Report- Wilder Ortiz rematch will be part of Fox TV PPV

It looks like Deontay Wilder’s upcoming rematch with Luis Ortiz will land on Fox Pay-Per-View, and what does that mean for the future of Showtime Boxing.?

First, The Athletic’s boxing insider, Mike Coppinger, tweeted on Monday night that Wilder, who has fought exclusively on Showtime and their pay-per-view arm over the past three years, will have his November 23rd fight from Las Vegas as part of another Fox PPV:

Sources: PBC is finalizing a deal for FOX PPV to carry Deontay Wilder’s heavyweight title rematch with Luis Ortiz on Nov. 23 in Las Vegas. Showtime shelled out a hefty license fee for Wilder-Breazeale and hoped to land the fight on its PPV arm. Announcement expected Saturday

— Mike Coppinger (@MikeCoppinger) September 24, 2019

As Coppinger reports and staying true to what Premier Boxing Champions has done in the past, they will likely make all of this official during Saturday night’s scheduled PPV broadcast of the Errol Spence – Shawn Porter World Welterweight unification showdown.

This will be the third Fox PPV this calendar year, as it began with Errol Spence’s successful IBF Welterweight Title defense in March over Mikey Garcia. And, that was followed in June by legendary seven division wold champ, Manny Pacquiao’s decision victory over Keith Thurman to capture the WBA Welterweight Championship.

Now, Spence is set to fight the WBC Champion Porter, once more, as part of Fox’s pay-per-view arm with Fox TV showing the preliminary undercard fights before the main event.

There has been great speculation that Showtime, not unlike HBO late last year, maybe looking to get out of the boxing business altogether. This is particularly after Steven Espinoza, the President of Showtime Sports, made specific comments last month expressing his disappointment that, “For the time being, Fox is relying on the fighters Showtime built.”

And that includes, Wilder, Thurman, or Spence, who have fought multiple times previously on Showtime, and are now fighting on Fox instead.

Wilder did do a one fight deal with Showtime back in May, when he destroyed contender Dominic Breazeale with one punch in a first round KO. However, he’s going to follow PBC’s lead and fight on whatever network they decide.

And, Premier Boxing Champions did a humongous multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with Fox to show over 20 fight cards on either over-the-air Fox television network or FS1 cable channel annually and it also included, the pay-per-view options.

So, it’s only logical that they want to give Fox the biggest fights. Now, we wait to see if/how many prominent fights Showtime can work out for this winter or early next year.

That will be very telling if there are getting out of the boxing business or not.