Most outlets had been reporting that the February 27th bout between Carl Frampton (Ireland) and Scott Quigg (England) would be picked up in America by premium cable network ShowTime. Some outlets have been speculating since the fight was announced, the more credible sources were responsible enough to get some sort of clarity over the past few weeks.
It is official that ShowTime has indeed picked up the Frampton-Quigg fight. In fact, the fight was promoted during last night’s Showtime Championship Boxing broadcast featuring WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s KO win over Artur Szpilka.
ShowTime officials confirmed to Thaboxingvoice that the plan is to air the junior featherweight title unification bout at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England live in the afternoon with a replay to come later that night.
We knew as much after ESPN’s Dan Rafael reported that the replay would be paired with ShowTime’s live broadcast of Leo Santa Cruz’s first title defense against Kiko Martinez, the same Martinez that was defeated by both Frampton and Quigg, live from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
With the announcement of Frampton-Quigg, the completion of Wilder’s successful title defense, and rumors of other fights and dates soon to be announced by ShowTime, it would be easy to forget that ShowTime suffered from a slow year of boxing in 2015. However, they have some solid fights scheduled and you can’t forget that they finished the year strong with some meaningful title fights.
Although everyone of note refused to go on record, the rumor is ShowTime is planning a strong year in 2016 filled with boxing. In fact, some officials are speculating that ShowTime could deliver nearly double the amount of fights from last year. Of course, these are rumors and stats like these are never confirmed, nor are they every truly planned.
Since the introduction of PBC, Showtime, which is the only premium network currently dealing with powerful advisor Al Haymon – the person responsible for PBC –has had to see some of their past stars fight for free on network television. But they still have access to all of these fighters and have maintained their confidence in those same fighters returning from time to time. It looks like ShowTime could receive a greater influx of PBC fighters.