American boxer Brandon Figueroa is a stress test who preys on his opponent's weakness, Showtime's boss says

• Boxing returns to Showtime Sports on Saturday, and the broadcaster has a slate of events for summer.
• President Stephen Espinoza talked Insider through viewership tribulations of the pandemic, and more.
• He also highlighted their event this weekend - which has Brandon Figueroa and Luis Nery headlining.

Young American boxer Brandon Figueroa is a stress test who preys on his opponent's weaknesses, the president of Showtime Sports, Stephen Espinoza, told Insider this week.

The premium US broadcaster kickstarts its summer slate of boxing events Saturday at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, with a six-bout fight card organized in conjunction with Premier Boxing Champions (PBC).

A super bantamweight world title unification bout between Luis Nery and Figueroa tops an event supported with fights involving Xavier Martinez against Juan Carlos Burgos, and Daniel Roman against Ricardo Espinoza Franco.

"I'm a huge Nery fan," Espinoza told us, adding that the unbeaten Mexican's last bout, against Aaron Alameda in 2020, was "not the most exciting performance than that we typically see from him."

Espinoza said it is sometimes hard to truly understand why a fighter's performance level may wane - whether that's getting used to a new trainer, or the weight.

"But if he's not at his peak, then a guy like Brandon Figueroa will make him pay for it," Espinoza said.

"This is the really intriguing fight given Luis Nery's style and skills against Figueroa who is full-out, aggressive, and with great conditioning.

"Figueroa is a truth-teller. He'll find a weakness," Espinoza said. "If your weakness is conditioning, he'll find that out. If it's defense, he'll find that out.

"When you're going through that all-out pressure assault from Brandon Figueroa, if there are flaws, there'll be apparent. Figueroa is a one-man stress test. We'll find out exactly where Luis Nery where he is in his career."

Supporting the card is the Mayweather Promotions fighter Martinez, who returns to the ring having survived two knockdowns in the eighth round of his last fight, before gutting out an eventual, comfortable, decision win.

Espinoza said if the purpose of early fights for a rising 23-year-old contender like Martinez is to provide an education, then his fight against Claudio Marrero late, last year, "was Havard," Espinoza said.

"He experienced it all in that fight - adversity, almost being stopped, against a really skilled veteran and a crafty opponent.

"It's the type of experience that can go one of two ways. There are fighters who have packed it up, stayed on the stool, and never been the same since. And there's fighters like Xavier who really got to prove their mettle."

Martinez fights Juan Carlos Burgos in his 17th match, and should the super featherweight maintain his unbeaten start to his pro career, then he'll only enhance his reputation as one to watch in the 130-pound division.

Making top fights will cure many of boxing's ills, according to Espinoza

In the decade that Espinoza has led Showtime Sports, having joined the broadcaster after providing counsel to Oscar de la Hoya's promotional vehicle Golden Boy Promotions, he has enjoyed many successes.

The 51-year-old struck a landmark six-fight, multi-year deal with Floyd Mayweather in 2012, oversaw the three highest-grossing events in TV history at that time with Mayweather's fights against Saul Alvarez, Manny Pacquiao, and Conor McGregor, and continues to push boxing as a focus at Showtime today.

Boxing, like many other sports, suffered during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Viewership figures retreated, and though Showtime did not restart its own schedule until August 1, Espinoza conceded that the metrics he saw internally were "a mixed bag."

The broadcaster collaborated with PBC, just like it has for its upcoming schedule, and had stand-out events like the twin Charlo bill in September - which Insider dubbed at the time as the greatest boxing event of the pandemic up until that point - and the October bout between Gervonta Davis and Leo Santa Cruz which resulted in a thunderous uppercut KO for "Tank."

Espinoza said: "We were all very happy to get together and figure out a way to come back and, ultimately, a way to come back relatively safely with pretty heavy-duty protocols."

Those protocols, Espinoza claimed, ensured that positive COVID-19 tests yielded single-figure outcomes over an eight-month duration.

"We don't speak of this very openly but that's how we measure success - being able to carry on the sport, and having a minimum of positives among the athletes, production personnel, our own staff, and everybody involved," he said.

"That comes at a cost, and the cost is paid by all those people through testing, quarantining, and not leaving your room - even to get food in many cases. It takes a toll.

"I'd like to highlight the people you don't see - production personnel, staff who typically show up Tuesday, and spend every waking moment, and sleeping moment, in their hotel room when they're not working. It's a lot to ask of a crew, staff, but I think we're all glad we could get back to some sense of normalcy and had a level of quality that we were happy with."

He continued: "There were others in the sport that rushed back relatively quickly, had the stage to themselves, and really did the sport a disservice with the kinds of fights that were being put on. And we didn't want to do that. We didn't want to come back just for the sake of coming back. We wanted to come back with a strong, real schedule."

Espinoza said the media and sports industry as a whole, not just boxing, is still figuring out modern-day viewing habits, and studying the changing behaviors regarding how people view TV, when people view TV, and the number of households using TV and streaming.

He added that they're also looking into "people's interest [because] there have been huge viewership drops in a variety of sports."

For Espinoza, and those at Showtime, the best way to maintain their current customer base, while attracting new eyeballs, is to make the best fights possible on their network.

Here are the headlining matches for Showtime's upcoming fight nights:

• May 15: Brandon Figueroa vs. Luis Nery - WBO/WBC super bantamweight unification
• May 29: Nonito Donaire vs. Nordine Oubaali - WBC bantamweight title
• June 6: Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul - boxing exhibition
• June 19: Jermall Charlo vs. Juan Macias Montiel - WBC middleweight title
• June 26: Mario Barrios vs. Gervonta Davis - WBA super lightweight title
• June 3: Yuriorkis Gamboa vs. Chris Colbert - WBA interim super featherweight title
• July 17: Jermell Charlo vs. Brian Carlos Castano - WBO super welterweight title
• August 14: Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. John Riel Casimero - WBA/WBO bantamweight unification
• August 28: Jose Uzcategui vs. David Benavidez - super middleweight

Espinoza said he's looked into why viewership dropped across sports, but added: "What we wanted to do with this schedule is to put our best foot forward, and get back into the rhythm of doing excellent fights which speak for themselves.

"Whether they're in a bubble or in front of fans, our theory is that the best way to regain the momentum and the spotlight for the sport is to do really good fights - it's that simple.

"That's the solution that will cure maybe not all of boxing's ills, but a great many of them by just doing the match-ups that should happen, and enforcing a level of quality that can be maintained consistently across the schedule."