HBO is PBC’s top competitor within boxing.
If PBC came in from the start with the mission of revolutionizing boxing so that it becomes more of a business model akin to the UFC, then they needed to book competitive fights frequently during the first year or two in order to get people to believe that this is boxing without politics holding the sport back. Once people believe they are seeing a new way of doing boxing, they can scale back a bit and add in some squash matches.
I understand what they are trying to do in booking squashes like Dirrell-Rubio, because they are trying to create new stars and it gives someone with star potential an easy win. It’s just that PBC is doing it too frequently and they shouldn’t have been doing these types of matches during their first year, anyway.
Also, and this is just me, but I would have started the promotion with PBC title belts and dropped recognition of all the other sanctioning bodies. It would have pissed a lot of people off, but Al Haymon is already pissing a lot of those people off anyway, so what’s the difference. Haymon could then book title fights as he pleases, protect the integrity of the titles, and use the titles to elevate guys and create new stars.
Another problem is that PBC is all over the place. They are on nearly every major network and nearly every major cable sports station. They have fights all over the country with a wide variety of alphabet titles. A lot of the fights don’t lead anywhere. There’s no overarching storyline to many of these bouts and they are just kind of random fights at random times on random television channels.
They have shoulder programming on Spike and on Showtime, but they need a regular magazine show and maybe a “Best Of” show similar to UFC Tonight and other UFC programming on FS1. I think magazine shows are important because they set the official story of fights, so that fans are told why certain fighters are important and why the fights they are involved in matter.
This is where being on every channel imaginable is a disadvantage because PBC is everywhere at once, but in a way that is confusing and random.
The unaired prelims for Sunday afternoon’s show included wins by prospects Miguel Flores (17-0, 8 KOs, 23 yo, super featherweight) and Mario Barrios (11-0, 6 KOs, 20 yo, super featherweight), among other fights.
Ratings for PBC afternoon shows on CBS and NBC have been steady, but have shown a bit of attrition. Ratings have been slightly better for afternoon shows on Saturdays compared to Sundays.
PBC’s last show on CBS was July 18th, featuring Carl Frampton vs. Alejandro Gonzalez Jr. It drew a 0.8 rating on a Saturday afternoon at 4pm ET. Previously, PBC also drew a 0.8 for a Sunday afternoon show on June 21st. Other past ratings on CBS include a 0.9 on May 9th and a 1.1 on April 4th, the latter which was PBC’s debut on CBS. Both of those shows were also on Saturdays.
PBC has also done two weekend shows on NBC. They drew a 0.85 on Saturday, May 23rd and a 0.95 on Saturday, June 6th.
Dirrell’s fight against Badou Jack on Friday, April 24th drew 569,000 viewers (0.2) on Spike, which is not a great rating, but PBC hasn’t been drawing well on Spike, so it was typical.
There is a tremendous amount of boxing on television between now and September 12th, when Mayweather faces Berto on pay per view.
On September 8th, PBC debuts on FS1 with Austin Trout vs. Joey Hernandez. On September 11th, Adonis Stevenson debuts in Toronto versus Tommy Karpency. The same night on TruTV in Las Vegas Top Rank has a show headlined by Oscar Valdez vs. Chris Avalos and Jesse Hart vs Aaron Pryor Jr. On September 12th, NBC has an afternoon show with Cornelius Bundrage vs. Jermall Charlo and Peter Quillin vs. Michael Zerafa, which will be a final push for the pay per view later that night. There’s also a boxing fan convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center the day of the Mayweather fight and probably some other stuff in town that I am not aware of.
Jeremy Wall can be contacted at jeremywall1984@gmail.com and found on Twitter @jeremydalewall.
Submitted by Edwin Ayala Jr.
– Solomon Crowe defeated Elias Samson by submission with the Crowebar.
– Bull Dempsey defeated Angelo Dawkins with a top rope flying butt drop. – Hugo Knox cut a heel promo.
– Nia Jax & Dana Brooke defeated Peyton Royce & Carmella when Jax pinned Carmella after a twilt-a-whirl backbreaker followed by a slam.
– Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic – First Round: Zack Ryder & Mojo Rawley defeated Noah Kekoa & Alexander Wolfe when Ryder pinned Wolfe after a Doomsday Device Rough Ryder. – Apollo Crews defeated Ty Dillinger with a gorilla press slam followed by a standing moonsault. – Bayley appeared a special guest and cut a promo saying she was thankful to the fans for the support and that a new series of challengers would be coming after her for the title and Emma interrupted her and challenged her for the title. Bayley accepted the challenge and that it would be the main event tonight. – Tyler Breeze defeated Baron Corbin. – NXT Tag Team Champions The Vaudevillians defeated Jason Jordan & Chad Gable to retain. – NXT Women’s Champion Bayley defeated Emma with the belly-to-belly suplex.
Submitted by Adam Martin
– From Perfect Game Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium, the first of three Iowa shows this weekend
Colt Cabana def. Ariya Daivari
Lots of comedy in this one with Cabana messing with Daivari’s head gear and rug that he brought to the ring. Cabana was very interactive with the small crowd and was one of the more popular acts of the night.
Tommaso Ciampa def. Kevin Matthews
Ciampa was quite popular with the snarky wrestling fans in attendance chanting “NXT” his way. Matthews did well working as a heel to try and get the crowd involved throughout the match.
Mickie James def. ODB
More comedy spots with the referee in this one. James was very popular with the crowd and later during intermission taking photos and signing autographs. ODB was also very over with the audience including a post-match promo.
Jeff Jarrett was introduced and thanked everyone for attending. The New Heavenly Bodies interrupted Jarrett’s promo. A tag team called Zero Gravity ran out to make the save.
Zero Gravity def. The New Heavenly Bodies
Lots of flips and moves in this one. They set a pretty fast pace and did a good job of keeping the attention of the crowd.
– Intermission featured people who purchased GFW guitars to take a photo with Jeff Jarrett at ringside. Various talent had tables setup with merchandise in the concourse area as well.
Sonjay Dutt def. DJ Z
The crowd was almost deflated by the time the intermission came to a close. Z requested his hair and face not be touched at the start of the match.
– “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan was introduced and cut a nice promo about Iowa. He was interrupted by Ariya Daivari which prompted “USA!” chants. Duggan chased him off.
Chris Mordetzky (Chris Masters) def. Nick Aldis (Magnus)
Both guys worked real hard, but the crowd by this point seemed tired and ready to call it a night. Mordetzky wisely started playing up to the crowd getting in close. Aldis was over as a babyface.
Notes:
– Global Force Wrestling has aways to go in regards to live event presentation. Pro wrestling in a baseball setting just doesn’t seem to work. Marketing around the summer and the popularity of baseball games in smaller markets like this seemed like a good idea. A smaller and much more intimate venue would have done wonders for the overall live event presentation, especially with how poor attendance was.
– The very humid weather didn’t help matters either. With hardly any local advertising or marketing in the weeks leading up to the show, it just felt like a very lackluster effort on the part of those behind GFW to bring people out to the ballpark. It was one of the most underwhelming pro wrestling events I’ve ever attended.
By Jeremy Wall
Leo Santa Cruz vs. Abner Mares was a fight so good that ESPN had to show it twice.
Well, actually they showed the fight once on ESPN when it aired live Saturday, August 9th and then a second time on ESPN2 on Tuesday, September 1st at 9pm ET. Santa Cruz, 27, defeated Mares, 29, by majority decision to win the vacant WBA Super World Featherweight title. Scores were 117-111 twice and 114-114. It was Santa Cruz’s third world title in as many weight classes. He also holds the WBC Super Bantamweight title and he will have to give up one of those two titles within the next few weeks.
The fight is a contender for match of the year, coming off the heels of another contender for match of the year on a PBC card on August 14th when Krzysztof Glowacki upset Marco Huck to win the WBO Cruiserweight title. That fight aired on Spike. PBC has been criticized for bad matchmaking for booking mostly squash matches on their free television broadcasts, but the quality of fights in recent weeks has been kind to PBC.
