NO HOLDS BARRED

 My latest piece, "Katie Taylor Triumphs on Netflix While Pay-Per-View Model Crumbles", is up on the No Holds Barred Patreon page.

Labels: Amanda Serrano, boxing, Eddie Goldman, Katie Taylor, Netflix, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, Turki Alalshikh, women's boxing

 

My latest piece, "Are Riyadh Season PPV Boxing Prices Insane?", is up on the No Holds Barred Patreon page.

Labels: boxing, Crazy Eddie, Eddie Goldman, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, ppv, Riyadh Season, Turki Alalshikh

 

My latest piece, "Canelo-Munguia and the Pay-Per-View Pandemic", is up on the No Holds Barred Patreon page.

Labels: boxing, Canelo Alvarez, Eddie Goldman, Jaime Munguia, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view

Labels: boxing, Eddie Goldman, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, ppv

My latest piece, "Crawford KOs Porter, and Pay-Per-View KOs Crawford", is up on the No Holds Barred Patreon page.

Labels: boxing, Eddie Goldman, ESPN, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, Shawn Porter, Terence Crawford, Top Rank

My latest piece, "Bed Bugs, Cockroaches, and Pay-Per-View", is up on the No Holds Barred Patreon page.

Labels: bed bugs, boxing, cockroaches, DAZN, Eddie Goldman, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, PBC, ppv, Premier Boxing Champions

My latest piece, "Another Season of Pay-Per-View Pilferage", is up on the No Holds Barred Patreon page.

Labels: boxing, Eddie Goldman, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman discusses the next round of fights for the top tier of heavyweights. Fresh from being stopped in the seventh round by Tyson Fury in their Feb. 22 rematch, Deontay Wilder has reportedly exercised the clause in the contract for that fight for a third fight between these two to take place. The reported working date is July 18. That pushes back any potential fight between the consensus top two heavyweights, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. And it means that Joshua's next fight will thus be against his mandatory challenger, Kubrat Pulev. That one is scheduled for June 20 in London.

Why my reaction, and the reaction of most who follow boxing, is meh, bleh, and feh, is discussed and analyzed.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link does not work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is available at Google Play Music.

Also, No Holds Barred is available at Apple Podcasts.

No Holds Barred is also available on Spotify.

You can also listen to No Holds Barred via Stitcher through iOS or Android devices or on the web here.

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The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is sponsored by:

LenneHardt.com, the home of Lenne Hardt, the legendary MMA and sports announcer, voice actor, singer, actress, and comedienne. Lenne is also known for her jazz vocals with her Lenne Hardt Jazz Cabaret Band. For more information, to book her, or to order a custom message from her, go to LenneHardt.com.

Skullz Combat Sports Equipment, creator of the patented Skullz Double-End Bag, is the perfect punching bag for your combat sports training. Skullz Double-End Bags provide a realistic striking target, and help improve speed, distance, and timing skills. Hang it and hit it right out of the box! No pump required. Skullz Combat Sports Equipment - Advancing combat sports equipment for the next generation of fighters. For more information, go to https://instagram.com/skullzcombatsports and https://facebook.com/skullzcombatsports.

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Labels: Anthony Joshua, boxing, Deontay Wilder, Eddie Goldman, heavyweight, Kubrat Pulev, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, Tyson Fury

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Pacquiao-Thurman vs. Whyte-Rivas

Labels: boxing, Dillian Whyte, Eddie Goldman, heavyweight, Keith Thurman, Manny Pacquiao, No Holds Barred, Oscar Rivas, Patreon, pay-per-view, welterweight

My first piece for Hannibal Boxing is up:
The Long Con: Manny Pacquiao and Adrien Broner.

Labels: Adrien Broner, Eddie Goldman, Hannibal Boxing, Long Con, Manny Pacquiao, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view

by Eddie Goldman

The critters who run boxing have made an art and a science of emptying the wallets of the sport's fans better than any knife-wielding, mask-wearing robber. For years they have convinced a small but declining section of the public to pay, pay, and pay again for their "must-see" and "great" fights, including several declared to be "the fight of the century".

