15.04.05 – In a groundbreaking move Maloney Promotions announces for the first time ever, a British and Commonwealth double championship title clash will be televised during prime time hours in the UK and Ireland through Setanta Sports and webcasted live across the world on a pay per view basis through www.fightnight.com on participating websites..
The hotly anticipated lightweight unification matchup between British Champion Graham Earl and Commonwealth King Kevin “Bulldog” Bennett will take place on Thursday, May 12th in England’s capital city of London. In all, seven bouts are on the bill and all will be shown in their entirety live on both the televised broadcast and the webcast during the action packed three-hour event.
Due to the unprecedented viewing opportunity afforded by the combination of television and global webcast, more fans than ever will watch a British or Commonwealth Championship fight as it occurs. The fight card, which takes places at the famed Elephant & Castle venue located on the mean streets of South London, boasts the pro debut of the sensational lightweight Craig Watson, who in his last amateur bout dropped Olympic Silver Medallist Amir Khan to the canvas, a British Masters Welterweight title bout between Nathan Ward and James Paisley, lightweight hot prospects Rob Jeffries and Dean Phillips along with undefeated up and comers Gary Walker and Junior MacDonald.
The highly competitive pairing of Earl and Bennett has captured the imagination of the public more than any other contest to take place on British soil so far this year and is the perfect segue leading into the mouth watering weekend of June 3rd – 4th which sees Ricky Hatton in the fight of his life versus the dangerous Kostya Tszyu and Scott Harrison square off against Michael Brodie in the biggest all British featherweight bout in years.
Frank Maloney staged the last webcast venture in Britain five years ago in conjunction with fightnight.com and drew 650,000 viewers. This time Maloney Promotions is counting on an improvement upon those numbers given the existence of over 150 million broadband users worldwide, of which 6 million of those consumers reside in Britain, a figure which is growing by 35,000 a week.
Televised coverage of Lightweight Bragging Rights is available in Britain and Ireland through Setanta pay per view on the Sky platform for 8 pounds 99 sterling. Log onto to www.setanta.com to learn more.
Webcasting will be provided through www.fightnight.com and can be seen on participating websites throughout the world for 4 pounds 99 sterling, roughly the equivalent of $9.99 in US dollars. Contact your favorite boxing website to learn more.
Maloney promotions will be planning additional pay per view events in the future in conjunction with partners Setanta and www.fightnight.com, the scope of which will be determined by the success of this initial venture.