The Rise and Fall of the HBO Empire – Half Two

Learn Half 1: Constructing the Empire right here, within the January 2024 difficulty.

HBO Boxing was the Roman Empire of the game. It lasted a ripe 45 years, spanning international cultural adjustments and technological advances, all whereas overlaying an previous however ever-evolving sport.

To commemorate the five-year anniversary of the curtain name of one in every of boxing’s nice establishments, Ring Journal interviewed most of the folks instrumental within the rise and sustained excellence of HBO Boxing, in addition to the handful who have been nonetheless there when the autumn got here in 2018.

Offered on this difficulty are components two and three of a three-part oral historical past advised by those that witnessed the rise and reign of HBO Boxing (principally from the within), in addition to the autumn, which was accelerated in 2016 by AT&T shopping for Time Warner, HBO’s guardian firm, in a $85.4 billion deal that took 18 months to finish.

Half 2: The Empire Rises

Seth Abraham, former president of Time Warner Sports activities, at HBO from 1978-2000: “It was onerous to say what the peak of HBO Boxing was. I might say most likely the Marvin Hagler-Tommy Hearns battle stands out. It was one of many best fights in boxing historical past and was on HBO. To be related to an historic battle like that, to have it on HBO, once I take into consideration being there that night time sitting within the Caesars Palace parking zone, I nonetheless get goosebumps.”

Bob Arum, corridor of fame promoter: “The peak was within the mid-Nineteen Eighties into the mid-Nineties. I feel boxing folks realized the folks at HBO knew what they have been doing they usually knew easy methods to hold their suppliers glad. When Seth left, that was forgotten. For those who produced high quality fights for HBO, they might do a battle for you that wasn’t nearly as good. They’d a favor financial institution. You have been always trying to do occasions for HBO, realizing they might discover a approach to reward you down the highway.”

Lou DiBella, corridor of fame promoter, former HBO Sports activities Vice President in Cost of Programming, at HBO from 1989 to 2000: “We made it work, and why we made it work, for all of our egos, and regardless of all of the shit occurring, we believed in HBO Sports activities and we had pleasure in HBO Boxing. We felt we have been the custodians of boxing. We believed we had a accountability. It was our a refund then that made the largest and finest fights occur. We felt our pursuits in HBO in offering the most effective programming was aligned with boxing’s finest pursuits in having the most effective fights. 

“We felt we have been the custodians of boxing.”
– Lou DiBella

“I lived in boxing gyms. Seth would all the time make feedback about how I might be cruising into the workplace at noon. He all the time knew I usually was at a battle card or in a health club with fighters recruiting. I labored plenty of hours and spent plenty of nights at membership reveals. I knew who Marco Antonio Barrera was when he was 16. He was on my radar. He turned professional at 15. I used to be recruiting him for HBO. I lived in two worlds: Creating programming for HBO Sports activities and HBO Boxing, however I additionally lived within the boxing world of understanding the game, realizing the gamers, realizing who was arising, paying consideration. 

“I keep in mind the Duvas inviting me to a small present on the Ice Palace to see this fighter, however I keep in mind seeing this little Italian child that caught out to me. He was on this blood-and-guts battle and I keep in mind telling Dan Duva, ‘I would like that child on HBO, he’s a freakin’ warrior.’ The child was Arturo Gatti. That’s how I discovered who Arturo Gatti was. All of us purchased into that Tina Turner track, ‘Merely the Greatest,’ and all of us thought that we have been the most effective, as a result of we have been.

HBO subscribers have been launched to Arturo Gatti in 1995 when he took the IBF junior light-weight title from Tracy Harris Patterson. In his first protection (above), Gatti notched a sixth-round knockout of Wilson Rodriguez. (Photograph by The Ring Journal/Getty Photos)

“Showtime was constructing, however we have been dwarfing them within the Nineties. I’m not going to level to anyone nice battle as the peak of HBO Boxing. We had nice fights each fucking month. I might say it was the Nineties normally, most likely beginning within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, with nice fights going down with celebrity fighters. I might say the peak began with Hagler-Hearns in 1985 and lasted till 2000. That was the highest. That interval was unimaginable. HBO Boxing began Boxing After Darkish, with a few of the best fights within the historical past of boxing and doing scores like a prime sequence. 

