Plenty of news has broken over the last week or so, not all of it good. Here we have some unfortunate legal news concerning Marcus Browne, a titleholder moving up in weight, more information on ESPN+, and some big signings for out of the ring talent on The Contender reboot. Read on for more.
- First, it might be time to start worrying about talented light heavyweight emerging contender Marcus Browne (21-0, 16 KOs). While the 27 year old PBC fighter’s in ring career is soaring and potentially setting him up for a big fight with Sergey Kovalev, he seems to be spiraling outside of the ring. Last week Browne was arrested for the second time in four months for domestic abuse related issues. Originally he was arrested for allegedly punching his then girlfriend. Now he has been arrested for attempting to break into her house. If that is not enough of an issue on its own, Browne was also violating a restraining order in terms of being there at all. Obviously nothing here is good news for his prospects as a fighter or more simply as a human being.
- IBF flyweight titleholder Donnie Nietes (41-1-4, 23 KOs) is that no more. The Filipino has vacated his belt and announced that he will be moving up to the more lucrative super flyweight division. Nietes was featured on HBO’s Superfly 2 card in February despite not being in the namesake’s division and put on a great performance in finishing Juan Carlos Reveco in seven. The Filipino will even further load up the most stacked division in the sport when he takes his first fight in it. World Boxing Super Series season two featuring super flyweights on HBO, anyone? Sign me up.
- Upstart premium network EPIX’s re-launch of The Contender is certainly off to a good start in terms of securing talent for outside of the ring. Recently retired top pound for pound fighter Andre Ward has been secured to host. That isn’t all either. Absolutely elite trainers Nazim Richardson and Freddie Roach have been brought in for the show as well to be the head coaches of the two teams that will be formed on air. Of course, the success of the show hinges more on the in ring talent both in terms of their ability to entertain in the house as reality show contestants and their ability to entertain in the ring as fighters, but we really couldn’t ask for a better foundation to build the cast on.
- We have some updates on ESPN’s shortly upcoming streaming service ESPN+ as well. As has been known, it will be the home of Terence Crawford’s upcoming welterweight title shot against Jeff Horn and cost $5 a month. ESPN has also unveiled that eighteen fight cards are planned for the service over the next year in total. Top Rank will provide twelve of them in house while acquiring the American rights to broadcast six international cards according to the press release. They have already done this once by bringing Amir Khan’s next tuneup fight to the service. In addition to the live fights, the service will feature a “consistent studio show” covering the sport as well as access to both Top Rank’s and ESPN’s boxing video archives. It is definitely disappointing that Crawford/Horn fight will be used as a hook to try to lure fight fans into the subscription, but as long as the big cards stay free and this is used as a platform for Top Rank’s smaller cards then I have no issue with it. Streaming is the future and this is ESPN dipping its toe in the water.
