Tag: boxing

By Jeremy Wall

On Saturday, September 12th, Floyd Mayweather Jr fought in what he claims is the final fight of his storied career when he defeated Andre Berto by unanimous decision. Mayweather was heavily criticized for selecting Berto as his final opponent, as many in boxing felt that Berto was past his prime and chosen to give Mayweather an easy win on his way out. It headlined a four bout pay per view and took place in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, which has been Mayweather’s home for his final twelve fights.

The fight went exactly as most people anticipated. You practically could have guessed the entire fight ahead of time. Mayweather dominated the bout, winning the decision on scorecards of 120-108, 118-110, and 117-111. If anything, the two judges that gave Berto two and three rounds respectively were being generous as Berto showed little by way of skill and was clearly outclassed by a much more talented opponent.

It was clear from round one that Berto had little chance. He barely touched Mayweather throughout the fight and in the twelfth round was actually hurt by a combination of punches by Mayweather in the corner. The two began talking trash late in the fight, to the point where the talk was more intense than the fight and referee Kenny Bayless had to separate the fighters and issue each of them a warning for stalling the fight with all the trash talk.

According to ShoStats, Mayweather connected on 232 of 410 punches for a 56-percent compared to Berto, who connected on 83 of 495 punches for 16-percent. Those stats tell the story of the fight.

The real story of this fight was outside the ring and that story has many chapters. First there was the lack of box office drawing power. Selecting Berto as Mayweather’s opponent was an obvious miscalculation. Multiple major news outlets were reporting in the days leading to the fight that the MGM Grand had at least 2,100 tickets still available.

The fight didn’t sell out. Attendance was 13,395 with the arena scaled for 14,500. StubHub, an online ticket resale site owned by eBay, had cheap seats available the final week of the fight for just over $160. That was down from over $300 a week earlier. Those tickets went back up to $300 the day of the fight, as all the last minute travelers came to town.

I was in Las Vegas all week for both UFC 191 and Mayweather vs. Berto. I decided not to attend Mayweather vs. Berto at the MGM Grand, partially because the ticket prices were too high for this fight (also, I’m Canadian and the exchange rate is abysmal right now, making the fight substantially more expensive) and also because I was exhausted from attending the Boxing Fan Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center all day.

Instead, I stayed in my hotel room and ordered the fight on pay per view online. This was the first pay per view offered online by Showtime. The retail was $60. The pay per view was headlined by CBS and anyone who ordered received three months free of CBS All Access, which is the network’s streaming service and normally costs $5.99 a month. The only issue I had with the online stream was at the start of the show when the stream went dead. I called CBS’ hotline and they gave me an alternate link where I could watch. The stream was clear with little buffering, which was a positive since I was on hotel wifi.

The problem with Berto as an opponent is that no one believed Berto had a chance at defeating Mayweather. Berto went into the fight at +600 and Mayweather at -1800, which was actually better odds than Berto was given days earlier because of a rush of late underdog bettors throwing some money on Berto in the hopes of an unlikely payday.

Part of the attraction of watching a Mayweather fight is the chance at seeing him get his mouth shut. He’s the greatest drawing heel of all time. I see Mayweather as being like The Sheik, a classic wrestling heel who drew well in Toronto and Detroit by never losing with the idea that each new opponent could finally be the one to beat him. The Sheik drew a lot of money for that era from people who were only paying to see him lose.

To some degree, I think the same thing happened when Mayweather beat Pacquiao. Although boxing insiders knew Pacquiao stood little chance of beating Mayweather (particularly anyone who knew about Pacquiao’s injury ahead of time), most of the people watching the fight were only casually interested in boxing and probably never bought a boxing pay per view before. Those casual fans all thought Pacquiao was going to be the man to beat the man. He wasn’t. Once Pacquiao lost handily, those fans were probably left thinking, if Pacquiao can’t beat Mayweather, then no one can.

So, in order to draw money Floyd’s supposed final opponent would have be someone that people actually believed had a chance at winning. Someone who would present Floyd with a challenge. Berto wasn’t that someone. Although a former WBC and IBF Cruiserweight champion and the current interim WBA champion, Berto was a 32-year-old who had lost three of his last six fights dating back to a bout against Victor Ortiz in April 2011. He had tested positive for norandrosterone in 2012 and suffered a shoulder injury in a loss to Jesus Soto Karass in July 2013 that kept Berto out of action for 14 months.

Mayweather improved to 49-0 with 26 knockouts. Berto fell to 30-4 with 23 knockouts.

If this was indeed Floyd’s final fight, it was a missed opportunity for Al Haymon, who de facto controls Mayweather Promotions and is also the de facto promoter of Premier Boxing Champions. Even if Haymon and company stayed with Berto as Floyd’s final opponent, the hype for the fight was poor. PBC has a ton of network television time and ought to have used some of that time to give Berto a fight on NBC to showcase his skills and personality in order to build Berto up in front of as large an audience as possible. Instead, Berto’s only fight on PBC this year was against Josesito Lopez in the co-main event of PBC’s debut on Spike in March.