You could once watch boxing on TV for free or listen to it on the radio in the U.S. several nights a week. There were far fewer programming choices in those days of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, than there are now.

Even then the wheels were in motion for colossal rip-offs. From exclusively showing major fights in movie theaters for inflated prices from the 1940s to the 1970s and after, and to hiding them behind the paywalls of premium cable and pay-per-view when access to those became widespread enough, the lords of boxing managed to enrich themselves while taking boxing from a major mainstream sport into a niche venture whose top fighters were unknown to succeeding generations. The top boxers used to be household names, and all sports fans knew who the heavyweight champion of the world was, especially since in the past there was usually just one. Pay-per-view took care of that inconvenience to the promoters' and networks' capital accumulation.

Oh yes, there were a few breakout stars during this pay-per-view period, such as Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, and, to a degree in some places, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez. But just ask people who are not in AARP who Roy Jones Jr., Bernard Hopkins, Andre Ward, and the Klitschkos are. If they are not dedicated boxing fans, you will likely get answers ranging from basketball players to indicted co-conspirators in the Mueller investigation.

But even more than the damage caused by the cancerous growth of sanctioning bodies, titles, and weight classes, the closeting of boxing's top stars gradually made them and their sport not only a niche product, but usually a culturally and socially irrelevant one, too. Pay-per-view has been killing boxing, and thus itself, just like a slow-acting poison murders its victim. The difference in this case is that all this was self-inflicted.

And now, it pleases me to report, the chickens have come home to roost. The recent exit of HBO from boxing not only signifies that "adapt or die" is still a potent maxim, but also that the pay-per-view model, pioneered by them, has collapsed, and fast and hard.

This Wednesday it was announcement that Canelo, the last boxing pay-per-view star, and now former HBO fighter, had signed a reported five-year, 11-fight, $365 million deal with the DAZN streaming service. Along with him came his promoters, Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, which will put on up to 10 fight nights a year on DAZN starting in 2019.

Critical to this deal, and not highlighted by most of the commentaries on it, is that the announcement of it said: "These fights will be available in all DAZN markets, including the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Japan." So as DAZN, which only started showing live events in the U.S. last month, expands to more countries and gains rights to show more sports in each of them, the audience for these Golden Boy and Canelo fights will expand accordingly.

Canelo's first DAZN fight will be on December 15 against WBA super middleweight champ Rocky Fielding, and take place in Madison Square Garden. DAZN, whose subscription fee is about ten bucks a month after a one-month free trial, promised to make this fight available for free to non-subscribers and subscribers alike.

What was most likely the last HBO pay-per-view took place last month and featured Canelo fighting Gennady Golovkin in a rematch of their controversial draw from last year. The price for this card alone was about $85 on cable. Now you can watch all of Canelo's fights on DAZN, including all their various boxing and other sports shows, for that one fee. There is no dealing with the stankiest of companies, the cable monopolies, unless you rely on them for overall Internet access anyway. Cable, which once disrupted the broadcast TV business, has itself been disrupted by this emerging technology.

While this signing may be viewed as an historical turning point for boxing, it is only part of a greater transition from the dominance of cable in the U.S. to a new paradigm where streaming on all sorts of connected devices existing and yet to come takes precedence.

If you want to watch the latest "Star Trek" series, including both "Discovery" and a new untitled one starring Patrick Stewart, you need to subscribe to the CBS All Access streaming service, whether that is the logical thing to do or not. Disney is rolling out new streaming services which will become the exclusive online home of their movies and shows, which will soon be pulled from competing services like Netflix. There is a growing list of these streamers, known in the bizarre industry jargon as over-the-top or OTT services. The expected rollout of 5G in the U.S., which promises super-fast connections, and has already begun in a few trial areas, will only accelerate these developments.

