Klitschko & Chagaev Will Battle To Unify But HBO Will Pull The Plug on June 20 Broadcast
Photo-Chop: Bret “The Threat” Newton
Now that David Haye has been rightfully pushed to the back burner, the battle between Wladimir Klitschko & Ruslan Chagaev will put Klitschko’s 3 belts up for grabs along with Chageav’s WBA belt. To add to the importance of this fight Ring Magazine has determined this fight will also be for their now vacant Championship Belt.
Yet in their infinite wisdom, HBO, the so called “Heart & Soul of Boxing” has decided this fight has no reason to live on American TV so they have unceremoniously pulled the plug on the broadcast.
HUGE MISTAKE!
This is by far one of the worst decisions HBO World Championship Boxing has ever made and the reasons are so numerous I don’t know where to begin.
For starters, as I mentioned, Klitschko holds the IBF, WBO, and IBO Heavyweight Champion belts and Chagaev is in possession of The WBA version. Other than a big mouth and an over inflated ego, David Haye brought nothing even close to the table.
And oh yeah, Ring Magazine has decided the winner of this fight will pick up their now vacant belt. This is a true unifier in every sense of the word and if memory serves me correctly HBO has whined on and on about how there is no clear cut Champion at Heavyweight. I have to wonder aloud why they yanked this fight.
HBO was willing to broadcast a fight against a yet to be proven Haye but have no interest in the undefeated Chagaev who happens to be the only man to defeat the giant Nicolay Valuev, but in the “keen” eye of HBO brass…that’s not good enough.
Some will argue on HBO’s behalf that Chagaev is an unknown commodity but that is a poor argument at best. HBO has travelled to Europe to televise Klitschko taking on the likes of Ray Austin…who? Obviously opponents’ credentials are not always the deciding factor when HBO is making programming decisions.
Others will tell you Chagaev is infected with Hepatitis but the truth is he has been found to have the Hepetitis B antigen in his blood. Have you had the Hepatitis inoculation? Then you have it too, and so does Klitschko who had been inoculated and he is not worried at all about infection.
Like with Haye, it’s just one lame excuse after another. HBO is truly missing the boat on this one and I can only hope one of the American networks will pick this battle up because it stands to be much better and way more competitive than Klitschko vs Haye. Wlad was going to dispose of Haye in quick order and anyone who thinks otherwise is as delusional as the HBO suits.
On the other hand, Klitschko vs. Chagaev has all the makings of a classic and the late sub has a very good chance on pulling off the upset.
Chagaev had been training hard for his rematch with Valuev which means he has had a lot of big right handed sparring getting him ready so Ruslan won’t have to make too many training camp adjustments.
Klitschko has been training hard as well but he has been focusing on big cruisers or small heavies for sparring who fight from the orthodox stance. Did I mention Chagaev is a southpaw? Well he is. In other words with time running out Klitschko will have to bring in true heavyweights who are left handed. It’s a big adjustment to make. If anyone can do it, Wladimir can, but it’s not an enviable task. Once inside the squared circle on fight night things are going to get very interesting.
Come fight night the house in Germany will be rocking with 30,000 plus fans and the atmosphere will be more electric than anything Germany has seen in a while…and they put on some fantastic shows.
One interested person that night will be WBC Champion Vitali Klitschko who will most likely be in his brother’s corner. Anyone who knows boxing is aware that it is the dream of The Klitschko boys to hold all the title belts at one time and lock up the Heavyweight division. If Wladimir wins their dream will become reality and it will be the first time in the history of boxing that brothers hold all the heavyweight titles.
It’s history in the making and HBO has decided they don’t want to be there.
The Heart & Soul of Boxing, huh?
Well I guess I understand…HBO needs to get ready for that barley registering a blip on the radar screen fight at Staples on June 27th, (quick name the fighters in The Main Event), and heaven forbid they are in Germany and miss the premier of the 24/7 for the ticket selling catastrophe called Number One/Numero Uno, Mayweather vs. Marquez. With ticket sales at a near crawl I have already predicted a PPV flop of epic proportions here.
I digress.
The bottom line here is that Klitschko vs. Chagaev has the potential to be everything the anemic heavyweight division has been looking for but in their aforementioned infinite wisdom HBO has decided to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the entire proceedings.
I believe it’s another in a list of recent decisions that they will soon come to regret.
How does that advertisement go?
HBO…Destroying Their Legend One Fight At A Time
Something like that.
It’s the Economy, Stupid. HBO’s budget was cut this year, and that’s why you are seeing fewer and fewer fights. BAD, because it pays much lower purses than WCB, has aired the bulk of 2009 fights so far. Chagaev is a complete unknown here, and Klitschko, while well known, does not have a fan base because he boxes like a robot and takes no chances. Bo-ring. HBO made the right move, you are way off base. And remember, HBO likes to do lots of publicity for its fights, and two weeks is not enough time to introduce people to Chagaev. Also toss in the fact that this fight will be live in the U.S. around 5 p.m., and on tape at 10 p.m., when everybody knows who won and there willl be no drama worth tuning in for. Add is all up and applaud HBO. And BOOS to you Billy. BTW, how come you arent knocking Showtime, which does more European fights than HBO. Did you make ANY attempt to reach out to Showtime for comment? From now on, until you write a good column, your new name will be BILLY GOAT
HBO offers two 24/7 television services (HBO and Cinemax) to over 38 million U.S. subscribers. Multiply that by $10 to $12 a pop, per person, per month… you get the idea. I’m tired of hearing the same worn out phrase of “it’s the economy”… though true for world economics, in this particular case it’s not the economy, it’s bad decision making and bad investment. So unless Frank Boff works for HBO, knows HBO brass or holds HBO shares he should limit his comments and name calling to whatever he may know about the sport of boxing.
Boff, Wlad vs Chagaev is “bo-ring”, but HBO airing Dawson vs Tarver II (after their first lame fight) was not? That fight put everyone with insomnia to sleep. And don’t get me started on Berto who does exactly as you described in Wlad as one who doesn’t take many chances, yet his boring main event vs Urango last month didnt even compare to the Cintron/Angulo undercard.
The fact they’d be willing to show Wlad vs Valuev instead makes your points moot. Valuev had one of the most boring heavyweight fights ever televised on HBO when he fought Barrett that they havent used him since. Not even the fight Valuev had against legend Evander Holyfield could make HBO. So how’s that make sense to televise him now, especially since he REALLY lost to Evander, and already lost to Chagaev and was going to in the rematch which is why they pulled that medical bs to get out of the fight.
You’re telling me the amount of times John Ruiz has been televised on HBO would be more beneficial to us than Wlad vs Chagaev?
Valuev has one thing Chagaev doesnt: name recognition in this country. He toured here and because he is a freak, people will watch because they like freak shows. HBO has the right to choose and reject any fight they want. If Wlad wants to fight Chagaev anyway, fine, that’s his choice, too. You guys are just on the web wide bandwagon to blame HBO for everything that you dont like. Fact is, if HBO dropped boxing, the sport would totally tank. It would be like beach volleyball, which actually probably gets better ratings than Wlad does.
First of all boxing is at and all-time low it takes too long to see these boring fights as it is and whats up with all these pull-out fights, injuries and fights delayed. Whats really going.. its June and how many great Championship fight been aired….very few.If HBO cant do big fights we need another network who will.We got15 different weight classes and hardly no championshp fights…THEY ALL DELAYED ..these multi-million dollar networks need to get they act together or MMA will blow boxing out the window and i APPROVE THIS MESSAGE