Showtime signs Anthony Joshua to multi-fight deal

By Boxing News - 05/04/2016 - Comments

BOXINGBy Scott Gilfoid: Well, as I already predicted in my article yesterday, Showtime Sports has signed British heavyweight Anthony Joshua (16-0, 16 KOs) to a multi-fight deal with their network. Showtime head honcho Stephen Espinoza made the announcement on Wednesday at the luxurious Hilton Syon Park in London.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn was present during the announcement, of course. The first fight of the multi-fight deal with Showtime for Joshua will be televised next month with Joshua defending his IBF heavyweight title against American Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK. The fight piped into the U.S in the afternoon on Showtime on that date, which probably means that the ratings won’t be as high as they would be if the fight were to be televised at night when there are fewer sports events taking place.

You can bet there will be competition for the American eyeballs in other sports on other channels, which is why this effort may fail to pan out for Showtime. If all of Joshua’s fights televised in the U.S are going to be in the afternoon on Showtime, then it’s hard to see the ratings being high for any of them. If this was one of the free networks like CBS, Fox, NBC or ESPN, then the ratings would obviously be higher for afternoon broadcasts of Joshua’s fights.

Joshua’s promoter Hearn doesn’t seem to be aiming high in terms of U.S fighters he wants to put him in with. Hearn is talking about wanting to match Joshua against Bermane Stiverne or Bryant Jennings in November of this year if he can’t get a unification fight against IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. That’s the fight that Hearn wants most of all, but Fury is saying he’s going to retire after his July 9 rematch against Wladimir Klitschko.

A fight between Joshua and Fury will also be contingent on Fury beating Wladimir a second time. Hearn thinks Fury will beat Klitschko again because he feels he’s got the 40-year-old Ukrainian’s number. I’m not sure if that’s the case this time around. Fury as fat as a house right now, and by the time he takes all that weight off, if he does take it off, he’s likely going to be weaker than he was in the first fight last November against Klitschko. All it takes is for Fury to be 10 to 20% weaker than he was the first time around and you’re going to get a victory for Klitschko.

“We know how to build him and he’s keen to learn,” said Hearn to Fighthype.com about Joshua. “We’re also under pressure because he’s a pay-per-view fighter. Breazeale is an Olympian, 17-0; on paper it’s an okay first defense. Will he [Breazeale] try harder? I think he will. Will he get knocked out? Yeah, I think he will,” said Hearn.

In speaking about Joshua’s next fight after the Breazeale fight, Hearn said “Whether it’s Stiverne…If [Bryant] Jennings can get in a few wins; those kind of guys. We’ve got to think of our U.S deal as well. We’ve got to pick a guy that appeals to the U.S market. It’s going to get better and better. He’s had 16 fights. He’s only once been past three rounds. He’ll beat anyone. I like Breazeale; he’s sellable. He’s a big guy and he’s got a great record. Deontay Wilder had how many fights before he fought for a world title. 32? Anthony Joshua fought for a world title with 16 fights. You saw what Wilder made for his last fight. Joshua is making three to four times what Wilder is making already. So to come to the U.S, he’d have to take a big pay cut. You may see him in the U.S next year. I want him to be a PPV fighter in the U.S. We may have our voluntary in November. It could be Fury in November, but we quite like Stiverne or someone like that in November. After that, he’ll have a mandatory and that’s the winner of the Parker and Takam. But a unification will override that. We go for the Fury fight in spring/summer 2017, if he beats Klitschko. He’ll probably [beat Klitschko] because he’s got his number. We don’t know if it was a great performance [from Fury last November] or Klitschko is shot,” said Hearn.

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So there it is. Hearn thinks Joshua will be a PPV star in the United States, and he wants to match him against Bermane Stiverne or Bryant Jennings in November if he can’t get a fight against Fury. It’s interesting that Hearn isn’t mentioning Deontay Wilder or Luis “The Real King Kong” Ortiz as potential opponents for Joshua in November.

All Hearn is saying about Deontay is how much more money that Joshua makes than him, as if that equates to having more talent. Boxing is clearly a bigger deal in the UK than it is the U.S. in terms of the percentage of the public being interested.

Obviously, with the U.S, being so much bigger than the UK, the PPV numbers can go literally sky-high for a fighter that’s popular and can draw. The UK can’t match the type of PPV numbers we see from guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr., which is probably why Hearn is trying to sell Joshua’s fights in the U.S so that he can take advantage of the big population, even percentage wise, the fans aren’t as keen on boxing compared to in the UK.

I don’t know if it’s possible for Joshua to bring in big ratings in the U.S without him fighting over there and fighting better fighters. I’m sorry but I don’t see Joshua wowing the boxing public by fighting Bermane Stiverne and Bryant Jennings during the afternoon hours in the U.S. Those are lackluster opponents, and Americans tend to watch basketball and football during the afternoons on Saturday. I’m just saying. If I was an executive for Showtime in charge of calling the shots on a Joshua fight, I wouldn’t do it. I would only sign him for fights when he’s able to fight fight and during the primetime hours and only if he were fighting dangerous guys like Deontay, Luis Ortiz and Joseph Parker. Those are the only fights I’d televise of Joshua in the U.S, because all the rest of the heavyweights are too weak or too flawed.