Two things here about tonights fights: 1) Did you guys hear Gary Shaw telling Gamboa what to say when they interview him? He told his people that he WILL say thank you to everyone and that he is ready to fight anyone that they (Shaw) tell him to. Is he afraid that he would say something wrong? Then we didn't even get the interview with him. Very strange to me. 2) This was a Gary Shaw promotions card and it was on HBO? Doesn't that sound strange to you? I mean he is a Showtime guy so why wouldn't the card be on Showtime? What if HBO was showing UFC fights? Would Shaw still put cards on HBO?
None of this is strange. Gary Shaw might be a fat crook, but he's a far better crook than Dana White. The reason I say this is because he's smart enough to cross-promote Boxing and MMA, and he's good a schmoozing network suits. It's not surprising at all that he might be working on an HBO Deal. It seems he's doing everything in his power to muscle in on Dana/Zuffa/UFC territory, by doing things they're not. If he gets MMA on HBO, he'll have done something Dana's masturbated thinking about for nearly the past 7 years. As far as his nosing-in on Interviews, that's not new either.
Nothing new, he does that frequently. It doesnt seem strange to me that Shaw is working with HBO. Shotime does fight by fight contracts so its not like Shaw's fighters are contractually obligated to fight on Showtime. Its just that most of his fighter happen to suck so HBO doesnt bother with him much. Not that, that was the case last night.
The Boxing model and the mma models (up until now) are very different. Boxing promoters aren't married to a particular network/broadcast medium, but can shop individual fights/fighters to the best option available. So, the promoter tries to get his client the most $ possible, on the biggest possible stage. (Which, in turn increases their own cut of the action). The UFC model is to not only control the fighter in terms of where he fights, but for how much money as well. IOW.. it's in the promoter's interest to keep the salaries as low as possible, because they run the entire promoiton, and increasing the fighters cut, only diminishes their own. It's a flawed model for just that reason.