The fight was hyped beforehand as all action and it delivered. Santa Cruz has the reputation for the highest per round punch rate among all boxers, which is an amazing stat. Against Mares, Santa Cruz threw 1,057 punches. Mares threw back 980 punches. That combines to 2,007 punches in total over twelve rounds. Ouch. After the fight both of their arms must have felt like squished tubes of toothpaste.
Each fighter earned $1.25 million for the slugfest. It was a career payday for both. Santa Cruz improved to 31-0-1 with 17 KOs and Mares fell to 29-2-1 with 15 KOs.
Both fighters talked about a rematch after, which would probably do good ratings, or could be used as a co-main on a pay per view. Jose Santa Cruz, Leo’s father and trainer, allegedly wants his son to move on to other contenders, though. Another possibility for Santa Cruz is WBC champ Gary Russell Jr., who is also under contract to Al Haymon.
The fight took place at the Staples Center. They drew 13,109. The crowd was beyond hot. Both fighters are Mexican and from LA. Mares was portrayed as the heel in the pre-fight hype video, talking about how Santa Cruz has great punch stats because he has never faced someone as good as himself. Santa Cruz was portrayed as the guy that was above trash talking.
Santa Cruz fought on the pay per view undercard of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight back in May. The commentary on ESPN was weird in that Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas kept talking about how Santa Cruz-Mares was payback to all the fans who thought Mayweather-Pacquiao was a bad fight.
That was odd for two reasons. First, Mayweather-Pacquiao was back in May and Mayweather has moved on to other business. I’m not sure what Santa Cruz-Abner and Mayweather-Pacquiao have to do with one another. Second, Mayweather is fighting on pay per view against Andre Berto on September 12th. It is a poor choice to have your broadcasters talk about how Mayweather’s last pay per view fight sucked when he’s fighting on pay per view again in a week. That doesn’t exactly sell fights.
The rating for Santa Cruz-Mares, however, was great. ESPN averaged 1.217 million viewers for the August 29th live telecast from 10pm to 12:12am ET. It was the third PBC on ESPN show and easily the most watched. The debut show on July 11th with Keith Thurman only drew 799,000 viewers going up against the massive July UFC pay per view featuring Conor McGregor. The second show on August 1st featured Danny Garcia vs. Paulie Malignaggi drew 1.073 million viewers going up against the massive August UFC pay per view featuring Ronda Rousey.
This time, though, there was no UFC pay per view to spoil PBC’s party on ESPN, although the fight did go up against a pay per view fight between Shane Mosley and Ricardo Mayorga that was promoted by Mosley’s company and took place at the LA Forum. Chances are PBC’s success on ESPN killed the Mosley-Mayorga buy rate.
Santa Cruz-Mares was the most watched boxing match on ESPN since a February 22nd, 1998 flyweight title bout between Mark Johnson and Arthur Johnson. Santa Cruz-Mara peaked at 1.614 million viewers.
The fight also aired on ESPN Deportes and set a boxing record for that station with 355,000 average viewers. It peaked at 453,000 viewers.
The September 1st replay on ESPN2 drew 280,000 viewers.
Let us see if PBC can keep their ball rolling into Mayweather-Berto.
*****
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the biggest drawing heel of all time.
Last week Showtime debuted the shoulder programming called All Access: Mayweather vs Berto. Showtime does All Access hype shows for all of their major fights.
Most of the episode focused on Mayweather and how much people hate him, but how he is “TBE”.
At one point in the episode Mayweather grabbed a massive fistful of cash and began shadow boxing while holding it.
Berto was painted as the underdog everyman who always pushes forward.
The marketing gimmick with this fight is clearly that it is Mayweather’s supposed retirement fight and that if Berto beat him then it would be the biggest upset of all-time. The idea for people to tune in is to see the last chance for Mayweather to get his mouth shut.
Whether all of this draws on pay per view remains to be seen.
