HBO Vs. Showtime Redux: Another Great Night for Boxing Sabotaged on December 12

It's a shame the two of you could never figure out how to get along. Working in synergy together, you both could help elevate the sport you are heavily invested in - boxing - to a higher ground. Ratings, profits and fan interest would go up for everyone involved.

But no. You both prefer to continually line up your events on the same nights. Fans that receive both channels, paying for each separately, are left with the decision of having to choose which card to watch. On December 12, you've gone ahead and forced this situation upon us once again. Why?

The HBO vs. Showtime Boxing Wars

Showtime vs. HBO isn't David vs. Goliath, but it's at least little brother against big brother. HBO, of course, is big brother. He is bigger, stronger and faster... he's the school quarterback and he dates the head cheerleader. He always wins and he always has won, but his ego gets the better of him often enough.

Little bro Showtime is scrappy. He can't outmuscle his big brother, but he has long since stopped trying. Instead, he bides his time and occasionally the opportunity arises where he can score a point on his complacent sibling.

HBO is the big spender in the boxing realm, which means they can sign the big fighters to lucrative contracts to ensure they exclusively fight on their network. The upside to this is that "the biggest names in boxing fight on HBO", while the downside is they tie up their funds and often showcase snoozers from top fighters taking tune-ups or come back fights.

Showtime on the other hand doesn't tie up fighters to long-term contracts. Instead, they buy the rights to display individual fights. It offers them the opportunity to display a wider variety of fighters for a lower cost, and ensures that every match they air is more likely to be meaningful or interesting.

A sibling rivalry isn't such a bad thing, but when it's taken to such an extreme that the only outcome is that everybody loses, what's the point? If one network shows a fight that gets people excited, don't you think more fans will want to see the next boxing match, whether it's on a rival network or the same one? Wouldn't shooting for 100% of the boxing audience on a particular evening be more financially rewarding than shooting for 60% if you "win" the battle?

Boxing on December 12, 2009: HBO vs. Showtime Battle Continues

As the sport has been surging in popularity over the last few months, feeding off the energy of The Super Six Tournament, Mayweather vs. Marquez, Pacquiao vs. Cotto and now hopefully Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, the networks are still making the same mistakes.

On December 12, both HBO and Showtime are airing intriguing boxing cards. Both are worth watching and are appealing to boxing fans for a variety of reasons. But only one will be seen live. As in most cases, on this night HBO will be displaying a bit more star power, however a strong case can be made that the more intriguing bouts may be on rival Showtime.

On the HBO card, we get the Juan Diaz vs. Paulie Malignaggi rematch. The first fight ended controversially with a victory for the hometown Diaz and Malignaggi is seeking to even the score. The bout is supplemented with the return bout of once uber-prospect Victor Ortiz. Ortiz was on the fast track to being the next Golden Boy, until he ran into the unbreakable Marcos Maidana in June of this year.

On Showtime, we get to see Timothy Bradley vs. Lamont Peterson. With Pacquiao officially being a welterweight, and Juan Manuel Marquez's future uncertain, Timothy Bradley is the best 140 lb boxer in the world. Lamont Peterson is a slick undefeated prospect from the D.C. area looking to capture his first world title.

The second match of the evening on this card is super flyweight kingpin Vic Darchinyan's return to the 115 lb waters after an unsuccessful move to 118. He's matched against Tomas Rojas, who seems to be the perfect foil to let us witness what Darchinyan does best, talk a ton of smack and throw his fists with bad intentions to try to back it all up.

Two Great Cards but Boxing Still Loses

Either of these cards would attract the boxing faithful to their television screens on any particular night. Considering that three out of four of these bouts take place in or near the junior welterweight division, they would all perfectly complement each other if shown on separate weekends, helping to pave the path to more future match-ups. Instead, the HBO vs. Showtime wars continue and everybody ends up losing.