Greenburg's replacement will fill big shoes
Ross Greenburg's successor as president of HBO Sports will, almost by default, assume the mantle that Greenburg held as boxing's most powerful person, because there is no one else out there with both the money and the interest in televising big-time boxing.
Greenburg's demise had been a topic of conversation in the sport for months, precisely because of the significance of his position.
Whoever gets the job will face a much different landscape than Greenburg did when he took over in the fall of 2000. Seth Abraham, Greenburg's predecessor, presided over an era of enormous success for boxing. At one point, HBO was televising fights involving the likes of Mike Tyson, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran.
By the time Greenburg took over, Hagler and Leonard had long since been retired and Tyson, Hearns and Duran were essentially bit players, but the sport still managed to lose significance in the next decade anyway. As good as the Klitschko brothers are, no heavyweight emerged who captured the imagination of the American public. Roy Jones Jr.'s skills diminished rapidly and he wound up repeatedly getting beaten up. Floyd Mayweather Jr. became a star, but he has taken long stretches of time off and has ignored the biggest possible fight.
There is a lot of behind-the-scenes jockeying for Greenburg's job, though it is believed that Michael Lombardo, HBO's director of programming, will handle the post on an interim basis with Kery Davis remaining onboard for the time being as his chief lieutenant.
The biggest challenge the full-time president will face is to not only buy the right fights, but to purchase them at the right price. Greenburg received enormous criticism for the dull fight between Timothy Bradley and Devon Alexander, but it wasn't the fight itself that was the real problem.
It made sense at the time: They were two of the four best fighters in a deep super lightweight division. There were good fights which could have been made for the winner, as well as for the loser. The fight was put in the wrong venue, was horribly promoted and turned out to be a dud in the ring. None of that is good, but the real issue, though, is the enormous amount of money Greenburg paid and the concessions he gave to acquire it.
Not only were Bradley and Alexander each paid seven figures, they were also guaranteed seven-figure purses for return matches. And Greenburg also gave promoter Gary Shaw two fights for an unheard of Sergiy Dzinziruk as a sweetener.
That was the issue, and it came up because of Greenburg's sensitivity to criticism. He had been taking torrents of abuse and went to great lengths to make the fight in a misguided attempt to appease his critics.
It's not enough just to get the right fights; they also have to come at the right price, because there is a finite budget and it needs to deliver quality bouts on a monthly basis.
The new president will need to be more accessible to all promoters. Greenburg developed a close alliance with Golden Boy Promotions, which is one of the sport's two biggest promoters, along with Top Rank. But Golden Boy got an inordinate amount of dates on the network and would get dates first and make fights later. HBO Sports needs to be in the business of buying fights, not doling out dates.
It is in HBO's interest to help build other promoters, because that will help the sport thrive. HBO needs quality relationships with Golden Boy and Top Rank, but it has to extend well beyond those two. Companies like Banner Promotions, DiBella Entertainment, Star Boxing and the like have quality fighters and should be able to have their boxers regularly appear on HBO.
Greenburg was a brilliant innovator and was responsible for putting microphones in the corners and hiring Harold Lederman as the network's unofficial judge. But the production needs to be updated, and badly.
For starters, HBO should invest in a pregame show – how about "HBO Fight Day"? – that air on the day of a major card that includes profiles of the fighters, along with analysis and breakdown.
And then, the new president needs to convince his superiors to add a weekly or monthly magazine-style show on boxing, something similar to "Inside the NFL." This would be a perfect opportunity for HBO to help increase the boxing fan base and to show its commitment to the sport.
HBO should develop an iPad application that will allow fans watching its fights to score the bouts at home, so there is a measure of interactivity during bouts. And it can also use the application to poll fans about fights and fighters they're interested in seeing.
More than anything, though, the new president will need to have a road map. He should know before the bell rings to start a fight what he (or she, because promoter Kathy Duva would be a great choice) plans to do with each fighter after the show no matter the outcome.
The next president needs to help build and showcase rivalries, demand that promoters always put their fighters in tough bouts, be understanding if a fighter competes hard and loses and treat the sport as if it's the most important thing in the world.
Because, until HBO Sports acquires the rights to the NFL, boxing will be the most important thing in the world to its next president.
• HBO has an excellent fight on Saturday, with Amir Khan taking on Zab Judah in a super lightweight title unification bout. Khan is the favorite, but if Judah can keep from breaking mentally, which he has done far too often in his biggest bouts, he is a very live underdog.
• A lot of boxing writers are expecting Kery Davis, the senior vice president of sports programming at HBO, to be let go any day now in light of Greenburg's departure. Don't look for Davis to leave in the short term, however. It's not HBO's style to totally vaporize a department and it will need continuity as it hunts for Greenburg's successor. Davis' fate will be determined by Greenburg's successor.