Just where this all ends, which ones survive and which fail, and which ones merge and gobble up the rest, is not yet known. But it is clear that we are increasingly living in an OTT world, and resistance is futile.

Boxing has ridden the crest of emerging technologies, at least since Thomas Edison filmed a boxing exhibition between James J. Corbett and Peter Courtney in 1894, through the days of talking pictures, radio, broadcast TV, cable, and now Internet and mobile. That does not mean, however, that the companies using these new technologies immediately were economically viable. That may take years to accomplish.

In the 1870s, a new, struggling company tried to sell its patents to Western Union, then one of the largest companies in America. Western Union, after a patent fight, declined to work with them. That little company soon became known as the Bell Telephone Company, and later AT&T.

In 1954, the Time-Life media conglomerate launched a new magazine. It would lose money for about a decade, and take that long to hone its content. That magazine is Sports Illustrated, today with new owners, a web site, and available on all the modern conveniences. (While studying magazine publishing at NYU's grad school in the 1980s, we were clearly taught that successful big magazines should expect to lose money for at least five years before they became solvent.)

In 1994, a pie-in-the-sky online bookstore was launched in a garage, soon after the World Wide Web became widely available. In those days it was sometimes on the verge of bankruptcy, and was often ridiculed by the old guard of the business world. That company, Amazon, is now a profitable, multi-billion dollar operation.

Another company, founded in 1997, tried to make a go of it by renting DVDs and shipping them out via the post office. After unsuccessfully trying to sell this money-losing company, they figured out how to innovate and survive. That company then, and now, is known as Netflix.

Tellingly enough, an article in a fixture of the old media which is trying to prosper in today's world, The New York Times, said that Netflix had an "unorthodox media model." They are betting on a formula of: "Spend big now, and reap a massive subscriber base (and big profits) later. Possibly much later." Yet such a model is actually quite common for media companies, even if most fail.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/business/media/netflix-streaming-competition.html)

None of this, of course, is any guarantee that DAZN won't end up on another list that includes the Edsel, Kodak, Blockbuster, MySpace, Radio Shack, and more recently Toy R Us. But to attack DAZN now as a flop awaiting collapse, as some of boxing's bought-off "media" are already saying or implying, is nothing short of propaganda for the few beneficiaries of the actually collapsing boxing pay-per-view model.

DAZN has only been around since 2016, starting in the U.S. and Italy this year. It is backed by the multi-billionaire Len Blavatnik and his Access Industries. Originally from the Ukraine in what was then the Soviet Union, Blavatnik now is a citizen of both the U.S. and U.K., and is reportedly the richest man in the U.K. and 50th richest in the world. Since 2011 one of his companies has owned the Warner Music Group. A 61-year-old, short, pudgy, balding man, Blavatnik can be seen hobnobbing with an assortment of celebrities and ruling class figures in a recent in-depth but unflattering profile in The Hollywood Reporter called "Music's Mystery Mogul: Len Blavatnik, Trump and Their Russian Friends", at https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/why-is-warner-music-group-owner-len-blavatnik-russia-probe-1150550.

The Perform Group is the parent company of DAZN, but news reports indicate that Perform is seeking to split into two, sell off its non-DAZN operations, and rename itself the DAZN Group. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/10/14/billionaire-blavatnik-plots-break-sale-perform-empire-fund-netflix/)

The cash from these sales would be added to its coffers as it buys up sports rights around the world in its quest to become the mythical "Netflix of sports". The Canelo-Golden Boy deal must be seen in this light.

Just like magazines initially lose money as they pay for compelling content to attract a paying audience, DAZN is in the early stages of acquiring that content through different marquee sports in countries where the rights are available. Some of that means getting out-of-market streaming rights, like to the NFL in Canada or MLB, NFL, and NBA in Europe, and some of that is getting the streaming rights to top-tier events in their home countries, like Serie A football in Italy and Matchroom Boxing and Bellator MMA in the U.S.

