Cotto vs Margarito II: HBO Lands the Fight, Will Give the 24/7 Treatment

Keith Idec reports that the December 3 rematch between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito will be broadcast by HBO pay-per-view, and the fight will receive its own "24/7" series.

Arum also said HBO would televise a shorter 24/7 preview series for the Cotto-Margarito grudge rematch.

"[The promotion is] not going to be as extensive because we don’t have enough time between Nov. 12 and Dec. 3," Arum said. "So there may be two or three 24/7s [instead of the standard four]."

This will mark just the second time that a "24/7" series is devoted to a fight that does not involve Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Pacquiao. The first was the 2008 pay-per-view flop featuring Roy Jones Jr and Joe Calzaghe.

That HBO has scored the Cotto vs Margarito fight in addition to the up-for-grabs Pacquiao vs Marquez bout on November 12 is really no surprise. After Showtime shocked the industry by nabbing Pacquiao vs Mosley in May, HBO has stepped up their promotional game in a big way, going deeper into the Time Warner assets to offset what Showtime can offer with their CBS connection. One has to wonder if perhaps Showtime/CBS just weren't prepared to do more than they did for the Pacquiao vs Mosley fight -- they did a lot, but things move quickly, and HBO has gone bigger and better pretty quickly, pretty much eliminating Showtime once again from the major stages of boxing.

This doesn't mean that Showtime doesn't still offer a quality boxing product, but it's once again a very different offering from the two sides. HBO is the glamor and the glitz, the big event fights, while Showtime will maintain the stereotype of offering often better fights from fights who aren't "stars," at least for the most part. Showtime also had Miguel Cotto briefly this year, as they were the broadcast partners for his March 12 PPV fight with Ricardo Mayorga, but now even that's gone. Who is the biggest star currently associated with Showtime boxing? Andre Ward? Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.