DaveMurphy

http://ringtv.craveo...-boxing-ratings

Hmm, interesting, that leaves it at 1-1 in their last two head-to-heads (I think). Maybe there's a explaination for the Garcia-Juanma numbers dominating for that particular comparison, and they're not consistently beating Showtime.

Where are the Showtime viewer numbers?  I didn't see any.

George posted them on another forum, but they were kind of cut off from his post here.  I recall the numbers to open the broadcast were horrendous as Showtimes first fight on the tripleheader (Charlo) only had a little over 200K viewers, which is about 1/3rd the normal ESPN viewership, although it was a horrible matchup that had no business being on Showtime.  It picked up by Lara fight to around 700K I think it was, but still wasn't competitive with HBO.

I've always thought Russell was good too.  I don't see him doing fights as much anymore though.

Saad-

   It's politics.  He got into it with CSAC a couple years ago when he was lobbying to be named the new Commissioner and apparently stepped on some toes.  The last fight I saw him work was the first Dawson-Hopkins fight when BHOP claimed to have the damaged shoulder, which was right around that same time.  He's kind of getting up there in age too.

P.S.  Looked on BoxRec,  he did Bradley-Providnikov in March.  Pat Russell is 65 years old.

Actually the Hopkins-Pascal fights were two of the most viewed HBO cards that year.  I don't think he's all that bad a draw now that he's 47 years old and whipping guys ass that are half his age. 

 

What is really puzzling about Frank Warren is that with the steady stream of talent leaving him, he was able to get Carl Frampton to jump ship from Matchroom and sign with him last month. 

Saad-

   I was thinking that that owed itself to a pretty weak year on HBO, we had an inordinate amount of cancelations that year if memory serves correctly.  But your right that ever since the Jones 3 fiasco, his network viability does seem to have increased.  As for Frampton, I have no idea what he was thinking leaving Eddie Hearn,  not only is he coming onboard what appears to be a sinking ship,  but it also elminates any chance of facing Scott Quigg, which is a huge fight over there and certainly his best $$$ option.

Cutter-

   He might be back, but I'm not so sure how easily he'll find someone who wants to work with him, at least not at a level where we would see him on televison or in meaningful fights.  He might be relegated to working with a second-tier promoter who'd be getting him fights in smaller venues and against tomato cans,  I don't that Golden Boy will still be interested given this latest setback, but I could be wrong.  I think it's less about the penalty that's going to be imposed than they're thinking this guys more trouble than he's worth.  I mean, let's face it, the INSIDE THE RING performance against Molina wasn't anything to write home about, and for top level people to put up with the outside the ring nonsense, then you better be taking care of business inside the squared circle, which hasn't been the case for some time now. 

I don't think you will get many people who disagree with you about Smoger. I think he is the Mills Lane of this generation everyone is happy when he is announced as a referee. Tony Weeks is also solid. I think Joe Cortez has gotten a bad wrap at times. He was a very good referee for many years but in the last decade he had declined and missed some calls quite possibly age catching up to him as he recently retired but over all in his career I would give him a thumbs up although many may disagree. Kenny Bayless is also a very reputable ref. Two others that I personally like and aren't mentioned too often are Randy Newman and Robert Byrd. I have watched these two for years and don't recall any controversy though I'm sure everyone has hiccups along the way. I think I first started paying attention to Newman because I thought he looked like the Skipper from Gilligan's Island and then I learned his name was synonymous with the songwriter of Toy Story and Monk fame, too cool

Haven't seen Randy Neuman for awhile now,  I used to like him because he'd been a ranked Heavyweight himself and could do a good job of breaking the fighters, which is no small concern when we're talking about the size of today's HW's.   Here's an interview with him from a couple years back  http://www.fightnews...y-neumann-98456