Learn “Barrera vs. McKinney: Hearth on the Discussion board” by Lee Groves

“HBO Boxing and HBO Sports activities stored rising after 1985. HBO Boxing was a power in sports activities tv. HBO Boxing was not solely a power in boxing — we have been a power in sports activities tv. We put the tuxedo on boxing. My rolodex within the Nineties and early-2000s was crammed with the names of Hollywood stars and actors and politicians and sports activities stars, as a result of everybody who beloved boxing was an HBO Boxing fan. I keep in mind Michael Fuchs writing me a multi-thousand greenback test after I received a guess that the scores can be higher for Boxing After Darkish than he thought.”

Ross Greenburg, former president of HBO Sports activities (2000 to 2011), at HBO from 1978 to 2011: “You would inform Ray Leonard was particular. We knew Ray was not going to disclaim anybody a battle. The primary huge HBO battle was Leonard-Hearns I. It was a second. I keep in mind producing that battle. Sitting within the truck that night time, Michael Fuchs got here in, folded his arms and stated, ‘Gents, we’ve arrived!’ 

Click on to learn our particular difficulty on Leonard-Hearns 1.

“We knew the primary Leonard-Hearns battle would change the best way folks checked out HBO Boxing. In that battle, we have been growing an artwork in manufacturing that was by no means performed in boxing once I put microphones in every fighter’s nook. That’s when Angelo Dundee uttered the well-known phrases, ‘You’re blowing it now, son. You’re blowing it.’ As our director, Marc Payton, zoomed in on Ray’s shut left eye, Ray got here off that stool within the thirteenth spherical and flattened Hearns and received it within the 14th spherical. 

“We bought Hagler in his prime. We bought Ray Leonard in electrical fights. I keep in mind moving into 1984 to Troy, New York, to see this child as a visitor of Jimmy Jacobs, who had despatched me a three-quarter-inch cassette and a observe that stated ‘It is a new heavyweight I would like you to have a look at.’ It was the primary 11 fights of Mike Tyson’s spotlight reel. I keep in mind coming again to New York and telling Seth Abraham we have now to get this child. 

“Tyson was this monolith who blew into boxing and sports activities in America. When all of that was occurring, HBO did a sequence of massive fights with Larry Holmes. Within the early-Nineteen Eighties, Seth had myself and a man named Bob Greenway on the market getting fights made, going into Don King’s workplace and signing the Holmes battle and making offers. We have been workforce. We closed plenty of offers and Seth was an incredible chief. Each battle felt large. They have been large. We had Hagler-Hearns, we had Aaron Pryor and Alexis Arguello. It was mind-blowing.

“The Nineteen Eighties I felt have been the zenith of HBO Boxing. However the Nineties have been no slouch, both.”
– Ross Greenburg

“We felt dominant. We felt like we weren’t solely shopping for the most-significant fights, however fairly actually, we put collectively the most effective broadcast workforce. First, with Ray Leonard and Barry Tompkins. I employed Jim Lampley in 1988. And getting Larry Service provider, who I used to be conscious of once I bought to HBO in 1978 from his work at NBC doing the NFL pre-game reveals – I felt like Larry had this journalistic perspective and slant that our broadcast workforce, coming from ABC, ought to have this Cosell-like determine. George Foreman adopted. I acknowledged throughout his comeback this was greater than a prizefighter. He was charismatic. I flew all the way down to Houston and satisfied George to signal a broadcast settlement with us. 

“We assembled the workforce. We have been all the time trying to innovate our manufacturing. We created the overhead digicam. I keep in mind seeing the image of Muhamad Ali standing over Cleveland Williams in Sports activities Illustrated. We began placing cameras over the ring. We did the media translation from Spanish to English and with Bob Canobbio and Logan Hobson [co-founders of CompuBox] we created punch stats, since boxing was void of any statistics, and naturally we added Harold Lederman. 

The enduring 1985 battle between Thomas Hearns and Marvelous Marvin Hagler is emblematic of HBO Boxing’s heyday. (Photograph by Walter Iooss Jr. /Sports activities Illustrated/Getty Photos)

“I’m 68 now and I used to be solely 23, 24 once I began. I used to be 26 once I did Leonard-Hearns 1. I grew with the corporate and had all these alternatives. I used to be with HBO for 33 years. The Nineteen Eighties I felt have been the zenith of HBO Boxing. However the Nineties have been no slouch, both. There have been some fireworks within the Nineties, however there was a magic to the Nineteen Eighties with the star energy, with Leonard, Hearns, Hagler, Duran, and then you definately had Holmes, Spinks, and Mike Tyson seems. We are going to by no means see the likes of that decade once more, although they have been most likely saying that within the Nineteen Fifties. 

