ANALYSIS/OPINION:
LAS VEGAS — The Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao press conference that set the stage for the long-anticipated showdown between the two fighters Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas may have seemed downright docile, but there was a fight going on — the battle for the future of boxing on television.
Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum and the chief executive officer of Mayweather’s promotion company, Leonard Ellerbe, spent more time talking about HBO and Showtime — the two networks that have dominated boxing on the tube for decades — than they did their two fighters.
“As you all know, Top Rank has been for many years associated with HBO presenting many fights,” Arum said. “Manny Pacquiao has been associated with HBO for many years. One thing is beyond controversy: HBO is the No. 1 premium pay channel in the world. And it is soon to become a pay-streaming channel with the launch of HBO Now.
“It’s a great, great honor for us to be associated with HBO,” Arum said. “HBO’s programs are beyond compare, whether they’re dramas or comedies or documentaries. They win prizes year after year. And in sports, HBO puts on the best and most important matches … great high ratings, great viewership.”
Ellerbe made his own pitch for Showtime. “Bob, Showtime has the biggest star in sports and the best fighter in the world,” he said. “We’ve loved every moment we’ve worked with Showtime and its staff. Stephen Espinoza and his team have brought us some of the biggest moments in Floyd’s career, and Saturday night will be no exception.”
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The two network executives — HBO president Ken Hershman and Showtime Sports executive vice president Stephen Espinoza — sat on the dais with the promoters and fighters, smiling in approval, two rival networks that came together to get this Mayweather-Pacquiao fight done.
It was a nervous smile, because the rivals are united by a common enemy — Al Haymon, the former music promoter who has taken control behind the scenes of boxing and launched a full-blown attack on HBO and Showtime. His Premier Boxing Champions recently promoted the Lamont Peterson-Danny Garcia fight on NBC. (Don’t be surprised if you see a Peterson fight this summer at Verizon Center produced by Premier Boxing Champions.)
Over the past year, Haymon has made deals with NBC, CBS Sports, Spike and ESPN to broadcast live on both cable and network television, where the sport has disappeared from view. He made the bold move of actually buying the time and producing the shows. So far, it has been a success, with impressive ratings on two Saturday night shows, including the Peterson-Garcia fight.
What gives Haymon, who doesn’t do interviews, the power to pull it off is he has quietly become the adviser for reportedly 75 fighters — many of them the best in the business, including Mayweather. It may have been Haymon’s emergence that pressured HBO and Showtime to quickly put Mayweather-Pacquiao together.
If so, we owe Haymon our thanks.
Now, after nearly seven years of waiting for the two elite fighters to face each other, will it have been worth it?
I think we’ll see a dramatic night of boxing Saturday night — with Mayweather emerging as the winner.
The fights that propelled the 36-year-old Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 knockouts) to this level are suspect. He beat Oscar De La Hoya a year after Mayweather had beaten him, and it turned out to be the 36-year-old De La Hoya’s last fight. He knocked out Ricky Hatton in two rounds two years after Mayweather (47-0, 26 knockouts) stopped him in 10 rounds. He stopped Miguel Cotto in 12 rounds, but Cotto was clearly still suffering the effects of the beating he took from Antonio Margarito, who reportedly used plaster hand wraps. Then there were his struggles with Tim Bradley and the sixth-round knockout he suffered at the hands of Juan Marquez in December 2012.
Mayweather? Less than two years ago, he fought the next big thing — the highly-touted undefeated young Canelo Alvarez out of Mexico — and he dominated Alvarez in what turned out to be little more than a sparring session. A year ago, the 38-year-old Mayweather was in a hard-fought battle against Marcos Maidana in a welterweight (147-pound) bout and struggled in a majority decision victory. What most people don’t know is that the night of the fight, Maidana weighed 167 pounds — nearly 20 pounds more than Mayweather, according to HBO. That’s why Mayweather struggled. In the rematch, Mayweather won a unanimous decision.
Mayweather is noticeably bigger than Pacquiao — and stronger. When the final bell rings, Mayweather will remain undefeated after stopping Pacquiao in the 10th round.
• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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