Showtime’s President of Sports and Event Programming, Stephen Espinoza, has affirmed the network’s commitment to the sport of boxing by scheduling nine fights in a span of 10 weeks.
This packed schedule includes a tripleheader from Toyota Arena in Ontario, California, and concludes with the highly anticipated pay-per-view fight between Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia on April 22, which could potentially be the biggest pay-per-view fight of 2023.
Stephen Espinoza seems optimistic about the upcoming schedule and believes that negotiations among handlers of top boxers are going well. In fact, he said that the recent fight between Ryan Garcia and Gervonta Tank Davis could be a model for other fights to come.
The boxing schedule for 2023 includes other exciting matchups, such as Brandon Figueroa vs. Mark Magsayo and David Benavidez vs. Caleb Plant, among others. Additionally, the Showtime Boxing podcast offers in-depth analysis, and exclusive interviews, including previews of the network’s upcoming fights.
“I don’t know that we’ve ever done 14 shows in the first six months of the year before,” Espinoza said. “That’s a really heavy number. That’s sort of the subtle point, but I think the more explicit points are the quality and quantity and variety. High-quality matchups, fun matchups, a lot of them, everything from ‘ShoBox’ to the biggest pay-per-view of the year.”
“As strong as this schedule is and as enthusiastic as we are about it,” Espinoza said, “there are a number of big-name fighters who have not finalized fights to be put on the schedule. The Charlos, Spence, Thurman, Ennis, Morrell, Isaac Cruz, Frank Martin. There are a large number of big-name fighters that we’re working on fights for and we’re close to finalizing, so there will certainly be additions to the schedule in the very near future.”
It is worth noting that while the official Showtime Boxing schedule for 2023 has been released, there are still some fighters, such as Charlo, Spence, Morrell, Thurman and Boots, who have yet to announce their upcoming fights.