Berto was barely part of the pre-match hype. Much of the talking for Berto strangely came from Mayweather himself, who in response to people criticizing Berto kept saying that anything can happen in a fight and not to count Berto out. A bit was made out of Berto coming from a fighting family. His father Dieuseul was an MMA fighter back when MMA was better known as NHB, racking up a 0-3 record that included a loss at UFC 10 in July 1996. Some footage of Berto competing in minor league MMA was even used on the pay per view broadcast. No mention was made of Dieuseul’s history as a pro wrestler (if there was, I didn’t notice, which was surprising since Mauro Ranallo did play-by-play for the broadcast). Also, I heard no mention of Andre’s brother Edson, who is an MMA fighter with a 17-12-1 record having competed in Bellator, Strikeforce, and EliteXC.

Berto was obviously the wrong opponent, both from a skill and from a box office standpoint. Some people have suggested that Mayweather ought to have faced Gennady Golovkin, who holds multiple titles at middleweight. Golovkin had said publicly that he would be willing to come down in weight to face Mayweather. Golovkin probably would be the biggest challenge for Mayweather, but anyone who thinks Mayweather vs. Golovkin could have happened is in a fantasy world. Mayweather fights for Al Haymon and Golovkin fights for HBO. Even if Golovkin fought for Haymon, Mayweather still isn’t going to fight someone so much larger than him and someone who would go into the fight as a favourite and ruin Mayweather’s perfect record.

There were, however, other fighters that are actually signed to Al Haymon that would have made for better opponents than Berto. This list includes (but is not limited to) Keith Thurman, Amir Khan, Danny Garcia, and Shawn Porter. A lot of people feel Thurman is the next major star at welterweight and he might have even been favoured to beat Mayweather. If Mayweather was looking to put someone over on his way out, Thurman would be the best bet. Talks with Khan also occurred and Khan had been rumoured to face Mayweather many times over the last few years. When Khan beat Chris Algieri on Spike a few months ago, the way that fight was promoted was that it was leading Khan to a pay per view bout against Mayweather. That was still strange because of the idea at the time was that Khan would be Mayweather’s final opponent, one would think they would want Khan competing on NBC instead of Spike to get as many people watching him as possible.

If I had to choose an opponent for Mayweather’s 49th fight, I would have selected Shawn Porter. Porter is the anti-Mayweather, a friendly, likeable fighter from a Christian background. Like Mayweather, Porter is trained by his own father. Unlike Mayweather, Porter isn’t cocky, arrogant, and has a clean personal history.

I met Porter and his father Kenny at the Boxing Fan Expo earlier in the day. After talking with the two of them for a minute, I remain more convinced that he would have been the ideal challenger for Mayweather assuming that Mayweather was not looking for too much of a challenge. Mayweather would probably defeat Porter, but the loss would give Porter’s career a boost and the fight would have drawn better at the box office than Mayweather’s fight against Berto.

If I could write the story, I would have Mayweather beat Porter for Mayweather’s 49th win, then return to beat Pacquiao to open Las Vegas Arena next year to earn win 50 and break Rocky Marciano’s record. After, I would have Mayweather put Thurman over in his retirement fight and retire at 50-1 while in the process making Thurman into a new star.

It’s not that I believe any of that will happen, but that is the scenario that I picture would make the most money and be the most useful for PBC’s long-term fortunes after Mayweather is gone. In my little story, you could change a few of the components, like substituting Khan for Porter, or Danny Garcia for Thurman, and it would still work better than a fight against Berto.

It was clear that Mayweather handpicked Berto as his final opponent because Berto stood little chance. Berto’s last fight on Spike took place before the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout and any talk at that point that Berto would be Mayweather’s next foe would have sounded ludicrous. When Mayweather told the media a few months ago that he was considering fighting either Berto or journeyman Karim Mayfield, no one believed him. And then Berto was announced. I think it is probably the case that Mayweather lives in a bubble world surrounded by yes men and any idea that he pitches is going to be responded to positively. At this point Mayweather has made so much money for Al Haymon that I figure Haymon just allows Mayweather to do what he wants now with little feedback.

The fight will probably draw poorly on pay per view. The only question is what constitutes poorly for a Floyd Mayweather fight at this point. There might be enough interest in Mayweather’s name alone to carry the fight to a profitable buy rate. Alternatively, the negative press and lack of hype could flatten the buy rate to the lowest since Mayweather signed his lucrative contract with CBS Showtime, a contract that allowed Floyd to earn more than $400 million. $250 million was for the Pacquiao fight alone. He earned another $32 million for this bout.

Even though Berto lost nearly every round and looked out of his league against Mayweather, he was all smiles in his post-fight interview. That is probably because he earned a $4 million payday for the loss.

