Intelligencer

Dan Rather Won’t Jab Foxy Boxers

Newsman on Perfect 10 pugilists: “I don’t have a problem with it at all.”

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By Emma Rosenblum
Published Dec 31, 2006

(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

Billionaire Mark Cuban’s multimedia company, 2929 Entertainment, has lots of big ideas. Earlier this year, it simultaneously released Steven Soderbergh’s art-film Bubble to movie theaters and DVD, upending traditional entertainment-biz release patterns; it also hired Dan Rather out of post-CBS oblivion to do a high-minded news show called Dan Rather Reports, on Cuban’s high-def-TV venture, HDNet. But the latest product in Cuban’s revolutionary pipeline isn’t quite as highbrow. It’s Perfect 10 Model Boxing, a porn-magazine-branded hour in which scantily clad ladies jab and punch each other, which premiered on HDNet in 2006 and will be released on DVD (“12 Girls! 6 Fights! Unrated Extras”) on January 2. “HDNet’s goals are to add programming that catches people’s attention,” says Cuban. “It may be fun or serious.” How does Rather feel about his foxy compatriots? “I don’t have a problem with it at all,” he says, though “it wouldn’t be considered appropriate viewing for me in my house.”