Five that will benefit most from HBO-Golden Boy split

Five that will benefit most from HBO-Golden Boy split

Mark E. Ortega

Freelance

March 20, 2013

News broke early Monday courtesy of Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole that HBO will no longer be working with top promoter Golden Boy Promotions for the immediate future. While that spells bad news for boxing fans around the world, it opens up opportunities for other people to come in and get those HBO dollars that previously were spent on Golden Boy fights. There are a number of different people or entities that could greatly benefit from this move, and below is a list of five that might see the biggest return.

Terence Crawford is an undefeated Top Rank fighter who has seen little exposure, but could benefit from additional HBO dates being available now that Golden Boy is out of the picture.

Top Rank's deeper part of its stable

Top Rank already had a stronghold on most of HBO's boxing programming, especially over the past few years. Bob Arum publicly slammed Showtime and showed no interest in putting any of their fights on that network, which probably helped strengthen their bond with HBO.

But with this news that Golden Boy is out of the picture completely, you can expect that Top Rank's extremely deep stable will benefit from some additional coverage. Saturday night at the Home Depot Center, Top Rank officials suggested to RingTV that crowd-pleasing heavyweight Andy Ruiz Jr. was in a squash fight that night only because they had big things in store for him, targeted for two months from then. Ruiz shared with RingTV that his team indeed was looking to put him on HBO in his next fight, which would be interesting given he hasn't really fought an opponent with much of a chance to win yet.

Ruiz won't be the only name you can expect to get on HBO perhaps quicker than they otherwise would have. Jessie Vargas was just a co-feature on the network's World Championship Boxing broadcast, a big leap for him. Then there are young, undefeated and talented fighters that haven't gotten much exposure that could find themselves on HBO sooner rather than later.

Evgeny Gradovich is a newly-crowned 126 pound titleholder with Top Rank. Terence Crawford is a highly-skilled lightweight who is on the verge of being in the mix as a top contender. Jose Benavidez is a 20-year old unbeaten 140 pounder who could find himself some airtime. Abie Han, Glen Tapia, Mikael Zewski, and Jose Felix are a couple of other names that haven't found that much exposure who could find themselves in big opportunities on HBO all of a sudden.

Second-tier promoters

Let's face it. Top Rank and Golden Boy are the top two promoters in the game, whatever order you have them in. Then there is a clear drop down to the next level where you have the Gary Shaws, Goossen-Tutors, Main Events, Lou DiBellas and whatnot. You can bet those promoters are excited at the news of Golden Boy being promotion non grata with HBO as it likely can mean more opportunities for its fighters.

Last October, we saw Gary Shaw put together a smaller-budget HBO tripleheader that had three competitively matched bouts headlined by Luis Abregu upsetting Thomas Dulorme. Maybe Shaw can pitch HBO on some more of those fights that are a level above ShoBox but still a level below Boxing After Dark. If HBO works with that idea, it could mean more fight cards within the calendar year for less money. That wouldn't be a bad thing.

Brian Viloria has a big opportunity to make an impression on HBO as his Apr. 2 fight against Juan Estrada will be televised by HBO2. If impressive and exciting enough, it could open the doors for smaller weights on regular HBO.

The little guys

HBO2 is breaking somewhat new ground in a few weeks when it will broadcast a card from Macau on the network featuring Chinese gold medalist Zou Shiming as well as a Brian Viloria and Roman Martinez title defense. This will show in the afternoon and will feature a broadcast team of Larry Merchant, Tim Ryan, and George Foreman,

Very few fights have been featured on HBO in any capacity below the bantamweight limit. Nonito Donaire was the first name in awhile to get major exposure when he fought Fernando Montiel a couple of years ago.

Viloria is a former United States Olympian and two-division world champion who has revigorated his career from the dead in the past few years. His opponent, Juan Francisco Estrada, made up half of one of 2012's best obscure fights against Roman Gonzalez on the WealthTV undercard to Viloria's exciting title unification against Hernan Marquez.

