Sky and Hearn having a laugh

So the price for the PPV extravaganza has been revealed and as expected, we are getting totally ripped off.

The May 30th card will be priced on PPV at £16.95, with no mention of any special discounts based on anyone who bought the Floyd vs Pac PPV

Do they think we are stupid or something? The entire card was on sky sports, you add Brook vs Gavin and suddenly it becomes PPV

Not a chance, if this fight was £5-10, I might have considered it, but not a chance at that price

The less I have to hear Watt and Halling the better

Joke of a price. Selby is the only one worth PPV but not £16.95

Hearn is gonna ruin boxing from the Isles at this rate

I refuse to buy any Murdoch product anyway

Haha Steffan you crack me up! Selby the only PPV fighter! Although I have grown a bit of a liking to the guy, think he can be a little special on his night too.

In terms of the price who cares? I don't understand sometimes I'm in my early 20's and £15 is nothing to me, are all boxing fans skint or something? If you wanna watch it and not pay go to the pub? It'd be a bit of a rip off if it was like this all the time, but this isn't that often and to be honest is a really good card.

My only issue with this being PPV is that it's two in a month which is a bit stupid, but Eddie Hearn not Sky are going to care because people will buy it.

Not sure this card was ever going to be on sky sports either, with two world title fights on it before Brook/Gavin was announced it was probably always going the PPV route.

It's not that. 15 pound isn't much at all on its own but when you've paid a lot for sky and the package then have to fork it out regularly on top it's pisstaking. Think I'll get shot of it all in a couple of months when contract runs out and just buy the boxnation stream.

AlexHuckerby wrote:In terms of the price who cares? I don't understand sometimes I'm in my early 20's and £15 is nothing to me, are all boxing fans skint or something? If you wanna watch it and not pay go to the pub? It'd be a bit of a rip off if it was like this all the time, but this isn't that often and to be honest is a really good card.

I'm loaded (although not in my early 20s sadly) and £15 is nothing to me either but I just don't wanna get ripped off by Hearn and feed the pockets of that snake Murdoch. It's the principal for me than the money

I'm with Alex, the price is irrelevant but being on PPV in the first place is the issue, ill be paying myself and don't have an issue with it.

Matchroom have been awful quite a while now. I cant get over how they manage to produce so many poor and mediocre sky cards stuffed with mismatches or pointless fights when they have either direct or indirect access to most of the boxers in the UK. Clearly they are mad for the ppv as well and will use any opportunity to make a half decent card ppv if they can. It would have been better to leave Brook v his latest mismatched opponent off this card rather than using it as a smash and grab way to squeeze in a ppv.

We have a tip top fighter in Linares coming to defend his world title against an extremely good fighter in Mitchell who has always had the look of a guy that just might win a world title but never has. You have the Olympic Heavyweight champion taking on a guy that has never been stopped and has gone 12 with Vitali, its by far his toughest task. Selby looks like he just might be special and faces an acid test against Gradovich who is extremely tough and if Selby isn't the real deal he will take a beating, another world title fight. Then OK the actual main event is a let down, can't see Brook Gavin being that great really, just time to give Brook a good payday before risking him against a higher class of opposition again. The fight cod actually still be exciting and its not as if Gavin doesn't have talent in him, just don't think he's a real WW.

Think its worth PPV just about personally.

AlexHuckerby wrote:Think its worth PPV just about personally.

Hearn lover

Well hopefully Brook does a number on Gavin so we can get him out again in time to make the Quigg v Martinez card ppv too. Curtis Woodhouse might fancy a shot next.

A lot of people missed the whole point

What do we pay sky for? 26.50 for what? Advertising their Ppv cards? The card they showed last time was a bunch of mismatches and didn't even show the best fight live

It's not,about affordability it's about principle they will keep pushing the line until we stop paying

We pay miles more than any other eu country for sport and get ripped off

I canned sky recently they lost the champions league which is a bigger blow to them than they realise

Any decent boxing goes on Ppv so what do they actually give us now?

AlexHuckerby wrote:We have a tip top fighter in Linares coming to defend his world title against an extremely good fighter in Mitchell who has always had the look of a guy that just might win a world title but never has. You have the Olympic Heavyweight champion taking on a guy that has never been stopped and has gone 12 with Vitali, its by far his toughest task. Selby looks like he just might be special and faces an acid test against Gradovich who is extremely tough and if Selby isn't the real deal he will take a beating, another world title fight. Then OK the actual main event is a let down, can't see Brook Gavin being that great really, just time to give Brook a good payday before risking him against a higher class of opposition again. The fight cod actually still be exciting and its not as if Gavin doesn't have talent in him, just don't think he's a real WW.