The second story outside the ring is the accusation that Mayweather misused an IV leading into his fight against Pacquiao. The story was broken on SB Nation by long-time boxing scribe Thomas Hauser, who clearly enunciated the details of what Mayweather did and didn’t do and the poor response from the USADA, who overlooked drug testing for that bout (the article is at http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2015/9/9/9271811/can-boxing-trust-usada). A ton has been said and even more has been written about Hauser’s contentious article, which made Mayweather look as if he cheated going into the Pacquiao bout. Mayweather has been a vocal proponent of serious drug testing in boxing, so the article was damaging to his reputation as a clean fighter. Hauser also published the piece at the most inopportune time for Mayweather, as the article became part of the pre-fight hype and may have helped contribute to the fight’s poor box office performance (although the fight was probably going to draw poorly anyway).

Mayweather was quizzed heavily about the IV issue and the lack of interest in the Berto fight in a television interview with journalist Charles Payne of Fox News. The interview is worth watching as it is one of the few times someone has bothered to ask Floyd questions that aren’t merely public relations (the interview is about seven minutes long and is at http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2015/09/11/inside-ring-with-floyd-mayweather-jr/).

The third story is the one that people are going to be talking about for months and that is whether Mayweather stays retired. After beating Berto, Mayweather continued to insist that it was his last fight and that he was now retired. His retirement feels like a pro wrestling career match stipulation that no one believes and is adhered to for a few months at most until a lucrative match draws the wrestler out of fake retirement.

“You got to know when to hang it up and it’s time for me to hang it up. I’m not going to be doing this when I’m 40 years old,” said Mayweather in his post-fight interview.

If Mayweather does come back, what will that lucrative match be? He’s not going to put anyone over on his way out because his mentality is all about winning, even at this stage of his career. The obvious fight is a rematch with Pacquiao to open the new Las Vegas Arena next summer. The fight would take place nearly a year after the original bout and the story would be that Pacquiao is going into the fight without a serious injury and theoretically would stand a better chance of beating Mayweather. Mayweather is also a free agent now that his CBS Showtime contract has expired with the Berto match and could feasibly go across the street to HBO, who is Pacquiao’s broadcaster.

The Pacquiao fight is really the only fight for Mayweather at this point. There are other matches with guys like Golovkin, Khan, Thurman, etc, that fans would like to see, but those are never going to happen. Mayweather will probably beat a healthy Pacquiao if they fight a second time. With the new arena opening in Las Vegas, I imagine Mayweather will get tremendous money offers to open it with a fight against Pacquiao.

And if Mayweather does sign to fight Pacquiao again and then claims he will retire after that, it would be far more believable.

No one believes that Mayweather is going to remain retired. But no one believed that Berto was going to be Mayweather’s next opponent, even though Mayweather told everyone as much. Maybe Mayweather really is serious about being retired. If he is, in his post-fight interview he said that he wants to focus on Mayweather Promotions and helping establishing his young fighters into new stars. I could see Mayweather as the public face of PBC, like in the Dana White role, with the difference being that Mayweather is only a public face and unlike Dana would do little actual work behind the scenes.

The pay per view undercard included three additional bouts besides the Mayweather-Berto main event. They were all excellent fights. It was clear that Showtime loaded the show with a strong undercard in order to make up for the weak main event.

The pay per view broadcast opened with Jonathan Oquendo beating Jhonny Gonzalez by majority decision at super featherweight. Scorecards were 98-92, 95-93, and 94-94. It was a close fight and a good action bout. Oquendo, 32, was knocked down in round one and Gonzalez, 33, was knocked down in round two. Oquendo improved to 26-4 with 16 knockouts and Gonzalez fell to 58-10 (49 KOs).

In the second bout of the night, Badou Jack, 31, upset George Groves, 27, by split-decision to retain the WBC Super Middleweight title. This was another exciting fight. Scores were 116-111 and 115-112 for Jack and 113-114 for Groves. Groves suffered a flash knockdown in the first round, but came back to control many of the middle rounds. This fight could have gone either way. There weren’t many people in the arena yet, but there were a large British contingent in Las Vegas to see their countryman Groves and they were vocal in their support.

It was a disappointing result for Groves, because a win could have led to a unification bout with James DeGale, who holds the IBF Middleweight title. Both are British fighters, with DeGale being the first British fighter to win both an Olympic gold medal and a major professional title. Groves is the established star in Britain and DeGale is the rising star. That fight wouldn’t mean much in the US, but if PBC wanted to debut in Britain, they could do a lot worse than headlining with Groves-DeGale for two middleweight belts.

Badou Jack spoiled that idea, though, just as he spoiled Anthony Dirrell’s undefeated record when he upset Dirrell for the WBC title on a PBC show in April. Jack put together two underdog wins in a row, so he’ll probably be taken more seriously as a fighter from now on. Jack could fight either Dirrell or Groves in rematches. I would think Groves would get a rematch first, especially since the initial idea was for Jack vs. Groves to headline a Showtime broadcast before it was moved to the Mayweather pay per view undercard.

With the win, Jack improved to 20-1 with 12 knockouts and Groves fell to 21-3 with 16 knockouts.