For boxing, besides the Canelo-Golden Boy deal, DAZN began its U.S. streaming operation with a slate of at least 32 Matchroom cards per year, half from the U.S, and half from the U.K. and Europe. With Matchroom promising to expand to more countries, presumably all those cards will be streamed in the U.S.

That gives DAZN, on about its one-month anniversary in the U.S., access to the fights of the top two stars in the world in boxing, unified heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua and unified middleweight champ Canelo.

DAZN also streams the universally-acclaimed World Boxing Super Series in the U.S. and Canada. These tournaments pit most of the best fighters in each of its weight classes against one another, answering one of the most common complaints about boxing's refusal usually to have the best fight the best, and the fragmentation of titles through a dense maze of sanctioning body hooey.

There is nothing today, not even the robust roster of talented fighters who appear on Premier Boxing Champions' telecasts on Showtime and soon on Fox, that matches the depth and breadth of the boxing competition that is shown on DAZN. And that's after only one month.

And still, it might yet tank for any number of reasons. Unresolved technical glitches and outages, scandals and chaos embedded in boxing's history and organization, general economic and political crises, and running out of money before acquiring a large and stable enough subscriber base all are possibilities.

But they do have a large and experienced technical staff, and they have a growing pile of cash to spend. Whether that will see them through world and boxing-related crises is the question that they are trying to answer every day. To write them off today, simply because it will take them time to make it, is unhistorical sophistry fueled by envy and connections to the dying businesses which the OTT world is disrupting and destroying. Let the compromised media vultures find another carcass upon which to chew. And let those uneducated in these historical processes learn critical thinking better than they have at present.

No doubt the older technologies will survive and unpeacefully co-exist with the newer ones for some time. Radio is still around, although millions no longer flock around the living room radio to catch regularly scheduled shows by people like Arthur Godfrey, Jack Benny, and Burns and Allen (you young whippersnappers can remove your VR headsets and earbuds and Google the names of these classic entertainers of the past, since I'm almost done writing this piece).

Thus, in the U.S., boxing on DAZN will compete with the Top Rank and international shows on ESPN and its ESPN+ streaming service, and the PBC shows on the old premium cable network Showtime and broadcast network Fox. Time will tell which ones or one will be left standing, although generally the one with the strongest tie to the newest technologies prevails.

There is bound to be a shakeup and series of mergers and consolidations among the increasingly fragmented OTT services. Enough people will just not subscribe to numerous separate and competing services at once for sports, movies, TV shows, different individual networks, and the rest, in order for them all to survive. Don't be surprised if in several years we have something like DEZPN, or that DAZN, if they are a winner, swallows up one or more of these services.

We thus bid farewell to boxing's pay-per-view rip-off era. This model has been disrupted and destroyed by the forward march of technology and the short-sightedness of its purveyors. There will still be some feeble attempts in the U.S. to keep it on life support, but its condition is terminal. Good riddance to it, and I spit on its grave.

(Photo by Amanda Westcott/DAZN.)

Labels: boxing, Canelo, DAZN, Eddie Goldman, ESPN, HBO, No Holds Barred, OTT, over-the-top, pay-per-view, Saul Alvarez, Showtime

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman reports from Tuesday's Bellator MMA news conference at Madison Square Garden previewing the June 24 Bellator pay-per-view at MSG in New York. We also preview the main event of the Bellator 175 card, which takes place this Friday, March 31, at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois, a rematch between "King" Mo Lawal and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, which will also be shown live in the U.S. on Spike TV.

At the news conference, we spoke with the legend, the greatest MMA fighter of all time, Fedor Emelianenko. He fights former UFC brawler Matt Mitrione in the co-main event. We spoke with the 40-year-old Fedor about this fight and his plans.

