The folks at Showtime have uploaded the full third episode of Fight Camp 360 for the May 7 fight between Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley. The show aired Saturday night on CBS.
Here are some questions:
- Did you watch on Saturday night? Did you feel compelled to tune in for the boxing show on CBS more than if it was "just" on Showtime?
- What have your impressions of the series been? Better or worse than the recent versions of HBO's "24/7"?
- As a hardcore/diehard/serious boxing fan, have you felt like this show was just a lot of things you already knew? Have you felt it has been perhaps too geared toward the casual audience?
- Has the series made you any more likely to buy the pay-per-view?
I promise you I'm not conducting market research or anything. Personally, I've felt the show has had some strong moments, but overall has simply fallen a bit short of my expectations. It's still a much-appreciated look behind the scenes of a mega event, but I might also be biased as I am a huge fan of both Mosley and Pacquiao, and even if I don't love the fight, I do love the fighters involved. And obviously I'm an easy sell, so I haven't been influenced one way or the other when it comes to the PPV.
I would also say from my end that I do feel the show has been a bit overly geared toward the casual audience, or the audience that doesn't know they're interested yet. I understand you have to gear toward them to a large degree, but a lot of this has felt like a rerun to me. Manny is interesting no matter what part of his story you start reading first, so to speak. And Shane Mosley, in my opinion, is easy to make a good story out of, too. The biggest problem, as I've said before, has simply been that Manny and Shane are too nice to make for the sort of reality TV that made "24/7" such a hit. Love them or hate them, the Mayweather family and their saga are interesting to watch. Manny and Shane aren't those sort of guys (thank God, in many respects), and that's nobody's "fault," but it certainly doesn't seem to me as though it would get a bunch of potential $55 buyers on board if they weren't already at least fairly interested.