The third bout of the evening was a barn burner with Roman Martinez going to a split draw with Orlando Salido. It was an all action fight with both fighters pummeling one another from bell to bell. With the draw, Martinez retained the WBO Super Featherweight title. Scores were 115-113 Salido, 115-113 Martinez, and a 114-114 draw.

Martinez, 32, and Salido, 34, combined for 1,728 punches thrown over twelve rounds. Salido connected on 285 of 1,037 punches for 27-percent and Martinez connected on 189 of 691 punches also for 27-percent. A draw was fair, although many watching the fight scored it for Saldio based on his tremendous level of activity.

“I threw a lot of punches. There will definitely be a third fight,” Martinez said in his post-fight interview. The fight was a rematch of a bout between the two that took place on April 11th in San Juan, which Martinez won by unanimous decision to capture the WBO title.

Martinez fell to 29-2-3 with 17 knockouts and Salido fell to 42-13-3 with 29 knockouts.

The show also featured a number of dark matches that took place before the pay per view broadcast. A couple of these fights aired on the preshow for the online pay per view. Highlights among these fights include Vanes Martirosyan (36-2-1, 21 KOs, 29 yo), beat Ishe Smith (27-8, 12 KOs, 37 yo) by unanimous decision at super welterweight. Martirosyan was able to knock Smith down in the third and eighth rounds, although calling the one in the third round a knockdown was generous. Also, Gervonta Davis (12-0, 11 KO, 20 yo) knocked out Recky Dulay (8-2, 5 KO, 21 yo) in the first round at super middleweight. Davis is considered one of the top young prospects in Mayweather’s gym and even though Dulay was a step up in quality of competition for him, Davis put him away quickly. Davis is a fighter to keep an eye on.

Other notable prospects to pick up wins on the undercard were middleweight Christopher Pearson (13-0, 10 KOs, 24 yo) and super-middleweight Ronald Gavril (14-1, 10 KOs, 29 yo).

The week prior to Mayweather-Berto there was a tremendous amount of boxing on TV. PBC had a card on CBS last weekend, plus a show in Toronto on Spike TV on Friday night that went against a Top Rank Show on TruTV. There was also an NBC show on Saturday afternoon that was used as a last minute build for the Mayweather pay per view. I didn’t have a chance to watch that show, but it was headlined by Peter Quillin (32-0-1, 22 KOs) knocking out Michael Zerafa (17-2, 9 KOs) in the fifth round. The fight sets up a bout between WBA Middleweight regular champion Daniel Jacobs and Quillin for that title.

Also on NBC Saturday afternoon, 25-year-old Jermall Charlo (22-0, 17 KOs) beat 42-year-old Cornelius “K9” Bundrage (34-6, 19 KOs) to win the IBF Super Welterweight title. Charlo knocked Bundrage down in rounds one, two, and three for four knockdowns in total, finishing the fight with a third round knockout.

Note: In Saturday’s column I mentioned that Adonis Stevenson was probably the biggest boxing star to fight in Toronto. I forgot about the time Muhammad Ali faced George Chuvalo at Maple Leafs Gardens on March 29th, 1966. Ali was defending his Heavyweight title and beat Chuvalo, a tough Canadian from Toronto, by unanimous decision after fifteen rounds. There will probably never be a bigger boxing star than Ali, so he will remain the biggest name boxer to ever fight in Toronto. But in the last 49 years, there hasn’t been much else and certainly little in the way of big name boxing in Toronto since the new millennium. But if anyone knows of any other major fights in Ontario history, I’m all ears.

by Jeremy Wall

On Saturday, September 12th, Floyd Mayweather Jr. engages in what he is claiming will be the final fight of his career when he faces Andre Berto at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The problem is that almost no one believes Mayweather will retire. And almost no one cares.

Mayweather’s selection of Berto as an opponent has proven to be a misfire. I’m in Las Vegas for the fight (I’ve been here since before UFC 191 on Saturday) and there is no feeling of hype or excitement in town. Articles published on a variety of web sites earlier this week noted that there were more than 2,100 seats still available.

On StubHub, a secondary marketplace owned by eBay for ticket resellers, tickets for the fight could be had for as little as $166 as of Thursday night. That is down from over $300 for tickets in the cheap seats a week ago.

MGM Grand also apparently isn’t showing the fight on closed circuit due to the amount of disinterest in the fight. I’ve been keep tabs on the Facebook pages of popular sports bars on the Las Vegas Strip to see if any of them are having viewing parties. Again, as of Thursday night I haven’t come across a single bar that is advertising a Mayweather viewing party (although there are nightclubs advertising after parties, which isn’t the same thing). Most are advertising NFL parties instead.

I talked to lots of different UFC fans over the weekend that came to Vegas for UFC 191. Many of the people I talked to were boxing fans from the UK and Europe. I think a disproportionate amount of foreigners go to the UFC press events to try and snap photos with fighters because if you’re going to travel that far for the UFC, you may as well get your money’s worth. But even these admitted boxing fans weren’t sticking around for the Mayweather fight, with the feeling it was an afterthought.