I don’t believe Mayweather will retire after this fight. I don’t believe that anybody believes that. I don’t believe that Mayweather believes that. Las Vegas Arena opens next year. Mayweather-Pacquiao II is obviously the best boxing match to open the arena, or at least be the first boxing match at the arena if UFC 200 opens it. Also, with the story that Pacquiao’s arm is healed and he is coming for revenge, Mayweather-Pacquiao II ought to draw well on pay per view, no matter what people’s opinion of the quality of their first fight.
I don’t believe that The Money Team will leave all that money on the table.
*****
I’m here in Las Vegas for UFC 191.
I’m not feeling a ton of hype in town for Mayweather-Berto. Maybe the hype train will get rolling after UFC 191 is over on Saturday. They both took place at the MGM Grand.
I’ve talked to a ton of other UFC fans in town, many from around the world, and so far I’m the only person I know staying in town the extra week to see the Mayweather spectacle. I’ve even talked to boxing fans from Europe who are in for UFC 191 and they aren’t staying around for Mayweather. But maybe it is just the people I’ve been talking to.
The final week is what is important for pay per view buys, anyway. We’ll see how the Mayweather people handle that final week and if they can keep the money rolling in.
And isn’t it odd that UFC is choosing to headline a show at the MGM Grand with a Demetrious Johnson fight a week before Mayweather headlines at the same venue?
*****
Here’s a snapshot of the upcoming major boxing schedule on American TV.
Sept 6th on CBS with Anthony Dirrell vs. Marco Antonio Rubio and Jamie McDonnell vs. Tomoki Kameda. This is a rehab fight for Dirrell. Dirrell is coming off a loss to Badou Jack in a title fight on Spike and Rubio hasn’t fought since being knocked out in the second round by Gennady Golovkin last October. McDonnell-Kameda is a rematch for McDonnell’s WBA Bantamweight title. McDonnell beat Kameda by unanimous decision on CBS in May. It was a good fight.
Sept 8th PBC debuts on Fox Sports 1, replacing Golden Boy Boxing. Austin Trout fights Joey Hernandez. It is a showcase for Trout, who is getting a push on TV after last fighting in the untelevised undercard of a CBS show in May. Trout is 29-2 (16 KOs) and 29 years old. His losses were both by unanimous decision to Erislandy Lara and Canelo Alvarez. Hernandez, 31, is coming off a loss to Julian Williams in April, his second loss in his last three bouts. This is the first of what is purported to be a multi-year weekly series.
Sept 11th PBC on Spike with Adonis Stevenson vs. Tommy Karpency and Errol Spence Jr vs Chris van Heerden. It is PBC’s debut in Toronto with the show taking place at the smaller Ricoh Coliseum (where the Toronto Maple Leafs farm team plays). It is promoted by Yvon Michel and co-financed by Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment. And, since it is PBC, it is run by Al Haymon and his Wall Street money. MLSE is the company that owns the Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC the Air Canada Centre, and Ricoh Coliseum. MLSE is co-owned by Bell and Rogers, who are the media conglomerates that between the two of them own most of Toronto. Bell owns TSN (which broadcasts UFC and many PBC shows in Canada) and is in the process of buying the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts. Rogers owns Sportsnet, which has WWE in Canada and also the lucrative NHL contract. Rogers also owns the Blue Jays and Rogers Centre. I’m not sure which of these companies owned Rob Ford. Anyway, Adonis Stevenson is the biggest boxing star to come to Toronto since boxing gloves were invented. These are showcase fights for both Adonis and Spence, the latter of whom is considered one of the best prospects in boxing. Adonis is a star in Montreal, but Montreal is not Toronto and boxing’s popularity is cold in Toronto, so PBC is starting from scratch here. They should have come with a better main event if they wanted to make a splash because I doubt they will draw on Adonis’ name alone, unless Toronto turns out to be an untapped market for boxing. The most notable thing here is how Al Haymon was able to merge his Wall Street money with Canada’s Bay Street money and get it all involved in boxing. Corporate leaders seem to all love Al Haymon. Maybe he’s a good kisser.
