Joshua Clottey and HBO are the real winners

By Boxing News - 09/24/2014 - Comments

clottey35234By Reynaldo Sanchez: After Oscar de La Hoya, Canelo Alvarez promoter announced that he had reached an agreement with HBO for the Mexican fighter Saul Alvarez. It follows that the Canelo-Clottey fight would be broadcast by the Show Time rival television network where Canelo came appearing in his last fights.

This situation where Canelo moves from one TV station to another, indicates that for the moment, is Oscar De La Hoya who has benefited from the approach out to Bob Arum of Top Rank. It is no secret that for years was Top Rank’s and Bob Arum who obtained the best dates to his fighters on HBO.

In fact, Joshua Clottey and HBO are the absolute winners in all this, because the African Clottey who now fights under the Star Boxing banner of Joe DeGuardia, was part of the Arum stable and while he was there, he could fight on HBO versus Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao in events that came out defeated, but he produced the best purse of his career. But now as Canelo opponent he returns to the HBO screens and surely with another interesting amount of money, after being forgotten for a long time.

Joshua Clottey has fought only five times since 2009 his rivals have been; Miguel Cotto 2009, Manny Pacquiao 2010, Calvin Green 2011, Dashon Johnson 2013, and Anthony Mundine 2104.

The so-called “Cold War” that kept Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions is not over cooling in its entirety. But no doubt that this GBP step to push Canelo on HBO, shows that Oscar de La Hoya as he said after to get rid of Richard Schaefer personally he take control of his company and reaching this agreement for Canelo Alvarez, opens doors for his other fighters get the same.

It seems that Bob Arum focus on the Asian market, has left the door open for Oscar to do business in an area where he could not before. Arums have in Manny Pacquiao his best PPV seller yet. But the Asian slow market explosion sets the tone for GBP take that gap and put Canelo Alvarez on HBO who has despite all his detractors, strong support in the US- and Mexican-American market.

Zou Shiming still fails to convince to become a PPV star such Arum presumed. Pacquiao is in his last fights and from his defeat against Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez, the unconditional support he has even in their country has fallen enough. Arum has not yet reacted to what Oscar got on HBO. However, we assume that soon Top Rank president, will make a move even if it is a little short of a figure that moves the threads of PPV to his stable.

We conclude that at the end of the day, Joshua Clottey and HBO are the big winners in all this matter. Canelo Alvarez has a fan base that will support fight against who fight. Instead HBO got a fighter with the fan base that would save them the work to create it. And Joshua Clottey will be in the fight against Alvarez, will do what he always does in every fight we’ve seen, take the money, and get out to his fief in Ghana to enjoy such good fortune that accompanies him.



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