BoxingScene 2015 Network of the Year: Spike TV
By Cliff Rold
Can there be too much of a good thing?
Boxing fans in 2015 had a chance to answer that question. The sport was everywhere this year in terms of television coverage. For those diehards who watch across multiple linguistic platforms, there were weeks with sometimes close to ten different fight shows from afternoon to night.
That’s a lot of boxing.
Much of the expanded coverage can be attributed to the birth of the Premier Boxing Champions brand. The PBC, through time buys, had the sport back on network television, taking over coverage on multiple cable networks, and adding new networks to the fold.
The quality varied but that was to be expected. Volume has its drawbacks. Lots of fights don’t necessarily mean lots of good fights. CBS had the excellent Omar Figueroa-Ricky Burns card. It also had Adonis Stevenson-Sakio Bika. Even the winner in this category had some turkeys (like Stevenson-Tommy Karpency…not a memorable year for history’s light heavyweight king on any platform).
For some reason, be it the luck of the draw or concerted matchmaking for this network in particular, most of the night’s clicked. Some of the most consistently thrilling boxing on US television this year kept happening on the same spot of the dial.
2015 Network of the Year: Spike TV
The best fight to date in the PBC experiment was the cruiserweight tilt between Krzysztof Glowacki and Marco Huck. It happened on Spike. One of the year’s best doubleheaders saw a 115 lb. title war between Kohei Kono and Koki Kameda paired with light heavyweights Andrzej Fonfara and Nathan Cleverly breaking punch stat records in the main event. It happened on Spike. Edwin Rodriguez and Michael Seals traded vicious knockdowns in a wild affair. Rances Barthelemy rallied to outbox a bloody Denis Shafikov. Amir Khan and Chris Algieri exceeded all expectations. Badou Jack scored the upset over Anthony Dirrell.
It all happened on Spike.
And as a bonus, Spike makes all of those fights available for free to anyone with an internet connection. Given the nature of the PBC, any of the platforms they perform on could arguably have had a similar string of good fortune. None did and no other network or promotional entity was consistently as good either.
In terms of fan satisfaction, Spike was boxing’s crown broadcasting jewel for 2015.
Others Receiving Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order)
BeIn Sports Espanol: They didn’t have the same sort of blockbuster year they had in 2014. That was no surprise. BeIn had arguably the two best fights aired in the US last year (Francisco Rodriguez-Katsunari Takayama and Orlando Salido-Terdsak Kokietgym). That was a tough act to follow. It remained a must-have for serious fans. Rodriguez was back at 108 lbs. in spirited battles with Donnie Nietes and Moises Fuentes, Luis Concepcion saved his career with a knockout of David Sanchez at 115, and fans who missed the pay-per-view airing had a chances to see the first Salido-Rocky Martinez bout and later the rematch as well. Replays of some of the best matches from another candidate considered (see below) didn’t hurt either.
HBO: They had half of the biggest money generating fight ever (Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao) and. all of the second biggest fight of the year (Saul Alvarez-Miguel Cotto) with the possible fight of the year on the undercard (Francisco Vargas-Takashi Miura). They had a big upset for the heavyweight title (Tyson Fury-Wladimir Klitschko), the continued rise of Gennady Golovkin, the arrival on US TV of flyweight king Roman Gonzalez, Sergey Kovalev-Jean Pascal, and the highs and lows of thrilling Lucas Matthysse. HBO’s investment in a solid set of exciting, TV friendly talents in the last couple years is paying off for them and subscribers.
NBC: Boxing had been on network television a couple of times in recent years. When the PBC debuted on NBC, something different was on the table. For the first time since the 1990s, boxing was airing in prime time. On March 7, Keith Thurman faced Robert Guerrero and over three million homes tuned in with a peak of over four million. Parse it however one wants in terms of what that means in terms of overall broadcast network ratings. Boxing doesn’t do those kind of live eyes often in the US anymore. NBC has been the flagship for the PBC in many ways and provided some quality affairs like Danny Garcia-Lamont Peterson, James DeGale-Andre Dirrell, and Shawn Porter-Adrien Broner. In September, Deontay Wilder defended his heavyweight belt against Johann Duhaupas, the first heavyweight title fight in prime time since Larry Holmes-Carl Williams more than a generation ago.
Sky Sports: While US fans miss out on a lot of the action live, Sky provided UK fans with plenty of thrills in 2015. The rise of Anthony Joshua, arguably the brightest heavyweight prospect in over twenty years, has been the centerpiece of an excellent year. A big highlight, seen by many in the US on BeIn, was the lightweight scrap between Jorge Linares and Kevin Mitchell. There was also Scott Quigg’s obliteration of Kiko Martinez in July that set the stage for a showdown between Quigg and Carl Frampton in less than two months. As the Brits might say, cheers.
Previous Network of the Year Winners
2014: HBO
2013: Showtime
2012: Showtime
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BoxingScene 2015 Network of the Year: Spike TV - Boxing News
PBC
I wonder what he was doing at Evan Fields home?
Maybe they were friends?