Also at the news conference was Spike SVP Sports & Specials Jon Slusser. Viacom is the parent company of both Spike and Bellator, and we spoke with him about the future of both Bellator and the PBC (Premier Boxing Champions) as Spike is rebranded and repositioned next year.

On the media conference call of March 22, we spoke with both "King" Mo and "Rampage" about their rematch this Friday.

And we open with a commentary on the state of MMA today, its history, and this Bellator pay-per-view.

(Photos by Kristal Hart.)

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link does not work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is available at Google Play Music.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

You can also listen to No Holds Barred via Stitcher through iOS or Android devices or on the web here.

The PodOmatic Podcast Player app is available for free, both for Android at Google Play, and for iOS on the App Store.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is sponsored by:

Skullz Double-End Bags, the perfect bag for your combat sports training. Skullz Double-End Bags provide a realistic striking target, and help improve timing, distance, and hand and eye coordination. Hang it and hit it right out of the box! No pump required. For more information, go to SkullzDeBags.com.

USA Combat Wrestling, the official U.S. governing body for combat wrestling and U.S. delegate of the International Combat Wrestling Federation (FICW), which was founded by the legendary wrestler Noriaki Kiguchi of Japan. For more information, go to CombatWrestling.us.

Labels: Bellator, Eddie Goldman, Fedor Emelianenko, Jon Slusser, King Mo Lawal, MMA, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, Quinton Rampage Jackson, Spike TV

(Photo of Rampage and Tito by Dr. Raul Ramirez)

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with our correspondent Dr. Raul Ramirez of Catch Wrestling Los Angeles.

He was in attendance at Monday's Bellator MMA news conference at the Bellator offices in Newport Beach, California, to announce their debut pay-per-view on November 2 featuring a fight between MMA veterans Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Tito Ortiz, with more fights to be announced. We discussed what happened there, and issues related to this fight, the pay-per-view, and Bellator's approach to MMA.

Both fighters had a lot to say at this news conference, insisting that they are not through as fighters. They praised the "positive environment" at Bellator, contrasting it to their rocky relations, especially in recent years, with UFC management.

"Actually, I really believe that this is the beginning of a possible change in labor relations in MMA, because that's basically what Rampage and Tito talked about the majority of the time," Raul Ramirez said in our interview, which was recorded by phone Tuesday.

"Hopefully other fighters, if they're feeling taken advantage of, so they also come out and speak up, and follow Rampage and Tito's examples."

We also play an excerpt from the media conference call part of this press conference, with questions for Rampage, Tito, and Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link doesn't work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

ONE Fighting Championship. ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com.

Beezid.com - Penny Auctions. Your #1 source for exciting auction shopping and outstanding deals on just about anything! Top rated, most trusted auction site online. Where do you shop? Beezid.com - Penny Auctions.

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.

The First Annual Liberty Bell Classic East Coast King of Catch Tournament, organized by the North American Catch Wrestling Association in conjunction with Scientific Wrestling. This catch wrestling tournament will take place Saturday, August 31, 2013, at the Klein JCC, 10100 Jamison Ave., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19116. No points! No politics! Only submissions and pins win! For more information, go to http://nacwa.weebly.com.

Labels: catch, catch-as-catch-can, Eddie Goldman, Los Angeles. Bellator, MMA, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, Quinton Rampage Jackson, Raul Ramirez, Tito Ortiz, UFC, wrestling

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman discusses the implications of the July 31, 2013, Bellator MMA card held at New Mexico's Santa Ana Star Center and shown live in the US on Spike TV. There were five TKOs in the five live televised fights, with champions Michael Chandler and Ben Askren retaining their belts, "King" Mo Lawal and Vitaly Minakov winning their respective tournament finals, and Patricio "Pitbull" Freire winning as well.

Bellator also announced its first pay-per-view, which will take place November 2 and will feature a fight between two former UFC champions, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Tito Ortiz, with more fights to be announced.

