''Friday Night Knockout'' (visually known as ''

MetroPCS Metro by T-Mobile (formerly known as MetroPCS and also known simply as Metro) is an American prepaid wireless service provider and brand owned by T-Mobile US. It previously operated the fifth largest mobile telecommunications network in the U ...

Friday Night Knockout'' for sponsorship reasons) is the branding used for

professional boxing Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse bid, purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regula ...

telecasts broadcast on the cable network

TruTV TruTV (stylized as truTV) is an American basic cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel primarily broadcasts comedy, docusoaps and reality shows. The channel was originally launched in 1991 as Court TV, a network that focu ...

. This weekly broadcast was co-produced by

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

and

Turner Sports Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (WBD Sports) is the division of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) that is responsible for sports broadcasting, sports broadcasts on its parent company's various channels in the United States, including TBS (American TV ch ...

Coverage overview

What separated TruTV's broadcasts from the time buy deals done by

Al Haymon Al Haymon (born April 21, 1955) is an American businessman and boxing manager. He was the manager of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and has won the Boxing Writers of America Manager of the Year Award five times. Early life Haymon was raised in Cleveland, ...

’s

Premier Boxing Champions ''Premier Boxing Champions'' (PBC) is an ongoing series of televised boxing events connected to manager Al Haymon. PBC was initially promoted as an effort to return boxing to mainstream broadcast and cable television, as opposed to premium chann ...

on other networks is that advertising on TruTV was 100% sold by Turner Sports. In other words, Turner controlled all the advertising, including TV commercial time, digital inventory and sponsorships. ''

Friday Night Knockout'' debuted on May 1, 2015 (from The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

) and featured at least eight bouts from the

Top Rank Top Rank, Inc. is a boxing promotional company founded by Jabir Herbert Muhammad and Bob Arum, which was incorporated in 1973, and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since its founding, Top Rank has promoted many world class fighters, including Muh ...

promotion. They would serve as lead-ins for fights airing on

the next day. The final card aired on December 11, 2015 with

Nonito Donaire Nonito Gonzales Donaire Jr. (; ; born November 16, 1982) is a Filipino American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in four weight classes from flyweight to featherweight, and is the oldest boxer in history to win a ...

vs. Cesar Juarez and

Félix Verdejo Félix Gabriel Verdejo Sánchez (born May 19, 1993) is a Puerto Rican professional boxer who held the WBO Latino lightweight title from 2015 to 2017. As an amateur he represented Puerto Rico at the 2012 Olympics. In May 2021, Verdejo turned hims ...

taking on Josenilson Dos Santos from

San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the jur ...

Technology

TruTV's live boxing telecasts featured the first-ever domestic use of “

Spidercam The Spidercam is a cable-suspended camera system which enables film and television cameras to move both vertically and horizontally over a predetermined area, typically the playing field of a sporting event such as a cricket pitch, football fie ...

” technology, which operates on a four-point system of cables from designated points beyond the corners of the boxing ring. It also has the ability to operate on a four-point system of cables from designated points beyond the corners of the boxing ring.

Commentators

Kevin Kugler Kevin Kugler is an American sportscaster who primarily works in radio broadcasting. Kugler is currently employed by Westwood One as its lead college basketball voice as well as one of its Sunday NFL voices, and by the Big Ten Network as a play-by- ...

and

Bruce Beck Bruce David Beck (born September 18, 1956) is the lead sports anchor at WNBC. He is in his 25th year with News 4 New York. He is also the host of Sports Final, WNBC's popular Sunday night sports show. Beck is the host and sideline reporter for N ...

provided play-by-play with analysts Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini and

Timothy Bradley Timothy Ray Bradley Jr. (born August 29, 1983) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2004 to 2016. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBC light welterweight title twice between 2008 an ...

and reporter Crystina Poncher.

References

External links

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TruTV to broadcast boxing seriestruTv To Step Into Boxing RingTop Rank launching new boxing series on truTVMETROPCS FRIDAY NIGHT KNOCKOUT ON TRUTV CONTINUES FRIDAY, JUNE 26 AT 10 P.M. ETTOP RANK TO LAUNCH FRIDAY NIGHT BOXING SERIES ON TRUTV BEGINNING MAY 1“MetroPCS Friday Night Knockout” to Make Its Fall Debut
{{Turner Sports Boxing television series TruTV original programming Turner Sports HBO Sports 2015 American television series debuts 2015 American television series endings