By Cliff Rold

Well, a big heavyweight announcement is made.

Unfortunately, it’s not the one anyone cared about. There is still no final word on whether Wladimir Klitschko will challenge Anthony Joshua before year’s end. Fingers remain crossed.

In the meantime, interim WBA titlist has found a network home for his next appearance. He will be on HBO and that’s great if one wants an English language outlet for one of the best big men in the world.

It’s less great when one sees he will be defending against Malik Scott.

Ortiz-Scott looks yet another foregone conclusion in a year with too many of them on boxing’s premium cable leader. Before HBO was able to turn a Canelo Alvarez injury into capital for some solid fights like Vasyl Lomachenko-Nicholas Walters, this was looking like a year when HBO mostly missed. There were some notable thriller exceptions like Orlando Salido-Francisco Vargas and Roman Gonzalez-Carlos-Cuadras but they stood out for a reason.

This has led to much lamentation from fans and pundits, voices amplified via social media, about the good old days.

To be sure, there was a time where HBO was synonymous with the very best boxing could offer. Fans of a certain age remember classics like Julio-Cesar Chavez-Meldrick Taylor or Pernell Whitaker-Buddy McGirt. Those fights were right there for subscribers, no additional pay-per-view fee required.

Ortiz-Scott isn’t in that class. On paper, it looks like a mismatch.

The thing is, every HBO main event in days gone by wasn’t in elite company either.

The perceived mismatch on premium cable, HBO or Showtime, is nothing new and yet there is always a reaction to down events or down years like they are some stark decline from a nebulous ‘then.’ For the sake of this column, let’s just look at HBO.

Start with the original Legendary Nights series. That fabulous documentary series focused on 12 rivalries (it was more than 12 fights covered by the end) that had stamped HBO as the place to be for major league boxing. Subscribing to HBO during those legendary nights meant seeing some of the best fighters of all time in their finest hours; names like Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Marvin Hagler, Riddick Bowe, and Evander Holyfield.

What a time to be a subscriber, right?

Go look up the list of episodes.

Nine of the twelve original Legendary Nights episodes focused on fights that didn’t air live to subscribers at all. Chavez-Taylor, the Riddick Bowe-Andrew Golota fights, and Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas did. The rest? Leonard-Hagler? All three Bowe-Holyfield fights? Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad?

All of those fight aired on pay-per-view or one of its precursors. A subscription at HBO during the times of those fights just meant quicker access to replays.

During the 1980s, HBO might average a show a month in a busy year; sometimes it was far less. That kept quality control high even if some of the matches, especially at heavyweight, turned out lackluster. As HBO expanded its dates in the 1990s, the mismatch main event became something that occurred more often.

Don’t believe it?

Perhaps engaging in willful forgetfulness?

They’ve been there longer than the rose colored glasses can see. Here are some examples, looking just at the 1990s.

August 1991 - Terry Norris-Brett Lally: Hot on the heels of career making wins over Leonard and Donald Curry, HBO had gotten itself into the Norris business. That meant accepting this fight that, to make matters worse, was a single fight show. Fans who tuned in didn’t have to be there long as Norris dispatched the overmatched Lally in one round. Eventually, we got one of those HBO nights we all really wait for when Norris faced Meldrick Taylor. That didn’t make this anything worth subscribing for.

February 1993 – Riddick Bowe-Michael Dokes: It’s good to be the king. Months after winning the heavyweight title from Holyfield, Bowe got his first defense in against a shell of the once talented Dokes. Like Norris-Lally, it was a one-fight show that lasted all of one round. At least Bowe’s next defense that year, against journeyman Jesse Ferguson, had a disappointing but quality match made between two kids named Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins. Roy Jones is a name you’ll read again times…starting now.

March 1995 – Roy Jones-Antoine Byrd: Continuing a trend, this was a one-fight show that lasted all of one round. Jones was coming off his win over James Toney. HBO paid him to keep celebrating.

February 1996 – Julio Cesar Chavez-Scott Walker/Oscar De La Hoya-Darryl Tyson: This was boxing as pure infomercial. Chavez and De La Hoya were aimed at each other. Fans got to see a pair of two round walkovers along the way to what would be one of the last of the closed circuit shows.

January 1998 – Bernard Hopkins-Simon Brown: Brown was once a thrilling welterweight and briefly ruled at Jr. middleweight. That was years before Hopkins got to him on a tripleheader that featured Hasim Rahman and David Reid in building block fights. Hopkins thrashed Brown in a sad contest.

June 1998 – Oscar De La Hoya-Patrick Charpentier: There was a stunning crowd at the Sun Bowl for this one and an excellent undercard bout between Cesar Bazan and Stevie Johnston. It was still De La Hoya-Charpentier, one of the worst main events ever allowed on HBO air.

January 1999 – Roy Jones-Rick Frazier: There were some mandatory machinations at work here but it’s still Jones-Frazier. When people remember Roy, often unfairly, for taking too many soft touches in his prime, this is the fight that did more harm to his reputation than any other. It’s a stench that has never quite come off. Shane Mosley making his last defense at lightweight on the undercard makes it an interesting trivia question.

Look through the archives of HBO main events and what was a saving grace in that era is that these sorts of fights stick out like a sore thumb in the good ol’ days. They were surrounded by a lot of great stuff: the rise of Barrera and Morales, the first act of Arturo Gatti, the prime of Pernell Whitaker, Roy Jones against guys like Virgil Hill and Montell Griffin…all of that was there too.

But fights like Salido-Vargas and Gonzalez-Cuadras stand out as special nights of action in any era.

This hasn’t been a banner year but maybe it’s not as bad as it might feel like it is.

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com