Here is HBO's artsy promo for tomorrow night's Lucian Bute-Librado Andrade rematch. If you had never seen this fight, I'm wondering if you'd really "get" it, or care to figure out what's happening by going on the interwebs and looking up the first fight. Because in sequence of this promo we have:
1. Blue trunks beating up on Back trunks
2. Blue beating up on Black
3. Blue wins!
4. Black knocks down Blue? Did he sucker punch him after the fight?
5. Referee points at something
6. Blue is dazed
7. Black is excited
8. Black gets his mouthpiece, so does Blue
9. Blue batters Black some more
There's a hell of a story to tell and promote with Bute-Andrade II, and HBO seems to have tried to tell that story, but rather boldly failed.
Look, I get it. I know HBO likes to be very "cool" with their boxing stuff, and for the most part I love that. I appreciate that they don't cover boxing the way FOX covers sports by spelling everything out for me. But Bute-Andrade II is a fight almost entirely for the diehards, really, though it's one easy to sell with the drama of the first fight, especially if you exaggerate the whole thing the way it's been passed down through the tales of the fight online. This promo running on HBO doesn't make me want to see the rematch if I never saw the first fight, I don't think. But even a quick explanation of the first fight's controversy and drama might.
I watch this and I'm reminded of Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall: "It's not really music. It's just tones. Dark, ominous tones."