The commentary includes considering the significance of all five TV fights ending in TKO, why their two champions on this card may be the top MMA fighters in the world in their weight classes, how the wrestlers-turned-fighters and others could benefit from training in catch wrestling, the misinformation spread by some claiming that Rampage would be boxing Roy Jones Jr., the problems with head trauma and brain injuries in MMA and why this may be Bellator's biggest problem, and much more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link doesn't work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

ONE Fighting Championship. ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com.

Beezid.com - Penny Auctions. Your #1 source for exciting auction shopping and outstanding deals on just about anything! Top rated, most trusted auction site online. Where do you shop? Beezid.com - Penny Auctions.

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.

The First Annual Liberty Bell Classic East Coast King of Catch Tournament, organized by the North American Catch Wrestling Association in conjunction with Scientific Wrestling. This catch wrestling tournament will take place Saturday, August 31, 2013, at the Klein JCC, 10100 Jamison Ave., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19116. No points! No politics! Only submissions and pins win! For more information, go to http://nacwa.weebly.com.

Labels: Bellator, Ben Askren, boxing, catch, Eddie Goldman, grappling, King Mo Lawal, Michael Chandler, MMA, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, Rampage Jackson, Roy Jones, Tito Ortiz, UFC, Vitaly Minakov, wrestling

Eddie Goldman of No Holds Barred and a trio of entertainers, Michele Balan, Steven Scott, and Dan Manjovi, were guests on the nationally-syndicated "Joey Reynolds Show" late Monday night/early Tuesday morning, November 9/10. Eddie Goldman is also the boxing correspondent for the "Joey Reynolds Show".

As usual it was a free-for-all discussion, but Eddie managed to shoot in on a wide variety of points. Among those discussed were the career of boxer John Duddy, the revival of roller derby as a real sport and the upcoming national championships, real vs. fake wrestling, the disgracefully inadequate health care bill passed in Congress and the need for Medicare for all as already exists in countries like Canada, how to watch pay-per-views fights online for free, and how trying to hold back the development of technology leads to the fall of empires such as the Soviet Union.

You can play or download this here.

The "Joey Reynolds Show" is a national radio broadcast in New York on WOR 710 AM and on 100 other stations via the WOR Network. The show airs live beginning at 1 AM ET and runs to 5 AM ET. For more information on the "Joey Reynolds Show", go here.

For more information on show producer Myra Chanin, go to http://motherwonderful.com/.

Labels: boxing, Eddie Goldman, Joey Reynolds, John Duddy, Medicare, pay-per-view, roller derby, WOR

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman speaks with Jacqui Snow, our correspondent and the technical consultant for No Holds Barred. She is also a moderator of the very popular MySpace Boxing Forum.

With a glut of major and minor boxing and mixed martial arts pay-per-views on television, a continuing worldwide economic crisis, and the explosive growth of technology like Internet video and audio, the issue of how people watch combat sports events is still being debated. The boxing business in particular has tried to resist the inexorable march of technology. More and more people are watching these sports online, whether on legal sites, unauthorized videos on sites like YouTube, or on a mushrooming collection of so-called "pirate" sites.

In our discussion, we explain the necessity for these sports to change their business models to conform to these new technologies. They must, as Jacqui Snow insisted, "Adapt or die." We also discuss the issue of piracy, both by legal business like the shrinking group of boxing promoters and television networks which try to line their pockets with expensive pay-per-views which only enrich a handful of people, and by those sites on which live streams or videos of fights appear in violation of copyright laws.

And we name names, discussing the key sites, both legal and otherwise, involved in live streaming video, including SopCast, DeliCast, WWITV, TVU, Livestation, and KeyHoleTV, as well as the forums which link to these sites such as the MyP2P and AllP2P forums.

This is the kind of information which most of the combat sports media either shies away from delivering or wants to keep concealed. But you will hear the truth and the whole truth, right here on No Holds Barred.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here. You can also download No Holds Barred here. If one link does not work, please try another. The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.