Promotion for the bout has been strange. Months ago Floyd told the press that the two frontrunners for the honour of being trounced by him in September were Karim Mayfield and Andre Berto. People thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

Mayfield is a 34-year-old journeyman with a 19-2-1 record. The highest title he ever earned was the WBO NABO Welterweight title. He had lost two of his last three fights and hadn’t fought since November.

Berto, 32, has a career record of 30-3 with 23 knockouts. He is a former WBC and IBF Welterweight champion and currently holds the interim WBA Welterweight title (which is about as meaningless as a title belt can get in boxing these days). But he has lost three of his last six bouts, with his two recent wins coming over unknown fighters Josesito Lopez and Steve Upsher Chambers. In 2012, Berto tested positive for norandrosterone.

Most people will say that the reason Berto was selected as the opponent for Mayweather’s 49th professional fight was to give Mayweather the easy win to tie Rocky Marciano’s record. Apparently among Mayweather’s people there was also the belief that Berto is an action fighter and they didn’t want a repeat of the criticism that Mayweather endured for the Pacquiao fight being so boring.

The reaction of the general public to the quality of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was interesting. A lot of people watching that fight probably had never seen boxing before, except maybe in a Stallone movie. When the pay per view broadcast showed the graphic that the majority of fans thought Pacquiao would win the fight, it became obvious there was a tremendous amount of super casual fans watching the bout. Insiders with knowledge of both fighters had Mayweather as a heavy favourite.

Many fans turned on the bout, due to the enormous retail price of $100 and how dull the fight was. It was the most expensive fight in history, but the price didn’t deter people from buying it. I would have priced the fight the same way if I was Al Haymon or whoever it was that made that decision, because the fight grew into something more than just a fight and became a cultural event that people had to see no matter the cost. No one wanted to be left out when it came to saying that you saw the biggest fight of all time.

But that meant all of the extra people that ordered the fight were people that never watch boxing. People who don’t watch boxing expect boxing to be a fistfight, which it isn’t. I think if you polled many of the viewers of Mayweather-Pacquiao and asked them to name a famous a boxer, probably most would say Mike Tyson or Rocky Balboa. Some might say Muhammad Ali, but have probably never seen an Ali fight.

Of course, this is all speculation on my part, but based on poll results on who would win between Mayweather and Pacquiao and the public reaction to the fight afterwards, my speculation is probably true.

Mayweather-Pacquiao wasn’t a boring fight. It was a typical Mayweather fight. I watch boxing every weekend and I see far duller fights regularly. It was boring if you weren’t a boxing fan, though, and most of the people that bought that pay per view weren’t boxing fans.

So, I think the idea to bring in an action fighter like Berto to face Mayweather was an overreaction to public criticism of the Pacquiao fight.

I don’t necessarily think that Mayweather needs to face a top young opponent at this point in his career. I expect Mayweather to only do things at this point that protect his legacy. But Berto has no name value. His last fight was in March on the debut PBC on Spike show as the co-main event against Lopez. There was no talk at the time of Berto facing Mayweather after Pacquiao. Such talk would have been unbelievable.

If Mayweather were to put someone over on the way out, the choice would probably be Keith Thurman, although Danny Garcia and Amir Khan would also be discussed. He could also do a rematch with Canelo Alvarez, but politically that wouldn’t happen with Mayweather in Haymon’s camp and Alvarez signed to Golden Boy. But again, I only expect Mayweather to do things to protect his own legacy and not create a new star on the way out (like De La Hoya did in losing both to him and also to Pacquiao).

With that in mind, the opponent I would have selected for Mayweather is Shawn Porter. Porter is the anti-Mayweather in a lot of ways. Porter is a devout Christian, a seemingly honest fighter with a clean personal history. His father Kenny is his trainer and is also a devout Christian. Porter has a nice smile, has done colour commentary for PBC, and although he lacks charisma he speaks well and is likeable. A few weeks ago I wrote an article comparing Porter to Ricky Steamboat or Christy Mathewson, the latter being a baseball pitcher who played for the New York Giants from 1900-1916 who was known as “The Christian Gentleman”.

Porter is an ultra babyface, bland but likeable. Mayweather is charismatic and unlikeable. Mayweather is the greatest drawing heel in history. The only people that like Mayweather seem to be people obsessed with his lavish lifestyle and who adorn themselves in “TMT” brand clothing. Mayweather was on a recent All Access show shadowboxing with a huge wad of money in his hand. He calls himself “TBE” and constantly talks about Muhammad Ali and why Ali doesn’t stack up. He has a criminal record for domestic violence, which is a whole other ball of wax.

Mayweather versus Porter would have been a great face-heel matchup. Porter could be sold to a wider audience as a young upstart with wholesome values who is going to get a chance to fight the cocky self-proclaimed best ever.

It’s not a great fight, but it has selling points that are stronger than a fight against Berto. I think Mayweather would beat Porter, but I think Porter is a more lucrative opponent than Berto (who will also lose to Mayweather).