If Viloria is exciting and impressive in Macau against Estrada, perhaps HBO would be more interested in buying a bout between him and power-punching Nicaraguan Gonzalez. It stands as one of the best little fights that can be made and would be guaranteed action. It is also a fight that has been rumored but never really went far in the negotiation stages.

The smaller weight divisions come with a cheaper price tag for the most part. If HBO can take advantage of that fact and start putting together guaranteed action fights from those weight classes, even as co-features to their other fights, it could be a great match.

One of former HBO Sports head Ross Greenburg's greatest moment was claiming America couldn't tell brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko apart. The network has made a move away from the division for the most part in recent years. Perhaps with Golden Boy out of the picture, HBO will get back involved with the top dogs in the division.

The heavyweight division

The last time HBO made a big announcement of this sort was when the network announced they were more or less done televising the heavyweight division, as Klitschko mismatches that were televised live in the afternoon came with a hefty pricetag yet hardly ever delivered memorable fights. The Wladimir Klitschko-David Haye debacle still makes one cringe, and when HBO decided to move on, new to the game network EPIX picked up the slack.

Outside of one or two heavyweight bouts, EPIX has televised all of the meaningful matchups in the division, and most of the title defenses, good or bad. They got fun to watch fights like Vitali Klitschko-Dereck Chisora and Alexander Povetkin-Marco Huck out of this deal, and those are the kind of fights you could conceivably see HBO being interested in grabbing.

HBO will be televising Chris Arreola against Bermane Stiverne in late April. Maybe they'll be more involved with those matchups between heavyweight contenders, perhaps forcing some quality matchups out of a division that has been getting younger in recent years. Deontay Wilder is a Golden Boy fighter, but undefeated Americans Bryant Jennings, Malik Scott, and Joe Hanks are not. There are still many quality contenders from Europe that would jump at the chance to fight on HBO, perhaps as opponents for those up-and-coming Americans.

International promoters

Though HBO hasn't acknowledged it too much in recent years, there is some quality promoting going on in other parts of the world.

Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Sport has been putting together a top stable, particularly in the last month or so when they've announced major signings like George Groves and Ricky Burns.

Sauerland Events in Germany has the previously mentioned heavyweight titlist Povetkin, as well as cruiserweight beltholder Marco Huck, super middleweight beltholders Arthur Abraham and Mikkel Kessler, as well as RING cruiserweight champion Yoan Pablo Hernandez among others.

Huck may be the most consistently exciting fighter to never appear on American television. His fights with Povetkin and Ola Afolabi were fringe Fight of the Year candidates. Even his last fight against fortysomething Firat Arslan was a war despite the odds saying it should have been easy work.

Who is to say Sauerland couldn't put together a nice tripleheader with those names that they could push back a few hours in Germany in order to make for better TV time in the United States? It happened with the Joe Calzaghe-Mikkel Kessler unification, as well as when Ricky Hatton seized the 140-pound title from Kostya Tszyu in the UK.

Same goes for Eddie Hearn, who has done business with American promoters without issue and could either do his own thing in the UK and try and work out television with HBO, or co-promote with an American promoter and bring his talent with him. With names like Burns, Groves, Carl Frampton, Lee Selby, and others, he has the manpower to help fill the void left by Golden Boy.

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Though this solidifies the turf war between HBO & Top rank versus Showtime & Golden Boy, it does open up a door for other people to step in and make opportunity for themselves. I have a feeling that for some of the previously mentioned potential profiteers, they'd be doing their best to make great fights in order to be invited back.

Top Rank and Golden Boy are at a point they can make a garbage matchup here and there and get away with it. These other promoters and fighters have to deliver if and when they get the call. It could make for some great matchups we never previously thought possible for HBO, and that is a good thing.

Mark Ortega is the boxing columnist for the Martinez News-Gazette and is a member of the Boxing Writers Assoc. of America and the RING Ratings Advisory Panel. He can be reached via e-mail at markeortega@gmail.com as well as followed on Twitter @MarkEOrtega.