You can also order tickets for the 2009 ADCC World Championship, which will be held September 26-27 in Barcelona, Spain, through Ticketmaster.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", by Ian Carpenter.

Make sure to visit the official boxing forum for No Holds Barred, the MySpace Boxing Forum.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

Gladiator Magazine, for in-depth coverage of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission grappling, and MMA, as well as lifestyle articles on surfing, cars, movies, and more. Gladiator Magazine is available at any major bookstore and online at BJJMart.com or Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear.

American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.

MMA WORLD EXPO, an event designed for the mixed martial arts community offering hands-on instruction from professional trainers and athletes, educational sessions with the who's who of the MMA world, and an exhibit hall filled with the industry's top suppliers and services. MMA WORLD EXPO takes place Saturday, October 24th, and Sunday, October 25th, at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.

GRACIEMAG, the most reliable source of information on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. GRACIEMAG represents Jiu-Jitsu philosophy and features news, profiles, history, photos, videos, and tips and secrets of the mother of all martial arts. Published since 1996 in Brazil, GRACIEMAG: The Jiu-Jitsu Lifestyle, is in both English and Portuguese, and is also online at GRACIEMAG.com.

BJJMart.com, your premier source for all Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gear, videos, books, and much more.

Wrestling 411, providing coverage of the sport of wrestling on TV, the Internet, and radio. Wrestling 411 is produced by Media Sports Productions, whose sole mission is the marketing and promotion of the sport of wrestling.

FightBeat.com, for news, results, interviews, and free exclusive videos from the worlds of boxing and mixed martial arts.

Labels: AllP2P, boxing, DeliCast, Eddie Goldman, HBO, Jacqui Snow, KeyHoleTV, Livestation, MMA, MyP2P, No Holds Barred, pay-per-view, SopCast, TVU, UFC, WWITV

SecondsOut Radio with Eddie Goldman

On this week's edition of SecondsOut Radio, host Eddie Goldman begins with a few comments on why fights like the Vitali Klitschko-Juan Carlos Gomez WBC title bout, held Saturday, March 21, and won by Klitschko by a ninth-round TKO, are not good for the beleaguered heavyweight division. We also comment on the issue of Internet "piracy" and who the real pirates are. This is where millionaires put on lousy matchups which have so little appeal that the free networks do not want to buy them, then try to sell them to the average fans as pay-per-views, and then hire fancy lawyers who threaten to sue individuals who watch them on unauthorized web sites.

Next, we return to the second and final part of our lengthy interview with Dr. Margaret Goodman, a neurologist and former chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. After laying out in the first part some of the health and safety problems such as the use of steroids and other harmful, banned substances, we now discuss what can be done to improve the health and safety measures in boxing, and what role a national boxing commission in the U.S. should play.

It is free to listen to or download SecondsOut Radio, but you must register to gain access to it. Just click here, and listen, learn, and enjoy.

Labels: boxing, Eddie Goldman, heavyweights, Internet, Juan Carlos Gomez, Margaret Goodman, marijuana, Nevada State Athletic Commission, pay-per-view, piracy, SecondsOut Radio, steroids, Vitali Klitschko

SecondsOut Radio with Eddie Goldman

On this week's edition of SecondsOut Radio, host Eddie Goldman begins by commenting on a good weekend of televised fights. These included the comeback decision win by Delvin Rodriguez over Shamone Alvarez, the second-round TKO by Victor Ortiz over Mike Arnaoutis, the breakout performance by James Kirkland in stopping Joel Julio at the end of six rounds, and the brutal knockout by Mike Alvarado of Emmanuel Clottey at 2:58 of the tenth and final round. We also discuss the implications of these fights for the rankings.