There are two main selling points to the fight against Berto and both are weak. First, Mayweather selecting Berto as an opponent is like a promise that this fight will be more action-oriented than the Pacquiao bout. That’s a weird stance. Imagine going to a restaurant and to get you to return the waiter promises your next meal won’t suck so much and will be less expensive.

What was even weirder was the way this fight was being hyped by Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas during the ESPN broadcast of the Santa Cruz-Mares fight a couple weeks back. Tessitore actually said that the Santa Cruz fight was a makeup bout for all the people who bought the Mayweather-Pacquiao and weren’t happy with that fight. That blew my mind. This was WCW level stupidity. This would be like WCW doing a Ric Flair-Hulk Hogan pay per view in 1998 and then doing Rey Mysterio vs. Ultimo Dragon on Nitro six months later and Tony Schiavone saying that the Nitro match was there to make up for all the people who thought the Hogan-Flair match was awful. And they do this just a week before Hogan is wrestling Kevin Nash or someone on pay per view.

It is incredible that a PBC broadcast team would actually admit that Mayweather’s last fight was terrible just a couple of weeks before Mayweather was scheduled to fight again on pay per view.

The second point is that Mayweather will retire after this fight. I also have a pro wrestling analogy using Hogan and Flair to illustrate why the second selling point of Mayweather-Berto doesn’t work. No one believes it. It is a pro wrestling retirement stipulation. This is once again like WCW in 1994 when they would say that Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair (or both) were retiring after their bout and no one believed that the retirement stipulation would be adhered to.

Pacquiao will be ready to fight next year and a rematch between him and Mayweather will draw money based on the idea that Pacquiao will be fighting injury free. It won’t draw as well as the first one, but will draw better than anything boxing can sell otherwise in 2016.

Also, Las Vegas Arena is set to open next summer. Dana White claims he is getting the first date for a sports event with UFC 200, but who knows. If I owned the new arena, I would want to open it with Mayweather-Pacquiao II.

Mayweather stands to make a ton of money fighting again next year. Does anyone actually believe he will pass all that money up? I mean, the guy’s nickname is actually “Money”. How can you get any more obvious?

There is also the matter of breaking the Marciano record by hitting 50-0, which is a nice fat number to retire on. I don’t know how much that means to Mayweather, but it’s there as a selling point for another fight next year.

I don’t know how to estimate a buy rate for this fight. Will it beat Ronda’s buy rate from August? If it doesn’t, that will certainly give Ronda another talking point in the media about how she outdrew Floyd Mayweather. If that’s the case, I can’t imagine that would please Mayweather and might motivate him to try to milk the box office for one more fight with Pacquiao.

I think there is also some degree of burnout by the general public on Mayweather, in a way that it doesn’t really matter who Mayweather faces. I get the sense that maybe the public is tired of him. The public seemed to think (for whatever reason) that Pacquiao was the man to beat Mayweather, and when Mayweather beat him handily, the public might feel that no one will ever beat Mayweather, or that Mayweather has so much power in picking his opponents that he will never face someone who stands a chance of winning. 

What I find especially bizarre is PBC’s poor use of their network television slots to create an opponent for Mayweather. One would think that PBC would have Berto fight on NBC instead of on Spike in order to get as many people familiarized with his name as possible. It is obvious that when Berto fought on Spike earlier this year that no one was counting on him as even a possible opponent for Mayweather after the Pacquiao fight. Another advantage to having Porter fight Mayweather is that Porter earned a high profile win over Adrian Broner on NBC a couple of months ago.

Errors like this make PBC look like such a waste of money. They have a massive amount of television time they can use to create new stars and build pay per views and they are completely squandering it. The whole thing with PBC is to use network and cable TV time to build new stars and then have these stars fight on pay per view. But they didn’t even build a new star for Mayweather’s opponent in September, which would have been so easy to do given how many millions of people watch PBC.

If this is the best PBC can do, there is a problem.

All I can say is that the fight will likely draw poorly on pay per view, but what constitutes poorly for Mayweather after the Pacquiao fight is anyone’s guess.

Besides the negative press regarding the fight being a box office bomb at the MGM Grand, there has also been the matter of the Thomas Hauser article published by SB Nation (http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2015/9/9/9271811/can-boxing-trust-usada) regarding the USADA and how Floyd gets preferential treatment. Hauser writes with great clarity, which is probably the nicest thing someone can say about a writer. In his article both Floyd and the USADA come off terribly and if there is ever a BALCO type investigation into the USADA and Mayweather, then Floyd’s image could be irreparably damaged even years after his retirement.

No matter what happens in the next eighteen months or so, even if the Berto fight draws poorly, Floyd is the greatest drawing heel in history. But unless a federal investigation into the USADA or something of that sort happens and tarnishes Mayweather’s image, years from now I think the general public’s attitude towards both Floyd and the Pacquiao fight will change.

History is kind to people and fights that the public decide are legendary. Here’s a pair of examples. Mayweather was convicted of domestic violence and served time in jail. He’s a reprehensible human being and plays that role up as much as possible in order to build hype for his fights.  Years from now, unless the general public are smacked in the face with evidence of doping (as in the case of Lance Armstrong), he will be loved, not because he’s a good guy, but because he’s a legend.

