Fighting Words: PBC’s first non-PPV date is hopefully, finally, a sign of more to come

The announcement was far from a surprise, but it was nonetheless welcome.

Premier Boxing Champions’ upcoming broadcast on Oct. 19 will feature Bakhram Murtazaliev defending his junior middleweight title vs. Tim Tszyu. The most important news isn’t the “who,” however, but rather the “where” – the show will stream for subscribers to Amazon’s Prime Video service, rather than on pay-per-view.

That’s a first for PBC in 2024. Their four other events this year – Tszyu vs. Sebastian Fundora, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia, Gervonta Davis vs. Frank Martin, and the Sept. 14 bout between Canelo and Edgar Berlanga – have all been on PPV. (Preliminary bouts underneath those PPVs have streamed on regular Prime Video.)

Murtazaliev vs. Tszyu is a light at the end of a dark tunnel. It’s expected to kick off a slate of dates for one of America’s biggest promoters, something that will benefit the boxers, boxing fans and boxing itself.

This has not been a strong year for the sport, particularly in the United States. There haven’t been as many notable fights. There haven’t been as many major broadcasts in general, the result of two of boxing’s biggest backers exiting the business.

The loss of boxing on HBO in 2018 was bad enough. Showtime stepping away from the sweet science last year was another difficult blow, not just because of its storied history, but also because of what that meant for the future.

That left one fewer network to finance the fights. And that left PBC, which was Showtime’s key provider, in search of a new home.

Bizarrely, some celebrated that news. Alas, we are in a strange time where fans and observers seem to emotionally entangle themselves with pugilistic powerbrokers – lionizing their favored promoters, managers and networks, and villainizing other competitors or rivals.

That’s not to say these powerbrokers don’t deserve praise or criticism. We can be thankful or critical of the matches that are made and those that aren’t. We can complain about the number of shows ending up on pay-per-view and the cost of being a boxing fan. And we can be concerned about the sportswashing motivations of Turki Alalshikh, and the criminal allegations against Daniel Kinahan and his connections to various individuals and entities in boxing.

But here’s the thing: Even those who have been critical of PBC – including some who felt that the way it conducted business led to boxing no longer airing on multiple outlets – should want the company to improve, not implode.

Boxing would not be better off if the PBC wound up without a broadcasting home, if DAZN failed, if ESPN no longer aired the fights, if the networks decide that they can’t make money with boxing, if the streaming services can’t show that there’s a viable business model. That would leave us with fewer places to watch boxing, and fewer fights as a result. No one benefits in that situation. Not the boxers, and not the audience. 

We still don’t need to support everything they do. We can speak with our wallets and our eyeballs, rewarding the better decisions by tuning in and shelling out when it’s worthwhile, showing that better fights mean bigger audiences, larger buy rates and higher ticket sales.

It’s good, then, that PBC won’t just be on PPV, that there will be more fights, and that more of those fights will be more accessible and more affordable. 

PBC’s final broadcast on Showtime took place on Dec. 16, 2023, with David Morrell knocking out Sena Agbeko, Jose Valenzuela dethroning Chris Colbert, and Robert Guerrero winning his rematch with Andre Berto.

PBC’s partnership with Amazon was officially announced nine days before, on Dec. 7. Its first PPV date alongside Amazon came nearly four months later, on March 30, 2024. The first non-PPV date is arriving deeper into this nascent relationship. (The first non-PPV was initially expected to come in August with a super middleweight fight between Caleb Plant and Trevor McCumby. When McCumby suffered an injury, that bout was postponed to September 14 on the undercard of Canelo vs. Berlanga.)

“I think this is a situation where you have to walk before you run, and I think people underestimate what it takes to put a live apparatus into place,” Stephen Espinoza, who headed up Showtime Sports and has been providing advice for Amazon’s foray into boxing, said in a March interview ahead of Amazon’s debut PPV featuring Tszyu vs. Fundora.

Espinoza said something similar in June just before the second PPV, headlined by Davis vs. Martin.

“I think once we start getting to August, September, October, we’re going to start seeing non-pay-per-view events, pay-per-view events, with a more regular cadence that resembles what we’re used to,” he said. “And I think that’s the biggest indicator that everyone is sort of comfortable, has got their sea legs under them and is ready to start running after we walk through these first couple of events.”

And in August, PBC spokesman Tim Smith noted that non-PPV events would soon be coming.

“We have a schedule of fights that are going to be on Prime Video,” Smith said on the Boxing Esq. Podcast. “There’s been a feeling-out process to find out how to work those in. I’m very optimistic for 2025 in terms of having a steady diet of those.”

At last, we are nearly here.

There will be two or three non-PPV events before the end of 2024, according to a report by Alan Dawson of World Boxing News, citing anonymous sources. One major change that’s helping PBC is the return of its leader, Al Haymon, who stepped away for some time earlier this year due to a family emergency, according to Dawson.

“It’s not a coincidence that pace and regularity is now increasing,” one PBC source told Dawson.

Showtime’s drawdown from boxing was already contributing to many major fighters being inactive in 2023, and that inactivity continued into 2024. This has led to a number of PBC boxers appearing on shows run by other promoters.

Some prominent names will likely remain exclusive to PPV, particularly Davis (whose next opponent is yet to be announced), Errol Spence (who may wind up challenging Fundora), David Benavidez and, if he continues with his career, Deontay Wilder. But otherwise, we could see more of guys like:

Stephen Fulton, last seen losing to Naoya Inoue in July 2023. The former unified 122-pound titleholder is moving up to 126 for next week’s fight against Carlos Castro on the preliminary undercard to Canelo vs. Berlanga.

Featherweight contender Brandon Figueroa, whose win over Jessie Magdaleno in May on the Canelo-Munguia undercard was his first appearance after a 14-month layoff. 

Welterweight titleholders Eimantas Stanionis and Mario Barrios, each of whom last fought in May on the Canelo-Munguia undercard. Stanionis beat Gabriel Maestre after more than two years out of the ring, though that sabbatical included multiple postponed fights that were out of his control. Barrios beat Fabian Maidana and hasn’t dealt with significant layoffs in 2023 or 2024. Barrios was rumored for a potential fight with a comebacking Manny Pacquiao, though that match is thankfully less likely given Pacquiao’s performance in an exhibition.

Bantamweight contender Gary Antonio Russell, who hasn’t returned since suffering his first pro defeat nearly two years ago, and his brother, junior welterweight contender Gary Antuanne Russell, who will need to rebuild following a split decision loss in June on the Davis-Martin undercard.

Middleweight titleholder Carlos Adames, whose win over Terrell Gausha on the Davis-Martin undercard was Adames’ first fight in nearly a year.

Junior middleweight contender Erickson Lubin, who has won two straight since his 2022 loss to Fundora but hasn’t fought since September 2023.

There are many more, of course. Upcoming prospects, fringe contenders, former titleholders and aging veterans. Plus fighters whose age, defeats, injuries, and personal struggles may also have contributed to their inactivity.

We’ll know more once PBC announces their upcoming schedule. We’ll see how many fights will be coming in this first wave, and how good (or not) those fights are on paper. These announcements may come in fits and starts, though at least this is a start. 

Murtazaliev vs. Tszyu is a light at the end of a dark tunnel, but there’s still plenty of road left to go to get closer to our desired destination – a healthier, busier sport where the major names fight more regularly, and fight each other more often.

Follow David Greisman on Twitter @FightingWords2. His book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.