Dave Meltzer stuff

[KrisZ]

Well you have more "rogue" fans now than ever. You watch wrestling from even 20 years ago....fans cheered for faces and booed for heels now of course there was some that went the other way on both sides but now it's cheering for whoever you want and it depends on the cities at times on who is over and who is not which can affect pushes as well because if you are hot somewhere then you go somewhere else and not over enough you could get depushed.

 

Perfect example is Fandango...dude was hot as fire on the RAW after WM and they almost had something there but the crowds in the other cities didn't play along and it basically killed his upward momentum.

[evilclown]

It almost didn't matter that no one really thought wrestling was real. Wrestling thought wrestling was real.

That's an incredible encapsulation of the wrestling ethos. I'm stealing that for something.

[Strummer]

Cornette is reaching Tom Zenk levels for me now. Repeating the same points over and over. Angy and bitter. He's an all time great and I'm not saying he doesn't have valid arguments but he's really getting tough to listen to

[Ditch]

There's a letter in the recent archive Observer from '96, where Joe Silva (now UFC booker) picks apart how Pancrase was heavily worked. That might interest any MMA fans out there who subscribe and don't read the letters.

[El-P]

Listened to the Cornette interview. I fail to see how he sounds bitter and angry. He has his opinions about what pro-wrestling has become, which are both very understandable and actually quite on the spot for the most part, and he talked about it very rationaly and not in an angry way. When he wasn't asked about modern wrestling, he was happy to talk about wrestling history, Jacky Fargo, his next book about Memphis wrestling merchandising and how he is in the best shape of his life right now. Sounded like a pretty happy 50 years old guy to me.

[KrisZ]

Holy shit the Matt Borne obit in this week's WON was awesome.

[Alchemy]

Listened to the Cornette interview. I fail to see how he sounds bitter and angry. He has his opinions about what pro-wrestling has become, which are both very understandable and actually quite on the spot for the most part, and he talked about it very rationaly and not in an angry way. When he wasn't asked about modern wrestling, he was happy to talk about wrestling history, Jacky Fargo, his next book about Memphis wrestling merchandising and how he is in the best shape of his life right now. Sounded like a pretty happy 50 years old guy to me.

He seemed to have learned from his other interview with PWI (I think)

[hammerva]

Yeah to judge bitter Cornette you have to listen to the interview he did with Mike Johnson. The Meltzer one was him realizing that he already opened a hornet's nest and didn't want any more bees to fly out.

 

Besides I think Mike Johnson is more interested in the current wrestling product than Dave is so his interviews would be more of a historic standpoint.

[jdw]

I defy anything to listen to Bryan's Punk/Axel tag team like scenario involving football and not get amazing douche chills. Even Dave had a good 2 seconds of silence when trying to comprehend this stupidity. Bad enough he doesn't know how many yards a football field is.

?

[hammerva]

Dave and Bryan was going through the finish of the Punk/Axel match on RAW where Punk does all the work and Axel tag himself in and gets the pin and Bryan tries one of his terrible sports analogies and before he gets to it Dave is begging him not to it. But of course that doesn't stop him. First he asked how many yards are in a football field. Then he goes something like "what if a guy ran 99 yards about to go in for a touchdown and someone steals a jersey of the player, grabs the ball, and gets the final yard for the TD" And then we get a good 2-3 seconds of Dave silence

[Eduardo]

TV level boxers get paid more than UFC fighters by a large margin

Brookhouse pointing this out on Twitter right now, since White was doing his usual carny b.s. about how much they pay better than boxing:

 

At $24k/$24k, if the UFC doubles Weidman's disclosed show/win pay as a bonus, he'll get less than J'Leon Love got to open last Showtime PPV

At $24k/$24k, if UFC triples Weidman's show/win pay as a bonus, he'll get less than Leo Santa Cruz in 2nd bout of last Showtime PPV

Another random example. Andre Berto made more in one night against Robert Guerrero in November, than Jon Fitch made in seven years of competing inside the UFC -- which includes a main event PPV fight against GSP in 2008.

[jdw]

Another random example. Andre Berto made more in one night against Robert Guerrero in November, than Jon Fitch made in seven years of competing inside the UFC -- which includes a main event PPV fight against GSP in 2008.

