A trio of HBO fights spread out over two cards have been announced over the last few days and they aren’t great. The once proud network is continuing to buy fights of much lesser quality than they ever have before as they try to find their way in the increasingly divided current promotional landscape.
- First, the December 16th HBO card headlined by David Lemieux trying to take Billy Joe Saunders’s belt is now a tripleheader. Cletus “The Hebrew Hammer” Seldin (21-0, 17 KOs) will make a quick turn around against tarnished Montreal prospect Yves Ulysse Jr (14-1, 9 KOs). Seldin is a crude power puncher that HBO is really trying to sell as a potential top fighter while Ulysse is coming off his first loss. Now it was a bad decision and he should have won, but the Montreal fighter still dramatically underperformed at a moderately low level. This is just not HBO stuff. Neither is the Antoine Douglas v Spike O’Sullivan middleweight co-main event.
- Then, on January 27th, Golden Boy somehow got Mercito Gesta (31-1-2, 17 KOs) in an HBO main event as he faces Jorge Linares (43-3, 27 KOs) for the elite Venezuelan’s lightweight belt. Gesta is a decent fighter, but Jorge Linares is a great one. This will not be a competitive fight. HBO used to be better than this. I get the urge to keep Linares on air, but there had to be something better than this pointless in house Golden Boy nonsense.
- The same can be said for Lucas Matthysse’s (38-4, 35 KOs) co-main event fight against completely unknown Thai Tewa Kiram (38-0, 25 KOs) and his entirely empty record. I can’t wait for the “well, we didn’t know who Sor Rungvisai was either lol” that is forced from Lampley and team come fight night. Golden Boy might as well move their secondary ESPN2 series over to HBO at this point if Matthysse/Kiram can air.