• Promoter Lou DiBella, who once held Davis' job, would be the natural choice to succeed Greenburg. But DiBella has little chance to get the job because he lost his temper and cursed at Jeff Bewkes and Bill Nelson during a budget meeting when he was still with the network. Bewkes was chairman of HBO at the time and is now chairman of the board and CEO of Time Warner. Nelson is now the chairman and CEO of HBO.
• ESPN2 may have had the Fight of the Year on Friday when it aired the draw between Pawel Wolak and Delvin Rodriguez. There is talk the rematch will be on the undercard of the pay-per-view bout Dec. 3 between Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto. The Wolak-Rodriguez fight was so good that it deserves to headline its own card. The new HBO president would be wise to make that bout as the main event of a "Boxing After Dark" card shortly upon taking the job.
• One final suggestion for the new HBO Sports president: Make World Boxing Association lightweight champion Brandon Rios a regular on the network and pair him next with Michael Katsidis. A Rios-Katsidis fight could be like a modern-day Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward.
• Super featherweight Diego Magdaleno was impressive on Friday in his victory over Alejandro Perez in Las Vegas. He's 20-0 with fast hands and an aggressive style. He'll probably win a world title, though he doesn't have a lot of power and he gets hit far too much for my taste.
• Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s attorneys were arguing that he couldn't give a deposition in the defamation lawsuit filed against him by Manny Pacquiao because they said he was too deep in training for his Sept. 17 fight against Victor Ortiz. But then video surfaced last week of Mayweather in a club in Atlanta burning a $100 bill. I'm sure the judge was thrilled with Mayweather when he saw that.
• I have been with Mayweather and seen him do many wonderful charitable acts for people in need. But that in no way excuses his completely classless act of burning money. The country is in the midst of the worst economy since the Great Depression. People are out of work and struggling to pay their bills and Mayweather is burning money? It's disgusting.
• Juan Manuel Marquez knocked Likar Ramos out in the first round of his bout on Saturday in Mexico, though Mexican authorities need to do a complete investigation. Ramos was hit with a clean shot, but appeared to feign being out cold. Something was fishy with Ramos' performance.
Why all the catchweights?
What is the deal with Manny Pacquiao always wanting to fight at a catch weight if welterweight is 140-147 pounds? Do you think its takes a lot out of a fighter to lose or add an extra three or four pounds before the fight? Juan Manuel Marquez was noticeably slower fighting Mayweather at 142 pounds, and now he has to make 144 pounds for Pacman. Are catchweights allowed in title fights?
Eric Thomas
Houston
The weight of 144 was a negotiation between the fighters. The welterweight limit is 147 pounds, so for it to be a title fight, they have to weigh 147 pounds or less. It doesn't matter how much less they weigh. When the great Sugar Ray Robinson fought Joey Maxim for the light heavyweight title on June 25, 1952, Robinson weighed 157½, which is 2½ pounds less than the middleweight limit of 160 and was 17157½ under the light heavyweight limit of 175. Marquez can weigh whatever he wants, so long as it is not over 144.
Americans are hypocritical about judging
I think we as Americans are hypocritical when it comes to complaining about judging in boxing. When an American goes to a foreign country and we believe he's robbed, we complain loudly. Bad judging happens here, too, and affects foreign fighters competing in the U.S., as we saw in the Paul Williams-Erislandy Lara fight. I am pleased we are taking notice of this mockery, which to me has happened on numerous cards this year. Do you think American judges are biased against foreign fighters? I'm seeing this far more often.
Matthew Lopez
Victorville, Calif.
Matthew, there are always going to be controversial judging calls because who won a fight that goes the distance is an opinion, not a fact. You and I could watch the same fight and each believe strongly that different fighters won. Most often, the judges get it right, and it only becomes news when many feel they don't. I'm sure there are American judges who favor American fighters, but I don't think anyone does that consciously. What happens, I believe, is a judge gets used to seeing a particular style and tends to favor that style of fighter, all other things being equal.
Don't be so hard on Williams
I'm a Paul Williams fan and a boxing fanatic. Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of hearing him dragged through the mud for a mediocre performance. No, Williams didn't land the cleaner, harder shots, but he clearly landed more than he was given credit for by CompuBox. The punch stats are debatable, in my opinion. Lara was slick and sharp as could be, but given the rematch, I think we're looking at the Carlos Quintana effect [Williams lost a decision to Quintana but then knocked him out in the first in a rematch].
Garrett M. Cannon
Detroit
Garrett, Williams was clearly beaten and Lara should have won. Period. End of story. Who would win the rematch is irrelevant. Lara deserved the fight on that night and he should have gotten the decision. He has a loss on his record he doesn't deserve and a rematch is the only way he has to do something about it. Whether he does or not is another matter, but it doesn't impact the scoring on the first fight, which should have gone his way.
"King Kong can go 'Boom, boom, boom' on his chest and the elephants come running." – promoter Don King, talking about International Boxing Federation bantamweight champion Joseph Agbeko, who meets Abner Mares on Aug. 13 in the finale of Showtime's bantamweight tournament.