I have no idea how boxing generates the revenue to pay those two a combined $2.6M It really makes you think that the numbers are worked to give a false sense of how boxing is doing. That fight was in Ontario, CA... not at a Casino... I can't imagine that Boxing at the Berto-Guerrero is really driving a big subscriber base at HBO these days... are they just willing to toss that much around (in addition to all the production costs and Talent costs since none of them work for cheap)? This is an era where even ESPN is cutting costs left and right so they can prop up Disney's bottom line, and also save their cash for rights fees of stuff that drives ratings.

[KrisZ]

Promoters are shelling out the cash with help from the networks et al...

 

There is a bidding war now even more than ever between HBO & Showtime and with Showtime going with a lot of Al Haymon guys and he gets his guys paid whether you like him or not and I can't stand him but he does his job as good as anyone.

[Johnny Sorrow]

 

And I thought the whole nose to nose shit in wrestling looked silly.

[Eduardo]

Yep. I should have mentioned Haymon in my Berto post.

 

I don't have the numbers for how much Matthysse and Peterson earned last month but I read about the undercard fight between Devon Alexander (another Haymon boxer) and Lee Purdy. Purdy got $150,000, while Devon Alexander got $700,000. I should note that Purdy lost $15,000 due to missing weight, so Alexander walked out with $715,000 for a fight that wasn't even the main event that evening. Neither guy is a draw, although Alexander is a good boxer with a [disputed] win over Matthysse.

[Death From Above]

TV networks are willing to pay out stupid money *if* they have a guarantee of ratings. It's pretty common knowledge that NFL TV money has gotten so big that they don't really make anything at all for the networks, but the ratings are so huge the feeling is it's worth the loss because the alternative is that the competition airs the NFL which is too much of a status symbol and ratings draw. The NHL is the same way in Canada where they are consistently the biggest money loser for the CBC, but are literally the only thing on the station that draws worth a shit and the internal debate has gone on for years whether letting the games go totally to the competition would be good or bad for the network, but I don't think they've ever really come that close to giving it up.

 

Now, I can't see how that still applies to boxing, because boxing has been a terrible mess for years because of the Alphabet Soup of various commissions with their own titles that have devalued every title match in boxing to the point where belts in wrestling probably mean more than 95% of boxing titles to fans of both. Boxing's popularity has probably never been lower since the turn of the 20th century to now, yet Mayweather and Pacquiao are the two of the highest paid athletes in the world so there's clearly still some viewer interest in the sport. It's hard to see where all the money in boxing is coming from... yet there it is.

 

UFC would be vulnerable if boxing had its act together, because UFC is both totally overexposed at this point from too much TV and the cat is out of the bag that most MMA matches simply aren't very entertaining, on top of not paying fighters. But it's hard to see boxing as the place to be when the business is so convoluted. UFC has handled their business much better as a company so they are probably safe from their only potential competition despite their problems for now.

[KrisZ]

Biggest difference in UFC and boxing is of course boxing is spread out over multiple promoters and networks while UFC is pretty much a monopoly these days and has exclusivity with FOX.

 

One promoter acting as a league can control whatever he wants while multiple promoters with multiple networks putting up the cash can spread the money around.

 

The thing about titles is no one really gives a shit about titles anymore it's about the big fights. The only title that really matters these days is the Ring Magazine title plus the fact you have guys fighting in different weight classes like Floyd who can fight anyone from 154 down to 140 pretty much.

 

Boxing's biggest problem is that there are no US heavyweights that are on top but even that doesn't matter too much because Wladimir Klitschko & Alexander Povetkin announced yesterday a megafight in Moscow on 10/5

 

The purse bid was a stunner. Klitschko's K2 Promotions bid $7.13 million and Sauerland Event, Povetkin's promoter, bid $6,014,444. But Russian promoter Vladimir Hryunov made an extraordinary bid of $23,333,330, the third-biggest winning purse bid for a fight that most experts believe won't come even close to generating that kind of money.

 

Even with such massive purses at stake, Klitschko and Povetkin took their previously scheduled interim bouts and both won to keep their showdown alive.

 

Klitschko (60-3, 52 KOs), 37, blew through Francesco Pianeta, stopping him in the sixth round of a one-sided fight on May 4. Povetkin (26-0, 18 KOs), 33, turned in a similarly dominant performance on May 17, smashing Andrzej Wawrzyk en route to a third-round knockout.

 

Under the terms of the purse bid, Klitschko will receive 75 percent of the money, which translates to a career-high payday of $17,499,997, while Povetkin is due the remaining 25 percent, a career-best $5,833,333.

