By Luke Furman

Last March, powerful manager/adviser Al Haymon launched his anticipated boxing series, Premier Boxing Champions.

Within a few months, Haymon and the PBC team locked up television agreements - mostly time-buys - with NBC/NBC Sports, Spike TV, ESPN/ABC, CBS/Showtime/CBS Sports, Bounce TV, and Fox/Fox Sports 1/Fox Deportes.

Comparing this year's PBC run to their level of activity in 2015, the number of televised dates for the series has significantly slowed down. The extravagant production props are no longer being used and a lot of their fighters have not been very active. All of these factors have generated widespread industry rumors that PBC has one foot out the door.

Promoter Yvon Michel of GYM, who has a number of his fighters competing under the PBC banner, disagrees.

Michel stays in constant contact with Haymon and there is zero indication that PBC is coming to an end in the near future. Their conversations are quite the opposite, says Michel. Everything they discuss pertains to the future plans for PBC and the involvement of Michel's fighters like Adonis Stevenson, Eleider Alvarez, Oscar Rivas, Artur Beterbiev Lucian Bute and several others.

Michel also touches on the other widespread industry rumor, that PBC is very close to securing a firm television deal.

"There are a lot of people who are predicting the end of PBC - while on the other hand there are others who are saying that PBC is close to a deal with a television network. I speak regularly with Haymon and he gives me no indication that the series is about to run out of steam. He only talks about the future [of PBC]," Michel told RDS.

"Haymon did not steal that money [from the firms who invested millions of dollars into the PBC product]. Everything he's done has benefited boxers. In the short, medium and long term - [the PBC series] will have done a lot of good and it's not finished. With us... Stevenson, Alvarez, Beterbiev, Rivas, Bute, [Jo Jo] Dan and [Kevin] Bizier... we have all benefited. I do not regret my association [with Haymon] for a moment, and I plan to stay [in our business partnership] for a long time."

Luke Furman covers for bokser.org.