Klitschko vs. Adamek likely to be shown on HBO

By Boxing News - 01/09/2011 - Comments

Image: Klitschko vs. Adamek likely to be shown on HBOBy Michael Lieberman: HBO president of Sports Ross Greenburg passed on one of IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko’s fights not long ago when he and his manager Bernd Boente proposed a fight between Klitschko and undefeated contender Alexander Povetkin. Greenburg made it clear then that he wasn’t interested in showing this fight, but he did leave open the door to show future fights between Klitschko and WBA heavyweight champion David Haye or Polish heavyweight Tomasz Adamek if those fighters were ever to happen.

Wladimir is now poised to fight the 34-year-old Adamek in September, and there’s already a lot of fan interest in this fight despite it being many months away. Greenburg may go for this fight and choose to show it to U.S. audiences, as long as Boente and Wladimir aren’t still nursing their hurt feelings about having the proposed Abraham fight rejected. There’s been talk that because HBO passed on this fight that Wladimir won’t let any of his future fights be shown on HBO.

Hopefully, Wladimir isn’t going to do something self defeating like hold a grudge against HBO and not let them show a fight that would ultimately benefit him if they’re allowed to show it. HBO likely won’t have any interest in Wladimir’s next fight against unbeaten British heavyweight Dereck Chisora on April 30th. On paper, that’s a fight that appears to be a hopeless mismatch for Wladimir, and hardcore boxing fans are already turned off on this fight. But that fight isn’t the important one. It’s the Adamek fight that’s going to be a great interest to fans.

HBO previously used to show many of Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko’s fights on their network, but do to the poor choice of opponents and the one-sided nature of the majority of the fights, fans were less than pleased with them and the ratings suffered. HBO, in the face of bad ratings, did the logical thing by discontinuing the airing of Wladimir’s bouts against opponents that had little chance to win. But they’ll likely be very interested in the Adamek fight because he’ll have a decent chance to win and has a lot of fan support in the U.S.



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