This coming weekend marks the start of four straight weeks of mid-level pay-per-view telecasts in the U.S. The first of these, on March 14, will pit Amir Khan against the legendary but aging Marco Antonio Barrera. This is a major test for both fighters, although of a different kind for each. Can Khan, knocked out in the first round in September 2008 by little-known but unbeaten Breidis Prescott, defeat a top-level fighter? And can the 35-year-old Barrera, who has twice fought lower-level opposition since being dominated by Manny Pacquiao in October 2007, and who contemplated retirement, still safely and competitively compete in the ring?

We had a chance on a recent media conference call to get comments from both Khan and Barrera. And we also comment on this glut of pay-per-views, and what it means, and doesn't mean, for boxing.

Finally, we comment on the efforts to market and position the boxing shows on Showtime. Despite showing many excellent fights, Showtime is way behind their premium cable network rival, HBO, in popularity. We discuss some of the reasons why, in particular their failure to use the Internet and the Internet boxing media properly and effectively, and the almost total absence of the use of social media for their boxing program.

It is free to listen to or download SecondsOut Radio, but you must register to gain access to it. Just click here, and listen, learn, and enjoy.

Labels: Amir Khan, boxing, Eddie Goldman, Emmanuel Clottey, James Kirkland, Joel Julio, Marco Antonio Barrera, Mike Alvarado, Mike Arnaoutis, pay-per-view, SecondsOut Radio, Showtime, Victor Ortiz

SecondsOut Radio with Eddie Goldman

On this week's edition of SecondsOut Radio, host Eddie Goldman opens by serving up a volley of boos to the judges in the Nikolai Valuev-Evander Holyfield fight, to writers from Yahoo and Sports Illustrated, and to the American television networks for failing to make easily accessible and available the many major fights of interest which took place this past weekend.

In our main interview segment, we speak with the award-winning boxing writer and author, Thomas Hauser of SecondsOut.com. In a lengthy discussion, we touch on numerous topics, including on the recent merger between SecondsOut.com and MaxBoxing.com, the growth of piracy of televised boxing shows on the Internet, the flawed economic model of boxing which places major reliance on pay-per-views, the responsibility of boxing journalists and problems faced by them, a new controversy in the Boxing Writers Association of America, and much more.

It is free to listen to SecondsOut Radio, but you must register to gain access to it. Just click here, and listen, learn, and enjoy.

Labels: boxing, Boxing Writers Association of America, Eddie Goldman, Evander Holyfield, MaxBoxing, Nikolai Valuev, pay-per-view, SecondsOut, SecondsOut Radio, Thomas Hauser

SecondsOut Radio with Eddie Goldman

On this week's edition of SecondsOut Radio, host Eddie Goldman begins by discussing how the one-sided beatdown administered by Manny Pacquiao on Oscar De La Hoya this past Saturday, December 6, was symptomatic of the continuing decline of American boxing. With this decisive win by the much smaller Pacquiao over De La Hoya, American boxing now has no real superstars.

We next discuss a local New York card which resulted in several surprises. Of the 13 fights on Ring Promotions' "Holiday Hits" show held Thursday, December 4, at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, there were four upsets, including in both of the featured bouts.

Right after the fights concluded, we spoke with our colleague Keisha Morrisey to discuss this show. We also spoke with three of the victorious fighters: light heavyweight Will Rosinsky (3-0, 3 KOs), heavyweight Tor Hamer (2-0, 2 KOs), and veteran heavyweight Marcellus Brown (26-17-1, 22 KOs), who won his main event bout with Nagy Aguilera (10-1, 6 KOs) by disqualification.

It is free to listen to SecondsOut Radio, but you must register to gain access to it. Just click here, and listen, learn, and enjoy.

Labels: boxing, Eddie Goldman, HBO, Holiday Hits, Keisha Morrisey, Manny Pacquiao, Marcellus Brown, Nagy Aguilera, Oscar De La Hoya, pay-per-view, Ring Promotions, SecondsOut Radio, Tor Hamer, Will Rosinsky