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Showtime in 2003
By Steve Kim (December 20, 2002) Photo © Gary Randall
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It was a tough year personally for Showtime boxing czar Jay Larkin as he would suffer the loss of his beloved mother in November. After taking some time off, Larkin has gotten back to work and focused in on the new year.
His network kicks off 2003 with an intriguing jr. welterweight battle between WBO titlist DeMarcus Corley and the hard-punching Randall Bailey on January 4th. Two weeks later, they'll be 'Down Under' in Australia when the undisputed jr. welterweight king Kostya Tszyu takes on veteran Jesse James Leija. The network will end the month on the 25th with former WBA jr. welterweight champion Sharmba Mitchell.
There's plenty of action at 140-pounds, which along with the featherweight division, is the game's deepest and most intriguing weight class. Tszyu, with his unified crowns is in a position to call his shots, has been a Showtime staple the last few years. But the biggest marquee attraction in this division is Arturo Gatti, currently coming off his exciting, give-and-take series with Mickey Ward. Gatti would defeat Ward in the rematch and while he may not be the game's best jr. welterweight, he is the sports best known and most
exciting. Is there any chance of a Tszyu-Gatti showdown?
"That's clearly on top of my wish list," said Larkin. "I can't see no reason why it wouldn't happen."
Despite his optimism, there are some steep obstacles. One being that HBO will most likely prevent that bout from happening by giving Gatti his own date on their network. And secondly, his promoter Main Events is in
a position to milk Gatti for awhile, theoretically they could make big money fighting just about anybody. Do they really need Tszyu and his belts? Most likely not.
Another fight not likely to happen on Showtime is a showdown between WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe and undisputed middleweight champ Bernard Hopkins. Despite some recent reports of this fight being revived. Larkin isn't holding his breath.
"I didn't put any stock into that rumor at all," Larkin told MaxBoxing.com. "Awhile back when Bernard was making the rounds and it looked like he was going to do a deal at HBO and then do a deal here, somebody asked me how real do I think it is? Am I excited by it? And I said, 'I don't think it's real. I'm excited if it is real but I don't think it's real and I'm not going to put a whole lot of emotional attachment to it' And when it blew up, I wasn't disappointed because I didn't put a whole lot of faith in it.
"Now, there was talk we were going to do the mandatory, Hopkins-Hakkar and we would be willing to do that as long as there was absolutely zero capital outlay by us," continued Larkin. "If it was going to be on pay-per-view or on the network, we simply were not going to put money against a fight nobody wanted and then let Bernard be fighting whenever he wanted to fight. We've done that before, Hopkins, William Joppy and Keith Holmes, we've fought those guys 16 times on this network against a succession of mandatories and rematches. And when it came time to unify them, we did
not have that unification series in spite of my trying to get it done for several years.
"Our offer to Bernard was a three-fight deal and the first fight would have been Hakkar as a loss leader against a Hopkins-Calzaghe and Hopkins-Harry Simon. Now, I haven't had any follow-up discussions since Bernard turned down that offer and the only update I know, I read about it on the internet. I haven't been contacted by any of the participants. I do know that Don King and Frank Warren did have a conversation in England and I don't know what will come out of it -- if anything. All I can tell you is that if Bernard wants
to fight Joe Calzaghe, we will be very excited and happy to make that deal."
Speaking of Calzaghe, it's time he and his fellow Warren stablemate, Ricky Hatton step up their competition. Right now, they're akin to guys batting
.400 in Triple A. Just a week or so ago (on a show not televised by Showtime) they each knocked out non-threatening foes. It's no secret that Larkin and Warren have a cozy relationship, but does the buck stop in 2003? Will Showtime audiences no longer be subjected to Miguel Jimenez and Stephen Smith-type opponents next year?
"I'm pretty sure that we're all agreed that that's where we have to be with these guys," said Larkin. "Hatton, has been, let's say, more carefully brought
along and developed. In that there are some better matches we can make for Ricky down the road now since the 140-pound division is so deep."
Larkin is correct, the division is deep, but so far, Hatton has barely put his big toe into the shallow end of the water.
"But to be fair to Joe, he's had some terrific fights on the books that have fallen apart at the last minute," continued Larkin. "It's almost like he's
snakebit and he's had to face replacement guys who have like two, three, four weeks notice and it seems like it just keeps happening and it's apparently legitimate. I have no reason to think it's not legitimate because all these guys are independent of Frank, they're coming in from other promoters.
"The Charles Brewer fight (in April) held on and it was a great fight. There was a moment where we thought we had an Antwun Echols fight made and it fell apart.
"His opponent fell apart at the last moment on the Tyson card and we got Will McIntrye -- that was a three week replacement. We had the same thing happen in Cardiff at the castle. It was a two week replacement, so it's like a string of bad luck and I can't hold Frank or Joe responsible for that because Joe gets up for the big fight and the fight falls apart. Joe was more than willing to fight Bernard. He was going to take that fight, Joe wasn't the problem."
This past year Showtime revived it's relationship with Bob Arum with a pair of shows featuring Antonio Margarito twice and WBA flyweight titlist Eric Morel. It looks like that the 'Latin Fury' series will continue into 2003.
