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Showtime building Bojado to super-stardom

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By Paul Upham This Saturday night on Showtime in the main preliminary to the Kostya Tszyu vs Zab Judah showdown at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, 18 year-old Francisco “Panchito” Bojado will face Mauro Lucero 34-8-1 (22) over ten rounds at junior welterweight.

The 2000 Mexican Olympian, 8-0 (8), has been the most impressive of last year’s Olympic class and is well on his way to a world title shot in 2002. Not only does he have the power and skills to be a great boxer, he has the looks and the personality to be one of boxing's biggest draws in the future, something that Showtime has recognised and is investing in fully.

“Bojado is a fascinating fighter. We really do believe that we have caught lightning in a bottle with him,” said Jay Larkin, Showtime Senior Vice-President and Executive Producer.

“He has got everything we need to create a superstar. First and foremost he has the ring skills. He has the punching power and the boxing power, but as importantly, he has that element that many fighters don’t have which is charisma.

“There are many wonderful fighters who are brilliantly talented in the ring but have all the charisma of over-cooked broccoli. That prevents them from becoming major stars. Panchito just jumps off the screen at you. Everybody who has seen this kid fight falls in love with him. The press has embraced him and he is living up to his promise in the ring and he is surpassing his promise in the ring.”

For the long term future of boxing, Showtime believes in the philosophy of giving the fans talented boxers whose careers they can follow as they progress towards world title shots and hopefully high profile super-fights.

“Panchito is the next one in the process if you will of building him into a household name. He is certainly in the division that we are interested in, 140-147 lbs. He could certainly come into, in the not too distant future, world title contention and who knows where he will be in a year and a half, two years from now. I believe in a year and a half to two years he will be the biggest name in boxing,” said Larkin.

“He is still a baby, he is still a kid. As long as he is moved along carefully, as long as we keep him in front of the audience as often as we can, we’ll create quite a compelling little force here.”

Larkin points out that although Bojado has a contract with Showtime, he has been allowed to fight on other television networks to allow him to greater expand his recognition and fan base.

“You may have noticed that even though Bojado is exclusive to Showtime, he has appeared on other networks. ESPN, Telemundo and other cards and the reason we do that is because we want to build a franchise. We believe the more exposure he has the brighter his star will shine and the more valuable our product will be,” he said.

Showtime are not only placing great expectation on Bojado, fellow Olympians Jeff Lacy and Rocky Juarez will receive the same attention from the network.

“We are really turning up the volume on Bojado and doing everything we can to make him into our next big star and the same thing can be said for Jeff Lacy by the way,” said Larkin.

“Don’t be surprised by Rocky Juarez, because he has been the quiet one of the bunch, kind of like waiting in the winds, but with each fight, Rocky is becoming more and more a complete boxer. Whenever I watch him fight, he reminds me of Ricardo Lopez who is one of my all-time favourite fighters.”

“I think we have got a tremendous future with our Olympic class and we are currently about to start reaping the rewards with our current generation of fighters who are just about to break into super stardom.”

Showtime has made a tremendous commitment to boxing, not only with the promotion of individual young stars, but with it’s new on-going series “ShoBox : The Next Generation” which has been so warmly received.

“I’m more than pleased. Pleased is an understatement,” said Larkin. “ShoBox has taken the industry by storm certainly. The critical press has been overwhelmingly positive. It has become the new by-word for exciting competitive fights. We are getting some fighters who are coming out of there who are starting to establish themselves. We are more than happy with the success of ShoBox.”

The Showtime Championship Boxing series, which sees the determination of the undisputed junior welterweight champion this Saturday night with Kostya Tszyu facing Zab Judah, will open in January with another unification fight.

“We start the year off with Casamayor vs Freitas, so I think we are more than delivering on the promise of an increased commitment to boxing at a higher level of event,” said Larkin, who was also very pleased with the coupling of ShoBox and Tyson-Nielsen on October 13 which were filmed at the same time on different parts of the planet.

“It was kind of unusual because of the time change. ShoBox was actually beginning the same time that Tyson-Nielsen was in Copenhagen,” said Larkin.

“It was kind of fun being in two different locations simultaneously and it was a true test of our production ability and our resources and the talent of the people that put these shows to air. I think the results attest that we passed with flying colours.”


Paul Upham
Contributing Editor
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