Few people care about Mayweather’s history battering women. Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist and now he has a cartoon. Tyson was a bigger draw after he got out of prison than he was before, even though it is generally agreed that Tyson was already past his prime before he went to jail. Tyson is a household name. People don’t mind that he is probably a psychopath.

What could damage Floyd’s image isn’t beating up women, but the general public finding out he beat up women while on steroids. It seems to make no sense, but these are the priorities of the general public. If I were Mayweather’s people and I could dictate to the USADA how drug testing works, I would want to make sure any frozen samples from Mayweather were destroyed. It’s obviously unethical, but based on what Hauser published about Mayweather and the USADA, what they are doing is obviously unethical anyway. Being caught cheating is the main thing that will destroy Mayweather’s career and get people to go from paying to see get beat up to just wanting to see him go away, like Lance Armstrong or half of the people that played baseball in the ‘90s.

I also think history will be kind to the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. The Ali-Inoki fight in Japan was a debacle when it occurred, but subsequent history in Japan treats it like the first real major mixed fight in history. Even if you ask American fans about that match, the people who are aware of it wouldn’t be able to accurately describe what happened, but would probably talk about it in terms of being a legendary match.

History tends to be kind to fights that people don’t actually have to watch, but just have to hear about how legendary they were. Mayweather-Pacquiao is like that and it will be interesting to see how history treats both Mayweather and that fight.

What history won’t treat well is Mayweather’s forgettable bout this Saturday against Andre Berto. We’ll see if the box office treats it any better.

Jeremy Wall can be contacted at jeremywall1984@gmail.com and followed on Twitter @jeremydalewall.

By Jeremy Wall

Premier Boxing Champions debuted their weekly series on Fox Sports 1 on Tuesday, September 8th with a main event of Austin Trout knocking out Joey Hernandez in the sixth round at middleweight. The broadcast began at 9pm ET and also featured a co-main event with Jorge Lara going to a technical draw with Jesus Rojas at featherweight.

Trout, 29, outclassed Hernandez, 30, in every round before scoring the knockout with a series of body punches in the sixth. Hernandez was getting frustrated early in the fight. In the fourth round, he actually tossed Trout with a pro wrestling bodyslam, which resulted in point deduction.

The score at the time of the knockout was 50-44 for Trout on all three cards.

Trout improved to 30-2 (17 KOs). His two losses were both in 2013 by unanimous decision to Canelo Alvarez and Erislandy Lara, respectively. Trout also holds a unanimous decision win over Miguel Cotto in 2012. Hernandez fell to 24-4-1 (14 KOs).

Hernandez isn’t a terrible journeyman, but he was clearly brought in as a B-side opponent to showcase Trout for PBC’s debut on FS1. Trout is a former WBA Super Welterweight champion. He lost the title to Canelo. He moved up to middleweight in December 2014 and is now 3-0 since the move.

“We got a good win with a knockout. I’m happy to be here. I want to thank the fans for showing up. If you didn’t come for me this time, you will next time,” Trout said in his post-fight interview.

“From the first round, I had no legs. I was conditioned, but the day of the weigh-in I had to lose nine pounds. It is hard to come back from that,” Hernandez said in the post-fight press release. Hernandez weighed in at 156 pounds, but hydrated nearly 20 pounds up to 175 pounds the day of the fight. Trout also weighed in at 156.

The announcers kept pushing the idea of a feud between Trout and Julian “J-Rock” Williams, as they have a beef on Twitter. Williams fought Hernandez in the latter’s last fight back in April. Williams won via unanimous decision. The idea was that now Trout beat the same guy, but knocked him out in the sixth round instead of only winning a decision. Williams (20-0-1, 12 KOs) is scheduled to fight Luciano Cuello (35-3, 17 KOs) on the third PBC on FS1 broadcast, which airs September 22nd.

The three major middleweight stars in boxing, however, are Canelo Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, and Gennady Golovkin. They are all signed to promotions that work with HBO and not PBC. Plus, Trout has already lost to Canelo and Cotto anyway. So, it’s not like Trout can really be built into a situation where he is the opponent for a major name at middleweight.

A fight with Williams, however, would be an interesting TV bout. A couple of other possibilities for Trout are matches with WBO Middleweight champion Andy Lee and WBA “regular” champion Daniel Jacobs (the WBA “super” champion is Golovkin, who is generally regarded as the real WBA champ at middleweight). Lee beat Peter Quillin to retain his title on a NBC broadcast in May. Jacobs successfully defended his title against Caleb Truax on Spike TV in April and Sergio Mora on ESPN in August. None of these would be major fights, but they could be something used in a network TV co-main.

Also airing on FS1, Jorge Lara, 24, went to a draw with Jesus Rojas, 28. Lara’s left eye was cut in the third round and his right eye cut in the fifth from accidental headbutts. After the sixth round he was unable to continue fighting due to the cuts. The fight went to the scorecards. All three judges had it 57-57. Lara’s record fell to 21-1-2 (15 KOs) and Rojas’ record fell to 27-0-2 (19 KOs).

