By Rob Smith: HBO Boxing will reportedly no longer be purchasing fights from Golden Boy Promotions, according to Yahoo Sports News. In the immediate future, this will mainly have an effect on Golden Boy fighters WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner and IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins, as they were two of the remaining Golden Boy fighters that will still having their fights televised on HBO.
Golden Boy’s other top fighters Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Amir Khan already moved over to Showtime recently.
There is a possibility that Broner could stay with HBO if he leaves Golden Boy Promotions. The 23-year-old Broner’s contract with Golden Boy expires next month in April, and he’s already got an offer to join SMS Promotions headed by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. The benefit of Broner signing with SMS is that he could in theory fight against both Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions fighters, as he wouldn’t be limited to fighting only one stable’s fighters.
Golden Boy and Top Rank have a feud going on between them, and it’s fairly rare that they allow their top fighters to compete against one another. Broner could avoid that mess by joining with SMS or another promoter that’s not associated with Top Rank and Golden Boy.
Iole said in his Yahoo column “HBO Sports president Ken Hershman…made the decision to part ways with Golden Boy after running into issues with company executives.”
Golden Boy has been working with HBO for a number of years. However, since 2011, Showtime has begun to televise mostly Golden Boy fighters on their network and they now have a high number of them – Paulie Malignaggi, Lamont Peterson, Amir Khan, Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia and Saul Alvarez – that they televise.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. recently left HBO to join Showtime in what has to be considered a huge blow to HBO losing the popular star. While Mayweather Jr. isn’t one of Golden Boy’s fighters he is associated with them.
HBO will televise non-Golden Boy fighters like Nonito Donaire, Gennady Golovkin, Sergio Martinez, Andre Ward, Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Tim Bradley, to name just a small handful of fighters.