Also, Sept 11th, Top Rank has a TruTV show at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas with Oscar Valdez vs. Chris Avalos and Jesse Hart vs. Aaron Hart Jr. I might attend this one live.
The afternoon of Sept 12th is PBC on NBC with Peter Quillin vs. Michael Zerafa and Cornelius Bundrage vs. Jermall Charlo for Bundrage’s IBF Middleweight title. Quillin is coming off a draw with Andy Lee on NBC back in May. Zerafa is only 23-years-old and is 17-1 (9 KOs), but is from Australia and has never fought in the US. Bundrage is 42-years-old, but has only lost one fight in his last eight bouts (by majority decision to Ishe Smith). Charlo is 21-0 (16 KOs) and 25-years-old. This one is an obvious passing of the torch, if one considers the IBF Middleweight belt a torch. This show for the most part also obviously serves as a hype show for the Mayweather pay per view later that day.
The night of Sept 12th is Mayweather vs. Berto at the MGM Grand and on pay per view. Other televised bouts are Roman Martinez vs. Orlando Salido for Martinez’s WBO Super Featherweight title and Badou Jack vs. George Groves for Jack’s WBC Super Middleweight title.
And that’s it for boxing’s hype cycle leading up to the Mayweather show.
Jeremy Wall can be contacted at jeremywall1984@gmail.com and followed on Twitter @jeremydalewall.
Notes from Tuesday’s TV tapings in Miami:
– The show opened with a comedy segment with the New Day complaining that the Dudleys are endangering furniture. The Dudleys came out, as did the Prime Time Players and it led to a match with Dudley vs. PTP.
– The Dudleys b Prime Time Players
– Stardust was to face Neville next, but The Ascension came out and laid out Neville which appeared to be on the orders of Stardust.
– Cesaro was doing an interview. Sheamus interrupted him.
– Sheamus b Cesaro
– The Miz TV segment with Lana saw Summer Rae come out and the two women got into it. Miz and Dolph Ziggler pulled them apart.
– Bo Dallas b R-Truth
– Charlotte b Tamina Snuka. Team Bella came out and Nikki raised the title belt in the air.
– Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose b WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston) via DQ
Submitted anonymously
WWE Superstars:
– R-Truth def. Adam Rose. Rose did the party pooper gimmick he was doing at the weekend house shows.
– Neville and the Lucha Dragons def. Stardust and The Ascension when Neville hit the Red Arrow for the pin and win.
Post Raw:
After Cena and Sting left, Cena came right back out to his music. This led to…
– John Cena & Randy Orton def. Seth Rollins & Sheamus when Orton pinned Sheamus in 10 minutes after a lot of AA’s and RKOs.
Notes:
– The crowd was into Sting in the opening segment.
– The women’s beat the clock series was very disappointing. PCB and Sasha Banks got big reactions for their entrances, but it was quiet during the first two matches. Lots of Sasha and Paige chants for the short amount of time that lasted.
– Big reaction for Kevin Owens. Ambrose and Reigns were also over. No boos at all for Reigns.
– Dudleys and New Day got big reactions when they came out, but crowd got tired during this match.
– Cena reaction was about 75 percent favorable.
– Interesting that Rollins’ line about Sting killing WCW got a lot of boos. WCW did big business in Florida, but we’re talking 15-20 years ago and even further beyond that.
Submitted by Charles Parker
– Good house for the show. Eden Styles was the host and ring announcer
WWE I-C Ryback def. Big Show
Standard big guy match though for some reason Ryback is using chops in his offense. Ryback kicked out of both the Chokeslam and the WMD, He hit the Shellshock (barely) for the pin. Show got a lot of applause and polite cheers after the match. I kept thinking of the interview he did with Jericho recently. Show went to the top once and got slammed off it (though in truth Show just rolled into the ring on his own mostly).
Bo Dallas came out and told everyone he would be victorious because he ‘bo-lieved’ in himself but we would not be because we didn’t bolieve. This led to Cesaro’s music hitting.
