Al Haymon may stay tight-lipped when it comes to the media, but Bill Wanger apparently has no such qualms.
Wanger, the executive vice president of programming at Fox Sports, appeared on the Chris Mannix boxing podcast last week and, well, he had a few interesting things to say. Wanger expounded on everything from the network’s multi-year deal with Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions to his thoughts on the boxing landscape at large.
Here are some snippets.
On sharing fighters with Showtime
Given that longtime cable broadcaster Showtime also has a multi-year deal with the PBC, one of the biggest questions in the past year was how Haymon went about apportioning his roster to satisfy the needs of both networks. When Mannix brought up this specific point, Wanger was blunt about Fox having the “premier package.”
“Our deal with the PBC is to be in the premier position and to have the premier package,” Wanger said. “So a lot of who takes what between Fox and Showtime is already taken care of in the contractual process. … We have a contract with the PBC with a certain number of fights to be in the premier position. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re going to have. We’re not too worried about that.”
When Mannix asked Wanger to clarify what he meant by “premier,” Wanger responded, “At the end of the day, we get the best fights and the top stars. Showtime will have what they’re going to have. But Fox will have the best of the best.”
On making fights with rival networks and promoters
Another topic was boxing’s fragmented business. Mannix suggested the possibility of more cross-promotional events, in which fighters would appear on rival networks. Wanger doesn’t see that as a priority for the network, citing PBC’s vast roster as a sign of its “self-sufficiency.”
“The PBC and Fox have 99 percent of the top fighters,” Wanger said. “Yes, there are a few on the other platforms, but we’re totally self-sufficient. Those guys are actually having difficulty making the fights they need for their fighters, whether its Terence Crawford or Canelo (Alvarez) and so on and so forth.”
Wanger would not confirm or deny a reported joint pay-per-view deal between Fox and ESPN to showcase the projected rematch of Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury in 2020, but he made it clear that each network has their own corporate agenda to adhere to.
“I think that in this new dynamic, this new world of DAZN in the business and ESPN in the business and PBC in the business with Fox and Showtime, yeah there is rooting interest (for certain fighters and fights), quite selfishly,” he said.
On the likelihood of an Errol Spence-Terence Crawford showdown
Wanger poured cold water over a potential Errol Spence-Terence Crawford welterweight title-unification fight. He made it clear that Spence has no reason to rush into a fight with Crawford, not when he has other options at his disposal within the PBC roster, including Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, and Manny Pacquiao.
“With regards to Errol, the PBC has a stacked welterweight division and there are plenty of fights that Errol can have well before he needs to fight Terence Crawford,” Wanger said. “And again if Errol and his team have a desire to fight Terence Crawford, a deal can be made.
“Errol’s gotta take care of business inside the PBC family, and … once he does that (and) the time is right and he wants to fight Terence Crawford, they’ll make the fight.”
On PBC creating their own title belts
Mannix took Wanger to task for Fox’s refusal to recognize WBO welterweight titleholder Crawford on graphics depicting the top titleholders in the division. Wanger offered a somewhat circular rationale, stating that they feel the WBA, WBC, and IBF belts are “the most important belts” because they’re “the ones that have traditionally been around the longest (and) are the ones we will recognize.” Mannix mentioned the fact that Fox leaves out the WBO but recognizes a secondary title from the WBA, at which point Wanger dropped this nugget:
“You know what we’re going to do with the PBC, and we’re on our way to do this … as things fall in the place. We are going to have a PBC belt and a PBC champion, lets say of the heavyweight division. So play this out, Andy Ruiz (a PBC fighter) beats Anthony Joshua again and eventually you have Andy Ruiz and Deontay Wilder fighting for the PBC heavyweight title. You could do that potentially with the welterweights, you could do that at 154 pounds, you could do that at 168 pounds.”
Wanger did not clarify whether this meant that the PBC would no longer collaborate with the three other sanctioning bodies. In any case, it’s clear that Wanger believes that insofar as the heavyweight (on the condition that Ruiz beats Joshua), welterweight, junior middleweight and supper middleweight divisions are concerned, there is no reason for the PBC to branch out to make fights.
On Jermall Charlo fighting potentially on a different platform.
The PBC doesn’t have depth in the middleweight division. When Mannix pointed out that most of the top 160-pound fighters are on DAZN, which has left WBC titleholder Jermall Charlo out of the mix, Wanger hinted that you may see Charlo hopping over to another network for the time being.
“Yeah, Al’s taking care of Jermall and putting him on a path where he might not be on our platforms for the next few fights, but he’ll come back,” he said.