July 11: How HBO Should Handle the Return of Floyd Mayweather

A week ago, July 11 had little significance in the boxing community.

Sure, HBO was holding the date open for a World Championship Boxing (WCB) event, but the card was expected to be filled with a cruiserweight title match between Bernard Hopkins and IBF champion Tomasz Adamek.

With little else on B-Hop's horizon, a jump to the 200lb weight class presented the only worthwhile challenge left for the legendary light-heavyweight.

Not only did the fight make sense, but Hopkins-Adamek represented an ideal World Championship Boxing fight:

--The July date fit both fighters’ schedules. (Adamek last fought in February; Hopkins has been inactive since his October dismantling of Kelly Pavlik.)

--The fighters’ combined purse would likely be in range with an average WCB card’s budget.

--And most importantly, on paper, the fight fit the mold of competitive, entertaining encounters that HBO has strived to deliver its subscribers this year. HBO Sports executive Ross Greenburg promised fans that the network was going to demand competitive fights from promoters in 2009, and thus far, he’s done a tremendous job.

Pay-per-view has no longer been an option for marginal fights.

Consider the first quarter of 2009:

In just three months, HBO has delivered two fight-of-the-year candidates (Berto-Collazo and Marquez-Diaz), along with a colossal PPV-worthy welterweight battle (Sugar Shane Mosley’s KO upset of Antonio Margarito) and a handful of top prospect showcases featuring future stars like Juan Manuel Lopez, Chris Arreola, Victor Ortiz, and James Kirkland.

Two more stellar fights—an Apr. 11 main event featuring Paul Williams & Winky Wright and a welterweight unification bout between Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey in June—are also scheduled for HBO.

Fans are no longer being asked to shell out $59.95 each time a big name fighter enters the ring. The only fight currently scheduled for PPV is May 2’s junior-welterweight showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton.

It’s possible that the only positive to come from the state of the economy has been the market correction it has provided boxing. HBO has been forced to properly assess what belongs on its flagship boxing show.

Last year, fights that ought to have aired on World Championship Boxing (Pavlik-Hopkins, Calzaghe-Jones, Trinidad-Jones) were erroneously placed on PPV, leaving WCB cards barren of competitive fighting.

What was the best WCB fight of 2008? Calzaghe-Hopkins? De La Hoya-Forbes? I can’t remember one that stood out.

Remember WWF Superstars? Hulk Hogan would spend many Saturday mornings wrestling jobbers to get ready for his big match on PPV. World Championship Boxing had become WWF Superstars, a marketing tool for HBO’s PPV fights.

Thankfully, the market correction has reversed this trend.

So all’s well in the boxing world, correct?

Enter Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Pretty Boy Floyd’s advisors have leaked that the former pound-for-pound king is ready to return to the ring for a summer tune-up fight, before challenging the winner of Pacquiao-Hatton in the fall.

And the night that Mayweather finds most attractive? July 11, World Championship Boxing’s open date.

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