I actually thought this was an Eddie pastiche. I was just waiting for the punnett of strawberries line, and then I read 'the actual main event is a let down' bit and figured Eddie was unlikely to say that!

Looks like Matchroom are going down the road of trying to have 5/6 feature ppv cards a year to make good money on with most of the cards outside of that being pretty rubbish ones done on the cheap featuring Matchroom guys bowl over cut price opponents.

The more willingness out there to buy ppv cards, the greater the liklihood is of it expanding to more ppv events per year. I think Matchroom are proving that having a dominant TV network and promotional company does not neccessarily lead to better cards and fights.

I think they are wanting to follow the WWE model long term. A PPV every month with weekly cards to promote them and set them up. Hearn getting monopoly of sky was always gonna be bad for boxing.

It's a joke really isn't it.

Not sure they would have got away with PPV before they added Brook-Gavin. Hearn was banging on about Brook becoming a PPV fighter after his performance against Jo Jo Dan. Don't know how knocking out someone that was clearly miles out of his depth does that but there you go....

The Selby and Mitchell fights are well worth a watch and Joshua in what, on paper, should be his first test.

They announced Quigg-Martinez, Crolla in a world title fight and Joshua on that show as well with no sniff of PPV mentioned.
It must be the new PPV megastar Kel Brook which turned this decent show into £17 worth of boxing.

The problem with this card is it is suggestive of a certain model with Sky which is worrying. Seems rather than putting one of his fighters in a decent 50-50 ish match up on normal Sky Eddie would rather bundle them together on the same show and stick it on PPV. Whether such cards justify the PPV fee is questionable, but is not the real issue, the real issue is, if you don't pay for these cards what do you actually get for your sky subscription, a bunch of cards like the Birmingham card the other week that was truly terrible. I love Jamie McDonnell but when he is saving your show you know there are problems.

Anyone who paid for the clev bellew fight should hang themselves in shame.

That was the test. We all knew it. It was the day Eddie got his business model tested, and it came up trumps for him.

You all put (misguided) short term self gratification ahead of the long term benefit. You were seduced into eating the poisoned strawberry. It made you feel sick at the time and now its rotting your insides.

The rest of us are paying for your treatment.

And as you can see. We're not happy

I paid for it and I have to live with the shame:-(

Won't happen this time

Two things.................

1. I think being serious Boxing fans we undervalue the PPV sales Joshua adds to pot..I remember the ratings Mike Tyson brought to ABC in his apprentice stage....Heavyweight is Boxing's prize division and exciting Heavies sell like hot cakes..........

2. If I'm talking bollox with the first point........Just remember If Mitchell and Selby win as I expect Degale to.........Then the likelihood of normal SKY subscribers watching world championship boxing and seeing any names is practically zero.........As with so many champions he can chuck any two/three world titles onto a bill and add Joshua or an eliminator with Yafai/Smith and the like to flesh it out.........

Clev-Bellew did 200,000 based on the package..................Out of all Hearns PPV that will prove to be the most significant........

I'm part of the problem because I'll be paying because I want to see how selby/Mitchell get on..

It's a two edged sword, any stacked card like this has to be on PPV as they need the revenue to pay the boxers, three world title fights, an upcoming Heavyweight and two domestic dust ups don't come cheap. On the flip side any card on Sky Sports we have to assume consists of fights where the boxers themselves aren't being that much so the match ups won't be breathtaking.

Frampton vs Avalos was only able to be on ITV because it had no real undercard so the total purses were low.

Sky aren't going to provide Matchroom with the financial backing that allows Khan to fight Algieri on a standard station and get paid $1.5mil for it.

Hearn + Murdoch = Moider

Strongback wrote:Hearn + Murdoch = Moider

True. Ruthless men indeed

There are a lot of different ways people can try to slice this one, but to me it boils down to one simple thing - none of the UK fighters on this bill have been PPV material before, none of them have the achievements to put them in that class, none of them really carry any particular weight in the wider boxing world yet and the same goes for their opponents. So why are we having to pay extra for it? On that basis I don't see how PPV can be justified here.

Seems to me that simply being a good card is enough for people to be happy with it being PPV these days. A 'good' or even 'very good' card should be the least any Sky subscriber expects from their package considering that Hearn and Matchroom have a nigh-on monopoly of most of the UK's top fighters. Given that Hearn himself was the one who reminded us a few times that, "PPV should only be for those really special fights" I see no reason why he should be rewarded extra simply for doing his job, even if it's a pretty good one he's done here.

