The new year will kick off with a heavyweight bang, as five exciting heavyweight matchups take center stage on a $39.99 FOX Sports PBC Pay-Per-View on New Year’s Day live from Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida.
The main event will see top heavyweight Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (32-2, 27 KOs) take on former world champion Charles Martin (28-2-1, 25 KOs) in a 12-round IBF heavyweight title eliminator. In the co-main event, unbeaten rising heavyweight star Frank “The Cuban Flash” Sanchez (19-0, 13 KOs) will square off against Carlos Negron (25-3, 20 KOs) in a 10-round attraction.
The pay-per-view telecast heavyweight contenders Jonnie Rice (14-6-1, 10 KOs) and Michael Coffie (12-1, 9 KOs) in a 10-round rematch, former title challenger Gerald “El Gallo Negro” Washington (20-4-1, 13 KOs) in a 10-round showdown against Turkish Olympian Ali Eren Demirezen (14-1, 11 KOs) and unbeaten Viktor Faust (8-0, 6 KOs) facing Iago Kiladze (27-5-1, 19 KOs) in a 10-round attraction to open the pay-per-view.
“Heavyweight boxing is always must-see, and we’ll be kicking off the new year with nothing but titanic sluggers looking to impress in FOX Sports PBC Pay-Per-View showdowns,” said Tom Brown, President of TGB Promotions. “This is a stacked lineup of fights available for fans at an affordable price of $39.99. Luis Ortiz and Charles Martin are both amongst the top of the heavyweight contender ladder and will be able to solidify their position for a world title shot with a win on January 1. One of the most active rising heavyweights, Frank Sanchez will return to action after a career-best victory in October for a tough duel against Carlos Negron. With five fights in all, New Year’s day will be non-stop action with gargantuan duels taking place live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida.”
That’s a good fight and a pretty decent card actually. I think I might even take Martin over Ortiz at this point. But in no way should it be PPV. That’s just wrong.
Seriously?! PPV non title matchups are $40. I have doubts that all the fights will even take place with all the testing for roids and Covid protocols.
Titles are pretty much meaningless these days-these are interesting matchups that don’t need a made up championship attached to them.
Fire Stick !!!!!
Think I’m going with Ortiz over Martin, but wouldn’t bet on it. Not sure what Ortiz has left at this point. Sanchez should win within 5, with KO1 a possibility. Negron is not the most durable guy on Earth, and will be in trouble as soon as he’s hit with that right hand I’m guessing. Also like Rice to repeat his win over Coffie. Rice was so dominant in that first fight that it’s hard to believe that Coffie will suddenly have the answers. Probably a mid-rounds stoppage there.
Just out of curiosity, anybody know when the last closed-circuit fight took place? That used to be a thing for the really big fights. I saw the entire Tyson-Spinks card on closed circuit, and liked the experience. I believe that faded away in the late 80’s/early 90’s, but not certain.
If they both were at their best, I’d take Ortiz over Martin but….
You know, I’m sitting here about to make my case for Martin — Ortiz might be fifty years old and he never fights, he’s had one fight in the last two years — then I look at Martin and he’s had one in the last two and a half! I’m still taking Martin but what the hell is going on at PBC. Negron has been on a good run lately but none of the guys he’s beaten were anywhere near Sanchez. I agree, he’ll stop him somewhere in the first half of that fight and I don’t know what to expect from Rice – Coffie. Coffie might be the second coming of Seth Mitchell. He got ran over by Johnathan Banks and then won the rematch before being sent on his way by Arreola. Hard to forget virtually every single right hand by Rice landing in that fight though.
Apparently closed circuit is difficult to track now because, according to wiki, Mayweather – Pacquiao was shown in places in closed circuit, so was Mayweather – DLH, but clearly it’s not as prevalent as it used to be. I haven’t even heard the phrase in a few years lol.
@Lucie Not sure what to think of Martin. Former belt holder, but he got there without beating any big names, then won it when Glazkov went down with a knee injury in the 3rd round without getting hit. His biggest win is Gerald Washington I guess, then he does his Trevor Bryan impersonation by sitting out for 2+ years. It really looks like a toss-up with Ortiz.
As for Rice-Coffie, I mentioned the late start thing with Coffie before. He started boxing at 30. He probably has too many deficiencies at too advanced an age to make much of a turnaround this quickly, but he does have a puncher’s chance. I still like Rice here though. Just way too easy the first time.
I hadn’t heard the phrase “closed circuit” in years either. Gary’s mentioning of the Fire Stick, and the ability to stream the fights for free brought it to mind. Aside from the Fire Stick, you can catch the highlights, or even the entire fight on YouTube immediately afterwards. It’s been a long time since I bought a PPV fight. Streaming a closed circuit event at your house would probably be impossible.
I find that YouTube takes down the entire fight almost immediately but if it goes up on Daily Motion it stays longer sometimes all the Allthebestfights will get a Russian feed that never gets taken down but commentary comments etc not in English
I remember Bob Arum did it at least in many areas for the 1st De la Hoya vs Chavez fight. Know it was in many main areas if not all. He told us it was done as a way to battle bkack box pirating and the closed circuit did surprisingly well. I’m sure if it did that well he would have done more closed circut.
The last closed circut i remember going to I think was Ali Weiner no it was Holmes Witherspoon with a big DK undercard. The first home ppv I remember was Leonard Duran 1
@Johnny Ace Your mentioned that Arum said he did it to battle black box pirating, and that’s really what I was getting at. Closed circuit would certainly put a dent in any pirating. Not sure what the financials would look like when comparing a strictly closed circuit event to PPV though. There were a whole lot of people getting free PPV from programming their DirecTV cards 20 years ago. Now there’s Fire Stick, among other things. I can see why Arum went the Closed Circuit route for some of those cards, but from a promoter’s point of view, it seems like pirating would be an even bigger problem now. I can’t think of a better solution than Closed Circuit. Whatever the case, they seem to do just fine with their PPV numbers on big fights these days, even with the pirating…
USF i know for a fact that Arum is a very rich man. I remember him telling us back in the day that he was working on a program that if it detected a bkack box it could shoot bullets that not only fried your box but your TV as well but never heard a follow up.
Also my mother was a tv producer and she dealt with a local TV station many many years ago and I remember they were able to bring in Ali Frazier 1 into the studio and in those days NBA finals Lakers home games were no home tv closed circut only and we got to watch those as well
Why PPV???
Why? That mysterious scoundrel, Al Haymon. That’s why.
Wonder if PBC is going all in on ppv and very little will be free anymore. Hayman buys the time from Fox to put his fights on maybe he doesn’t make enough selling his TV ads and thinks this will generate more money.
Will nor be surprised if DAZn figures a way to charge ppv for their better cards.
Let’s get real…PPV? How stupid do you think the public is?
evidently pretty stupid. lol
Finally Heavyweight contenders are fighting each other. I’m definitely tuning in for this one!
How in the world is this going to be a PPV fight???
PPV really????
Who would pay for this PBC crap.
omyy ppv. i dont know what to say..
Martin ppv headliner…????