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Showtime’s Stephen Espinoza: No chance of putting Canelo-Plant on hold until the end of UFC 268

Fighters Network
05
Nov

LAS VEGAS — When Canelo Alvarez and Caleb Plant square off in the first-ever undisputed super middleweight championship fight on Saturday (Showtime PPV, 9 p.m. ET, $79.99) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, they will be facing stiff competition from another major combat sports pay-per-view event.

Across the country at Madison Square Garden in New York, UFC 268 will be taking place. That highly anticipated show features a quality lineup of bouts topped off by a rematch between welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington.

It is not the first time a Canelo fight has gone head-to-head with a major UFC event. On this same weekend in 2019, on the night when Alvarez spectacularly knocked out Sergey Kovalev in the 11th round to win the WBO light heavyweight title at MGM Grand Garden Arena, UFC 244, headlined by Jorge Masvidal versus Nate Diaz, was also taking place at Madison Square Garden.

Alvarez-Kovalev was on streaming service DAZN, whose executives made the decision to delay the start of the main event until after the conclusion of the UFC main event.



The result was an embarrassing delay of around 45 minutes that led to scenes of Alvarez and Kovalev stretched out in their dressing rooms appearing to be asleep and fans only interested in the boxing main event skewering DAZN on social media for the decision.

Many viewed it as disrespectful to make Alvarez, the sport’s No. 1 star, take a backseat to a UFC fight.

Alvarez-Plant is on Showtime PPV and many boxing fans have asked if they could be in for a repeat situation on Saturday night.

Asked about that prospect, Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza emphatically told The Ring, “Hell, no.”

Then Espinoza expanded on his response.

“I’m not going to say in certain situations we don’t keep an eye on a game and if it’s going to be five or 10 minutes, sure,” Espinoza said of potentially holding the main event for a brief period to allow a game to end so those also interested in the fight can catch each live. “I’m a big sports fan as well. But when you have boxing’s Super Bowl — and whenever Canelo fights it is boxing’s Super Bowl — we feel a responsibility to treat it as such and elevate it, and it shouldn’t be demeaned or diminished. Not just in the presentation but in terms of other sports, and this has nothing to do really with the rivalry between boxing and UFC.

“This is you have a very passionate fan base and we need to deliver to them the best that we can do, and the best that we can do is not making people wait for 45 minutes or an hour.”

Espinoza said that situation that happened in 2019 simply will not repeat itself when it comes to Alvarez-Plant and UFC 268.

“You have to respect people’s time and respect people’s money and the pay-per-view purchase, and respect the sport of boxing and its participants,” Espinoza said. “To make the decision to make the biggest star in the sport wait 45 minutes to an hour is a decision that, in my opinion, came from people who either don’t understand the sport or don’t respect the sport and its participants and should never happen on a high-level event like this.”

 

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