God only knows what kind of cards we'll have to make do with on standard Sky if this trend continues. Hearn did a great job when he first gatecrashed the bigger boxing picture on these shores a few years back, but can't say I've been too impressed with him in these last twelve months.

What should not be forgotten is Hearn chose to put these three or four decent fights on the same bill. He could have split them across three shows, each with a solid main event. He certainly is not constrained by a lack of Sky dates or fighting rival promoters for those dates. Whether a card with three world titles deserves PPV status is a smoke and mirrors argument to me. Hearn has chosen to create a situation where this card cannot be put on without PPV revenue.

88Chris05 wrote:There are a lot of different ways people can try to slice this one, but to me it boils down to one simple thing - none of the UK fighters on this bill have been PPV material before, none of them have the achievements to put them in that class, none of them really carry any particular weight in the wider boxing world yet and the same goes for their opponents. So why are we having to pay extra for it? On that basis I don't see how PPV can be justified here.

Seems to me that simply being a good card is enough for people to be happy with it being PPV these days. A 'good' or even 'very good' card should be the least any Sky subscriber expects from their package considering that Hearn and Matchroom have a nigh-on monopoly of most of the UK's top fighters. Given that Hearn himself was the one who reminded us a few times that, "PPV should only be for those really special fights" I see no reason why he should be rewarded extra simply for doing his job, even if it's a pretty good one he's done here.

God only knows what kind of cards we'll have to make do with on standard Sky if this trend continues. Hearn did a great job when he first gatecrashed the bigger boxing picture on these shores a few years back, but can't say I've been too impressed with him in these last twelve months.

Spot on

Rowley wrote:What should not be forgotten is Hearn chose to put these three or four decent fights on the same bill. He could have split them across three shows, each with a solid main event. He certainly is not constrained by a lack of Sky dates or fighting rival promoters for those dates. Whether a card with three world titles deserves PPV status is a smoke and mirrors argument to me. Hearn has chosen to create a situation where this card cannot be put on without PPV revenue.

Think the thing that stinks is it was advertised on normal sky up until Brook got added to the card, if it was against Rios, Bradley, Thurman, Khan etc, then fair enough. I think a PPV has to have a strong main event and this one doesn't

It also coincides with Hearn needing to give Sky 4 PPV dates this year and not being able to deliver the biggest fights for one reason or another, so this seems like its a botch job to me.

I won't be paying that's for sure.

AlexHuckerby wrote: You have the Olympic Heavyweight champion taking on a guy that has never been stopped and has gone 12 with Vitali, its by far his toughest task.

This sounds depressingly like Nick Halling..........

Guy has lost 4 out of his last 5 fights............including a shutout to a weary Chisora.............and he's 35...........

Let's not kid ourselves with this fight.................

If Johnson was ever any good he isn't now..

Boxing Fan, I don't ever remember this show being touted as a normal sky card. I've just gone through the first press releases up until the Brook vs Gavin fight was announced, and it's not mentioned in any of them either.

This card was always going to go down the PPV route.

I feel a bit sorry for the likes of Cardle and Evans............Both unbeaten and both fighting for a still prestigious belt in the British .............

Both destined to fight in front of empty seats in a scrap that is worth more than 5th/6th billing...

It was on their schedule on skysports website

I'd take that as Sky shooting the gun rather than Hearn and Matchroom changing their mind BF, definitely on any email we've had there was no mention of a platform until Brook/Gavin was announced.

It looks like Matchroom are looking to to go heavy on the ppv and try and do the non ppv cards on the cheap. Not good for boxing fans. Id say 2016 the will be looking for a ppv every two months whether it warrants ppv or not. In between that they will be looking to poor quality cards on the cheap.

With the stable, resources and platform Matchroom have there is not really any reason we couldnt have good quality cards every couple of weeks with ppv at a minimun. Matchroom obviously dont figure to profit as much this way though and would rather up the ppv and then supplement that with low cost, sub standard cards on regular Sky.

The best thing i can suggest you do if your really opposed to this is to cancel your sky sports subscription and tell them that the reason is you'd rather save the money to pay for the quality on PPV rather than watch the dross on the normal channels.

Might not change much but you'll have fun explaining it to the person on the phone that's got to try and get you to change your mind.

sent you an inbox derby

Just got it, cheers 3F's

I've already cancelled Sky Sports, if a PPV is worth buying then I will get it

This one isn't though and after the complete joke of a card last week along with the commentary I'm glad I did