Cesaro def. Bo Dallas
Cesaro came out wearing that Cesaro/Kidd shirt oddly. Dallas bailed out of the ring early and often to start. Eventually they started wrestling, Bo’s gut is noticeable from the side. Cesaro’s comeback included hitting corner to corner running European-style uppercuts. Got the Giant Swing on his second try then hit the Neutralizer for the pin.
Natayla def. Emma
Emma wearing her heel attire reveals a lot more skin which is odd for a heel. Natayla got the first surprise pop since no one expected her and not as many people recognized her. She still her had full body suit. Emma throws the worst punches this side of Nikki Bella. Mostly mat-wrestling aside from Emma’s cross-body in the corner. Nattie eventually gets the sharpshooter for the submission.
Luke Harper comes out and takes the mic. Says that Bray will destroy Reigns and the Wyatt family is back and stronger then ever. Proclaims himself the new face of desolation/destruction and to send someone out but not anyone they (in the back) wanted to see again.
Chris Jericho def. Luke Harper
Jericho got by far the loudest surprise pop the night. No one knew he was coming despite being advertised apparently. He came out with his light-up jacket and highly be-dazzled trunks. Good match though Jericho used John Cena level punches on the ten punches in a corner routine. Harper got out of the Lion Tamer twice, first by leg twist, second by making the ropes. Jericho eventually it the Code-breaker for the Pin.
Randy Orton def. Sheamus
Sheamus got mostly boos but Orton got the loudest reaction of the night that was overwhelmingly positive. Standard match between the two at this point, Orton using ‘Sheamus 10 Beats to the Belfry’. Sheamus eventually got the mic and stood over Orton while the latter was on his hands and knees, berating him and saying he ‘looked stupid’. You can guess how that worked out.
– Intermission: Warrior/Conner tribute video.
Neville def. Stardust
No one really knew who Neville was but they definitely wanted to see the Red Arrow. ‘Cody Rhodes’ chants. Stardust spat water from a water bottle to get the early advantage while the ref was turned away. Neville at one point did the same to him. Neville hit a running dive over the ropes onto Cody on the outside. Neville eventually hits the Red Arrow for the pin.
R-Truth def. Heath Slater
Truth’s music hit and all the kids went down to sing with him, he barely made the ring before Slater attacked. Someone behind me, called Slater ‘Finn Balor’. throughout this, saying he hated him. Slater got the mic and said we were going to see the quickest match in WWE history. He then ate an Axe kick and was pinned.
Lucha Dragons def. Los Matadors with Torito
Both teams cheered a lot though the Dragons were louder. Matadors did subtle heel stuff including bullying Torito to establish themselves. At one point Torito got in the ring and did a go behind sequence with Kalisto. Finish saw the car crash spot outside involve Kalisto and a Matador, Torito got in the ring and tried to hit a frankensteiner from the top rope on Sin Cara who ducked and Torito took out one of his teammates. Sin Cara hit a senton for the pin.
Roman Reigns def. Bray Wyatt in a street fight
This match was billed as a street fight. A street fight that started with a collar and elbow tie-up by both men. Reigns has a stunning array of punches which was pretty much all he did except his drop kick on the apron and a powerbomb through a table Wyatt set-up. Finish saw Luke Harper get involved and take a Superman KO punch then the lights went out and Braun was in the ring again.
Roman hit with two punches that Braun no sold and he was hoisted in the air to be choked out. This led to Truth running out and getting choked out instead. Followed by Neville and he got slammed as well. Finally Ryback made his way out and he hit Braun with a meathook clothlesline that staggered him enough for a Superman Punch from Reigns to knock him out of the ring. Reigns then Speared Wyatt for the pinfall.
Notes:
This was a fun show but it seemed very obvious how thin the roster was in terms of real stars. Outside of Reigns, Jericho and Orton, the next two over guys were Show and Wyatt. Also, they tried playing clips of various shows from the Network but there was noticeable buffering when they did so.