Mike Tyson
STARTED WITH TYSON’S RELEASE FROM PRISON
San Francisco, CA– It has been almost 20 years since Showtime was able to get the upper hand on the cable entity then known as Home Boxing Office, now HBO. This was when Don King took Mike Tyson to Showtime, this after the last great HBO Sports CEO Seth Abraham refused to adhere to promoter Don King’s demands that he can analyst Larry Merchant. At least that was the one of the reasons the Donald put forth. Seeing Tyson was a Pay Per View attraction equivalent to a gushing oil well of cash, HBO wanted him bad. But Uncle Seth as I used to call him, a mensh as he used to call me, wasn’t about to roll over like a dog for King and Tyson.
I THOUGHT HBO DID THE RIGHT THING
Some will say it was a bad business decision for HBO, others will say it was morally the right thing to do. Tyson, having been released after two plus years in prison for the rape and oral sodomy of Desiree Washington, a beauty pageant contestant in Indianapolis, IN, was no longer “Iron Mike.” That persona was stripped away when Buster Douglas crushed him like an aluminum can in 1990. Yet the media and fans alike, followed him ever so closely in his ill fated comeback to try and once again become the “undisputed” heavyweight champion of the world. So intense was the coverage of Tyson, that anytime Mike would burp or even fart it made for headlines.
THE 1995 COMEBACK FIGHT BEGAN WITH MCNEELY
Tyson’s string of comeback opponents began with Peter McNeely, a fighter of Irish descent whose father Tom McNeely had unsuccessfully fought Floyd Patterson for the heavyweight title in 1961 he claimed in 1956 after Rocky Marciano retired, I believe after hearing the footsteps of one Charles “Sonny” Liston, the same man whom Floyd would duck for some six years.
To call Peter McNeely a bum was both a slam and injustice to every skid row resident on the planet. The younger McNeely, unlike his father who could fight a little, couldn’t spell f-i-g-h-t if you scrambled the letters and wrote them on a chalkboard. That being fact, he lasted less than a round with the swarming Tyson.
DID BRUCE PULL A SWAN DIVE OR BELLY FLOP?
Needing to add a little credibility to Tyson’s opponents, King, after feeling the heat for putting the ill prepared McNeely in with the still thought to be ferocious Mike Tyson, stepped Tyson up a notch to face then WBA titleholder Bruce Seldon. This fight too ended early, but it had all the earmarks of either a fixed affair or a Seldon dive as replays showed he wasn’t hit cleanly, not unless you want to count a shot to the shoulder. Needless to say, I recall that they didn’t play the “suspect” knockout blow more than once or twice in the form of a replay on the telecast.
EVANDER OF 1996 LOOKED LIKE THE EVANDER OF TODAY AT 48!
All the while Evander Holyfield was looking even less ordinary than Tyson. With Evander struggling to defeat former middleweight contender Bobby Czyz, this convinced both King and Team Tyson, consisting of the intelligent John Horne and the ignoramus Rory Holloway, both co-managers who were said to be King’s “yes” men, they all decided that Mike would have an easy time with Holyfield. But Evander, who had kicked Tyson’s ass pretty good sparring as amateurs, he felt he had Tyson’s number and rolled back the clock, more than likely with the help of some drugs (steroids) similar to the ones he had delivered to his house years later addressed to Evan Fields from the scanalous mail order Signature Pharmacy years later.
TYSON-HOLYFIELD I & II BOTH DID GOOD NUMBERS
Their first fight, televised by Showtime’s PPV arm, Showtime Event Television, was both a box office and pay per view bonanza for King and Showtime. When Holyfield stopped Tyson late in the fight, the people that thought Mike was invincible, chalked it off as a lucky win for Holyfield, who was at one point an 18-1 underdog. The rematch, AKA “The Bite Fight,” hurt the game of boxing unlike no other incident in recent history. St. Ides Beer, an up and coming brew that was targeted towards young adults was the major sponsor. Disgusted and corporately embarrassed, St. ides canceled a five-figure advertising deal with “Ring Talk,” even though the company continued to pay me for the duration of out pact, all the while making it clear they wanted no part of boxing ever again.
AND THEN ALONG CAME LENNOX
Eventually, Lennox Lewis, an HBO fighter took over the heavyweight throne and when he took on Tyson in 2002, Showtime, still having the rights to Tyson split the PPV revenues down the middle with HBO. The key factor that the two networks had agreed on was that if Tyson won, the replay would be on Showtime, but seeing Lennox won, the fight aired on HBO a week later.
HBO BOXING GREW WHILE LARKIN SOLD SHOWTIME OUT!
From that point forward, HBO’s boxing programing continued to flourish, while showtime under the leadership of the late Jay Larkin, their pugilistic programming was for the most part pathetic. Larkin, who was going to go into partnership with promoter Frank Warren, was giving Warren an incredible number of unwarranted Showtime dates featuring British fighters that couldn’t lick a stamp, not even if you were to wet their tongue. Although people in the boxing world were perplexed with Warren getting American TV dates for less than world class British pugs, I blew the lid off the scam after seeing a document with Frank Warren’s letterhead that listed, “Jay Larkin Enterprises” as a recipient of a carbon copy, this even though Larkin was still in the employ of Showtime.
PEDRO BLEW THE LID OFF THE LARKIN-WARREN SCAM!
Once I made this public, it wasn’t long before Warren was as dateless as a sow at the Senior Prom, and Larkin soon thereafter left Showtime with a huge severance package. Since then, although Showtime upped their product big time with the addition of Sho Box and some other advent ideas, HBO has owned all of the major PPV dates and boxing stars until now. Next week, Showtime’s PPV arm will carry the Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley fight, with the delayed broadcast set to air on CBS, as both Showtime and CBS are under the Viacom corporate umbrella.
Pacquiao Whipping De La Hoya
HAS THE 360 SERIES EQUALED HBO’S 24-7?
Although the 360 Pacquiao-Mosley pre-fight series has gotten some play, experts say it pales in comparison to the numbers HBO was getting for their 24-7 pre-fight shows. What will this all mean next week? Well, certainly Showtime will do good business with the PPV, especially in light of Manny Pacquiao appearing Sunday night on the CBS show “60 Minutes.” If the fight turns out to be a dud, a real possibility seeing Mosley is nearing 40 years of age, will anybody even want to watch the replay when it airs on CBS a week or so later? In addition, there are really two questions at hand. The first being will Showtime’s marketing of the fight generate “fat” PPV numbers? Secondly, if the fight does suck, will CBS garner decent numbers for the replay and will they continue to coddle promoter Bob Arum and Pacquiao for future dates?
CABLE WAR LOOMING OVER FLOYD AND MANNY?
If CBS and Showtime can hold on to Pacquaio, and he does in fact submit to “random” drug testing sans a 10 or 14 day window of non testing, will we be seeing another fight Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather, much like Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis where the network with the winning fighter will have the rights to air the delayed broadcast? And God forbid, should Shane Mosley, a decided underdog prevail, how would that affect these two warring Cable outlets?
Pedro Fernandez