SHOWTIME OFFERS FIGHT FANS FREE PREVIEW WEEKEND

Tuesday September 25, 2007 1:46 PM PST
SHOWTIME OFFERS FIGHT FANS FREE PREVIEW WEEKEND
For Immediate Release

SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING and EliteXC To Air on Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007

NEW YORK (Sept. 25, 2007) – From Friday, Sept. 28 through Monday, Oct. 1, SHOWTIME will host Free Preview Weekend, when the premium network will be available in a record 54 million homes nationwide. Free Preview Weekend on SHOWTIME affords an opportunity for many non-subscribers to experience all of the hard-hitting sports and acclaimed original programming on the network as the signal is opened up by select television service providers free of charge.

On Saturday, Sept. 29, fight fans coast-to-coast will have the opportunity to experience some of the most explosive sports programming on television when SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING, the network’s 21-year-old fistic series, and the phenomenal mixed martial arts franchise EliteXC are prominently featured.

SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING

Saturday, Sept. 29, live at 10 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast)

Don King in association with Maloof Sports & Entertainment will present two world championship fights on SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING, live at 10 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast) from ARCO Arena in Sacramento, Calif. In the main event WBC Light Heavyweight Champion “Bad” Chad Dawson will make his second title defense when he goes toe-to-toe with Colombian knockout artist Epifanio “Diamante” Mendoza. Dawson (24-0, 16 KOs), a 25-year-old southpaw from New Haven, Conn., is one of the most versatile and skilled pound-for-pound fighters in the game today. He possesses the same WBC 175-pound belt Roy Jones Jr. held from 1997 to 2004. The rugged Mendoza (28-4-1, 24 KO’s) is on a four-fight winning streak and looking to capitalize on his world title opportunity. The co-featured bout is just as fierce with two of the lighter weight divisions’ toughest sluggers squaring off. IBF Bantamweight champion Luis “El Demoledor” Perez (25-1, 21 KO’s) will meet Joseph “King Kong” Agbeko (24-1, 21 KO’s).

EliteXC: Uprising

Saturday, Sept. 29, at 2 p.m. ET/PT

EliteXC is the first and only MMA organization to air on a premium television network in the U.S. The most recent installment, EliteXC: Uprising, aired live from Honolulu on Saturday, Sept. 15 and represented the biggest and most collaborative MMA event ever to take place on the Hawaiian Islands, a hotbed for the new and wildly popular sport.

EliteXC: Uprising, which will replay on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET/PT, features five electrifying MMA fights including significant wins by phenom Nick Diaz, welterweight star Jake Shields and “the face of women’s MMA” Gina Carano. The night was punctuated by a devastating KO victory when brawler “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler dropped Brazilian Jiu Jitsu specialist Murilo “Ninja” Rua for the EliteXC Middleweight title.