"We have a proposal from Bob Arum and Todd duBoef about 'Latin Fury' and we're taking it very seriously," said Larkin. "I've been on hiatus the last
several weeks and I'm just getting back into the swing of things now. I'm going to start lining that stuff up right now but it's no secret in the industry that we are looking at a condensed, concentrated schedule in 2003. So we don't expect to be doing 25, 30 fights in 2003. We expect to be doing very select fights."
'Condensed, concentrated schedule' of course, is another way of saying that the boxing budget is being slashed at Showtime. And according to other sources, because of this, ShoBox has become NoBox, and is dormant for now. But the show must go on and the first quarter of the Showtime schedule is basically set.
After a January of featuring world-class jr. welterweights, on February 1st they feature a trio of Main Events prospects in Rocky Juarez, Juan Diaz and
Francisco Bojado with a main event still to be determined. Then on February 22nd, it's the return of the supposedly kinder, gentler Mike Tyson who takes on 'the Black Rhino' Clifford Etienne. Then in March, WBO featherweight titlist Scott Harrison defends his title against Wayne McCullough and later that month, WBO jr. lightweight champion Acelino Freitas takes on Gabe Ruelas.
TAYLOR IN TULSA
Jr. middleweight prospect Jermain Taylor and his management wanted to get some experience against a southpaw in a low pressure, low profile environment.
So this Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Taylor will be taking on Keith Simms away from the spotlight that a televised bout can bring.
"It's not on TV, but that's a good thing," said his trainer Pat Burns. "We're fighting a southpaw here and we want to get that experience. If we look bad, it's no big deal, it's a learning experience. People in boxing understand that, it's not always about exposure because that can be a double-edged sword. If you look bad, people can jump all over you and your fighter can lose confidence. We want Jermain to stay busy and learn."
Taylor and Lou DiBella, who signed Arkansas middleweight after the 2000 Olympics, are both sacrificing in taking this fight. This fight is not part of his contract and he will be fighting for much less than his contracted
minimums.
"Jermain understands that if I'm paying 10-grand to put him onto a show, I'm not making money," explained DiBella. "If I'm doing that and I don't have to do it -- he's getting something -- which is the ability to fight often. And it's terrific for Jermain because I think Jermain's got tremendous potential but Jermain's a guy that needs to fight often."
Taylor welcomes the chance to fight often.
"I like staying busy and active" he told MaxBoxing. "If I could, I'd fight once a month next year. I like being in the gym, working hard and getting comfortable.
"I feel if I work hard now, I can play later. It's like, 'Let me take care of this now' and then, when I get to 25-0, I can play a little bit. I don't mind hard work."
PAY-PER-VIEW REMEDY
It's pretty much agreed upon throughout the industry that fighters (prospects and stars alike) simply don't fight enough these days. Not only do fighters get an opportunity to sharpen their skills, it's hard to build upon your marketability and fan base fighting twice a year -- or three times at the most -- if you sign a multi-fight agreement with HBO or Showtime.
To alleviate this problem, Bob Arum and DiBella have recently put on their own smaller pay-per-view shows to keep their fighters more active. With dates becoming limited everywhere, they don't want to become slaves to the networks.
"That was the whole point," DiBella explains. "It's just an opportunity for frequency. It's an opportunity to allow people to fight regularly. I'm now
considering doing a Monday night pay-per-view series."
DiBella is still talking to HBO about his new idea, but his next pay-per-view show is scheduled to go off in February.
Larkin likes the idea of opening up other avenues for fighters to perform, but he points out that it has its limits and drawbacks.
"Originally, years ago when we first started developing the pay-per-view concept, that was the idea," he said. "The idea was to treat pay-per-view as a niche programming network where you could find something for everybody at the right price.
"So if you can keep these things coming out and at a very low ticket and a very low cost of entry, it could become a very viable outlet for boxing. Personally, I think they're great. The biggest problem they have is competing with the calender. Maybe Lou DiBella and Mike Acri would've done a little better if they weren't up against Sharmba Mitchell and Vince Phillips on Showtime. They could have done a couple of thousands more from the fight fans.
"If you put together good fights and you appeal to a small segment of the fan base you market only to that fan base and you don't overspend on your marketing money, you target your market -- which Bob Arum is exceptionally good at -- you can make some money and you can get the fights out there. Now, if you're going to appeal to the converted, you're not going to appeal to a new fan. You're not going to expand your fan base, and
that's the only downside."
Unlike the failed TVKO series of the early '90s, the entry cost on these shows will be low. So the numbers that were tallied by those shows would be something that DiBella would be more than happy with. Arum needed 60,000 buys to break even on his November show featuring Erik Morales against Paulie Ayala, and it did well over 100,000 buys. His February 1st show featuring Juan Manuel Marquez versus Manuel Medina and Miguel Cotto has even a lower threshold to break even. Imagine that, promoters actually putting up their own dime, taking a risk and selling their shows, instead of just acting as booking agents for the networks. Promoters actually promoting. Who would have thunk it?
REAL DEAL
A source tells me that last weekends Evander Holyfield-Chris Byrd fight did around a 10.5 rating on HBO. It's funny how for so long Holyfield was
considered a 'B-side' fighter in the industry and now he's a guy that is guaranteed to draw good ratings no matter who or where he fights.
For Questions or Comments
E-Mail Steve Kim at k9kim@maxboxing.com
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