 

Although Hryunov, who doesn't promote either fighter but is close to Povetkin, won the rights to the fight to put him in total control of the promotion, it took a bit longer than usual to get the fight signed, because once he determined that he wanted to stage the bout past the sanctioning organization deadline, he had to negotiate terms other than the purse. There were disagreements over various aspects of the fight, including the drug testing protocol.

 

"We had long and intense negotiations but both sides were willing to find an agreement and now we can together present the fans around the world one of the best fights that can be made," said Bernd Boente, who manages Klitschko. "We were all waiting for this bout a long time but finally, here we go. Two gold medal winners, two heavyweight champions, two great athletes -- a dream fight."

 

Hrunov and business partner Andrej Ryabinsky worked for more than a month to get the terms ironed out but they are happy to finally have the fight set.

 

"A lot of time and effort went into this, but now finer details have been dealt with, agreements are signed and we are looking forward to October and the historic fight between these titans of boxing," Ryabinsky said. "We would like to thank our German partners for their cooperation and joint efforts."

[jdw]

It's pretty common knowledge that NFL TV money has gotten so big that they don't really make anything at all for the networks, but the ratings are so huge the feeling is it's worth the loss because the alternative is that the competition airs the NFL which is too much of a status symbol and ratings draw.

All the networks make a killing off the NFL, especially ESPN. None of them are losing money, or even coming close to "don't really make anything at all."

[jdw]

Yep. I should have mentioned Haymon in my Berto post.

 

I don't have the numbers for how much Matthysse and Peterson earned last month but I read about the undercard fight between Devon Alexander (another Haymon boxer) and Lee Purdy. Purdy got $150,000, while Devon Alexander got $700,000. I should note that Purdy lost $15,000 due to missing weight, so Alexander walked out with $715,000 for a fight that wasn't even the main event that evening. Neither guy is a draw, although Alexander is a good boxer with a [disputed] win over Matthysse.

Again... I'm just not buying those numbers.

 

I'd really love to see one of these guys tax returns. I suspect it would expose this as all utter bullshit.

[Eduardo]

So you think Dan Rafael and the state commissions have been worked for years on premium TV boxing payouts?

[Sidebottom]

It's pretty common knowledge that NFL TV money has gotten so big that they don't really make anything at all for the networks, but the ratings are so huge the feeling is it's worth the loss because the alternative is that the competition airs the NFL which is too much of a status symbol and ratings draw.

All the networks make a killing off the NFL, especially ESPN. None of them are losing money, or even coming close to "don't really make anything at all."

 

I was going to say, that didn't sound right

[cm funk]

Aside from status, part of the reason the NFL is so valuable to networks is that it allows them to promote the rest of their programming. The NFL is a demographic juggernaut. The advertising money, the eyeballs tuning in, and the ability to say "hey America, you like football? watch all this other stuff!" makes it profitable in a roundabout way.

[sek69]

As someone who works for a cable company, I can vouch that the big time boxing PPVs are still the top drawing events no matter the price. Hell, the last few years the busiest we've been for PPVs have been for WrestleMania and whenever Floyd fights. They're going to ask $60 for SD and &75 for HD on the Canelo fight, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say it won't hurt demand one bit.

 

Also, Showtime might end up helping boxing get its shit together. Since they don't have any meaningful MMA left to show they're trying to corner the market on boxing it seems. They signed a huge deal with Floyd for his PPV fights and those of guys he promotes. Since Canelo is being groomed as the Next Big Draw, they could conceivably have the market cornered on top level boxing.

[Childs]

How is Showtime helping boxing get its shit together? Showtime is a major contributor to the blood-feud schism between Golden Boy and Top Rank that makes countless attractive match-ups impossible. Don't get me wrong; I'm fine with Showtime stepping up as a stronger player. But boxing is as fucked up as ever.

[KrisZ]

Showtime was seen as being way below HBO in terms of boxing especially after Evander & Tyson quit so them aligning with Golden Boy Promotions & Al Haymon was a huge deal plus they are shelling out more cash now than ever for non-heavyweights. They have come a long way from the days of being Don King's network showing mostly lopsided matchups.

 

Showtime is also making HBO step up their game to create new stars which they are trying to do in a big way with guys like Gennady Golovkin, Mike Alvarado, Bam Bam Rios et al.