By Eric Thomas: In hindsight, it might have been a big mistake for the promoters to make the Bernard Hopkins vs. Chad Dawson fight a pay per view bout instead of waiting until HBO had an open schedule to put the fight on regular cable.

The Dawson-Hopkins fight promised to be a disappointing stinker even before the carnival like ending last Saturday night when an annoyed Dawson tossed the 46-year-old Hopkins to the canvas like he was throwing a bag of groceries. The fight had a bad feel even leading up to it because Dawson is a mostly defensive fighter and is hard to hit cleanly.

And for his part, Hopkins is known for his hit and grab technique, as well as his fine wrestling skills in a clinch. We saw a bit of the old punch and grab from Hopkins before Dawson threw Hopkins down, but the fight was still just warming up at the time Hopkins got hurt.

But now a day later, boxing fans who payed $54.95 to see the fight are more than a little angry, with many boxing fans saying they won’t be purchasing PPV cards in the future. This is the thing. You’ve got promoters slapping fights together and making them PPV when they really no business being a PPV fight.

I think was a good case of a fight that begged to be on regular cable, even ESPN. It just promised to be a disappointing affair and the undercard was absolutely no help at all with fights between Paulie Malignaggi and Orlando Lora, Kendall Holt and Danny Garcia and Antonio DeMarco and Jorge Linares. There just wasn’t enough quality on the card to make up for a disastrous main event.