DAZN’S Pay and Pay October 12 Plan Hustles Boxing Fans Coming and Going

Ummmm…okay?

Per DAZN Boxing, regarding the October 12 Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undercard:

“Fans in the US and Canada who wish to watch the IV Crown Showdown undercard and Riyadh Season opening show on October 12 will no longer require a subscription and can buy the event for only $19.99 and get a 7 day free trial of DAZN.”

This news comes after the news that the aforementioned undercard would come at no extra cost to DAZN subscribers in a since-deleted DAZN Boxing tweet.

And THAT news came after the news that the undercard would be a $15 DAZN pay-per-view, with the ability to see the Beterbiev-Bivol main event atop the show (despite that light heavyweight unification fight being available on ESPN+ at no extra cost to subscribers).

And THAT news came after the news that the undercard, even after losing the Shakur Stevenson-Joe Cordina feature due to a Stevenson hand injury, would still be a DAZN pay-per-view show, despite DAZN not having secured the rights to show the Beterbiev-Bivol fight at the time.

And this entire mess of broadcast swerves would begin with the terrible, terrible decision to make that Beterbiev-Bivol undercard a pay-per-view show in the first place.

So, yeah, yeah, ESPN/Top Rank have the rights to Beterbiev-Bivol. It’s understandable that they’d want to air the fight on their own platform. It’s also understandable that DAZN, which has a controlling interest in the undercard via their ties to Matchroom Boxing, would want to showcase their own fighters on their own platform.

But where the hell did the DAZN brain trust get the idea to slap a pay-per-view price tag on an undercard show headlined by a Shakur-Cordina main event that would’ve barely been free ESPN-worthy if Shakur were still a Top Rank contract player? And, subsequently, why in the flying f**k would they KEEP that show a pay-per-view after the Stevenson fight fell out?

Being honest, even WITH Stevenson-Cordina, this was, as I described it before, a “mostly nondescript undercard full of showcases, mainly appealing to a UK audience.”

Just to remind fans, on that card, there’ll be Jai Opetaia-Jack Massey, Chris Eubank Jr.-Kamil Szeremeta, Fabio Wardley-Frazer Clarke 2, Skye Nicolson-Raven Chapman, and Ben Whittaker vs. some slow, plodding guy.

And, as things sit now, fans will have to pay $20 to see it, no matter what, with the only difference being whether DAZN subscribers want to keep paying their monthly $20 fee or non-subscribers want to be potentially backdoored into a shady 20-bucks-a-month renewal via the 7-day DAZN free trial for purchasing the card.

Is this how Saudi Riyadh Season figurehead Turki Alalshikh envisioned “saving” boxing by “bringing the fights to the fans?”