Learn “The Champion” within the 2021 Marvin Hagler commemorative difficulty of The Ring

“Massive fights have been our Tremendous Bowls. That’s what I used to name them, our Tremendous Bowls. HBO had penetration all through the world. We’d go to London for Wimbledon and other people can be throughout us about our HBO Boxing protection. After we went after a battle, we bought it. We had the most effective director in TV in Marc Payton, we had an unimaginable broadcast workforce. Behind the scenes, we had folks with unimaginable information of the game. Everybody within the workplace was completely immersed in making fights. It was not like shopping for an NFL bundle and having it for seven or eight years. We needed to make fights with these promoters. I needed to infiltrate gyms with Bob Greenway to persuade the fighters themselves to battle the most effective fights. I known as Larry Holmes myself. It was a wrestle. We have been open to everybody. That was the juggling act we did right through to 2011 once I left.”

Thomas Hauser, corridor of fame boxing author and HBO marketing consultant (2012-2019): “They’d an incredible run with Mike Tyson. Then they misplaced Mike however got here again with Riddick Bowe, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and the Klitschko brothers within the heavyweight division. They did Marvin Hagler-Tommy Hearns in 1985. They did Hagler-Leonard in 1987. The primary huge battle of the Nineties was Tyson-Douglas, adopted by Julio Cesar Chavez and Meldrick Taylor. They’d Oscar, Roy Jones. It was fairly a roster.”

Jim Lampley, corridor of fame boxing broadcaster, HBO’s blow-by-blow commentator (1988-2018): “Straightforward, Tyson-Douglas. Why is it Tyson-Douglas? For all types of causes, some constructive, some adverse. Primary, Tyson was the largest public attraction on the planet at that second. Quantity two, America is preeminent sufficient within the international financial system that the Japanese have been keen to place the battle in [the Tokyo Dome] and cater to the correct positioning of community TV in america. That meant prime time in America, which translated to earlier than midday in Tokyo. Lampley, Leonard and Service provider calling the battle, and all of it conspires due to the silence of the viewing viewers in Tokyo and due to the austere form of craziness of the occasion. It was so completely unpredictable. You have been watching one thing unfold earlier than your eyes that was apparent and simple, however that was so at odds with anticipated actuality that it felt weird and the group made no noise in any way. They have been all however whispering to one another.

Typically known as the largest upset in sports activities historical past, Buster Douglas’ knockout victory over Mike Tyson in Tokyo was immortalized with commentary by Jim Lampley. (Photograph by Tony Triolo/Sports activities Illustrated through Getty Photos)

“You’ll be able to return and may really feel it. We wound up calling it nearly like a golf event. You’d have felt insane if you happen to have been doing what American community tv commentators usually would have performed whereas sitting there in entrance of the largest upset in boxing historical past, going off at excessive quantity with plenty of power, attempting to underline the which means of this occasion. As a substitute, we have been fully the other. We have been speaking roughly silently with one another about what was occurring. It produced this monumentally, understated dramatic telecast. It climaxed with ‘Mike Tyson has been knocked out.’ That was my closing line. It was clear what was coming, and each bone in my physique was saying ‘underact, understatement. Don’t attempt to drive this as much as a stage the place it has not been at any level within the telecast. Keep within the zone.’ 

“Frank Deford, the very well-known American sports activities journalist, had a publication known as The Nationwide. They’d a TV sports activities critic named Norman Chad. The Nationwide was a must-read on the time. In Norman Chad’s evaluation of the battle, he known as it ‘the best telecast within the historical past of American sports activities tv.’ His reasoning for overlaying it in glory that method was that it was understated. He stated, ‘Such professionalism, Lampley and Service provider and Leonard understood what they have been watching and labored very onerous to convey it all the way down to an understated stage, relatively than doing the absurd over-the-top shouting that so usually accompanies this sort of factor in America. It’s a landmark; an incredible piece {of professional} work.’ The very fact is, we have been responding to the circumstances round us.

“There was by no means an articulated second in my earpiece by Ross Greenburg to say, ‘Don’t go loopy. Understate this. Acknowledge the big majesty of what you’re watching. Deal with it with quiet dignity.’ No one stated that. It was the one method you’ll have performed it underneath these circumstances. In different phrases, a propitious accident. At that second, the entire picture and aura of HBO as the place for boxing tv goes to a different stage.”

Go to Half 3: The Empire Falls

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who was inducted into the Atlantic Metropolis Boxing Corridor of Fame in 2023. He has contributed to Ring Journal/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Affiliation of America.

Comply with @JSantoliquito