The card also included unaired prelims featuring wins by notable prospects such as Eddie Ramirez (10-0, 17 KOs, 23 yo, super lightweight), Ahmed Elbiali (12-0, 11 KOs, 24 yo, light-heavyweight), and Kevin Watts (9-0, 3 KOs, 23 yo, super lightweight), among others.

The fights took place at the Hollywood Palladium, which has a capacity of 3,700. Production was scaled back dramatically. If not for the PBC graphics at commercial breaks, it would be impossible to tell this was a PBC broadcast. The broadcast completely lacked the expensive hallmarks associated with the PBC brand. The arena was dark. The FS1 series is obviously going to be the inexpensive weekly broadcast to showcase prospects, perhaps generating a bit of interest in them before moving them along to fights on NBC, CBS, or ESPN.

The debut of PBC on FS1 had been rumoured for months, but officially announced by Fox in August. Fox was the last major network (besides The CW) not to be working with PBC in some capacity, as NBC and CBS have both broadcast multiple PBC shows and ABC has aired PBC on ESPN. It is unknown whether Fox’s deal with PBC includes broadcasts on the Fox Network, or if the deal pertains only to FS1. PBC’s deal with Fox includes 21 shows running through June 2016. The broadcasts are simulcast on Fox Deportes.

Nothing has been announced regarding PBC airing on Big Fox. With UFC as Fox’s broadcasting partner, it will be interesting the effect that PBC airing on FS1 has on UFC’s contract renewal negotiations with Fox in a couple of years (assuming any effect at all). I had figured Fox sat out of making a deal with PBC when all the other networks were lining up to work with Al Haymon because Fox already had UFC. They also aired Golden Boy, but they never drew great ratings on FS1.

PBC replaced Golden Boy as the boxing content provider for FS1. It was a major blow to Golden Boy, since their FS1 shows were the main way the promotion exposed rising stars to a wider audience. Golden Boy had their final boxing card on FS1 on June 30th, although they’ve continued to air “Golden Boy Classics” on Fox Deportes.

After losing the FS1 deal, Golden Boy announced a three-year deal with Estrella TV. Estrella is a Spanish language network that covers more than 85-percent of Hispanic TV households in the US and is popular in Los Angeles, but only reaches about 33 million homes in total. FS1, by comparison, reaches about 84.8 million homes. Fox Deportes reaches about 21.8 million homes. Estrella, however, isn’t a sports specific station, but a generalized Spanish-language broadcast network.

The final Golden Boy broadcast on FS1 aired on June 26th. It drew 129,000 viewers in the 10pm-12am ET slot. PBC on FS1 received a slightly better timeslot, so we will see what kind of ratings PBC brings compared to Golden Boy.

The new PBC on FS1 series is being packaged as “Toe-to-Toe Tuesdays”. This is not to be confused with Spike’s “Friday Night Lights Out” or TruTV’s “Friday Night Knockout”.

The list of channels that have aired PBC boxing now include NBC, CBS, Spike, ESPN, Fox Sports 1, Bounce TV, NBC Sports, and CBS Sports. At some point PBC will probably also air on ABC. Showtime also airs cards that are de facto PBC cards, although they aren’t officially promoted as such.

The show was hosted by Brian Kenney. Commentary was provided by Gus Hunter and Paulie Malignaggi, the latter being the regular colour analyst for most PBC broadcasts at this point. There was a wide variety of television commercials, which is notable because when PBC debuted earlier this year on NBC and CBS, there were almost no TV commercials because PBC was still trying to sell ad time. PBC shows on those networks now have a variety of commercials, but didn’t debut that way. The FS1 broadcast, however, debuted with ad space already sold ahead of time, which makes it unclear whether this is a time buy, or if it is a time buy and PBC is now having an easier time selling ad space.

The debut on FS1 didn’t receive much media attention. Most of the boxing press in the past couple of days has been focusing on the announcement that Timothy Bradley will fight Brandon Rios later in the year. Also, there has been a lot of press written on how poor ticket sales have been for Mayweather-Berto in Las Vegas this weekend. I’m in Vegas for the fight and I feel no sense of hype in town whatsoever, although that could change since we’re still a few days out and media for fight week just got started Tuesday afternoon with the fighter arrivals at the MGM Grand hotel lobby.

PBC on FS1 returns next Tuesday with Sammy Vasquez (19-0, 13 KOs) vs. Jose Lopez (25-3-1, 15 KOs) at welterweight.

PBC also has shows this week on September 11th on Spike and an afternoon show September 12th on NBC. TruTV also has a Top Rank show September 11th, airing against the Spike show, the latter of which has Adonis Stevenson debuting in Toronto. The week ends with the Mayweather-Berto spectacle on September 12th on pay per view and live at the MGM Grand.

Jeremy Wall can be contacted at jeremywall1984@gmail.com and followed on Twitter @jeremydalewall.

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.

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.