What’s Hurting Boxing

By Boxing News - 02/21/2009 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed more and more that there are a number of fighters that are dragging boxing down with them in selfish money grab fights, and their tendency’s to avoid taking risky fights. In many of the more popular divisions, we have fighters like Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe, David Haye, Oscar De La Hoya, among many others, that flip around from division to division without always having to face the toughest fighters in their own division, and being able to cherry pick fights to get the most money at the last amount of risk.

Case in point, you have Calzaghe skipping fights against Carl Froch, Jean Pascal and Lucian Bute at super middleweight, and then skipping a fight against Chad Dawson after Joe moved up to fight a washed up Roy Jones Jr. and a 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins. In the same token, we have Haye moving up from cruiserweight to heavyweight and getting an automatic title shot after having faced two measly heavyweights.

That’s hardly fair for fighters that had fought long and hard to get in the top 15 waiting for a title shot. Hatton is just as guilty at doing this, moving from light welterweight to welterweight and getting a quick title shot against Luis Collazo, then moving back down and taking on then IBF champion Paulie Malignaggi.

All that skipping around may be good for the fighters that are doing this, because after all, they get to cherry pick the top fighters in other divisions, but what this does is make a mockery of the different weight classes, making them seem obsolete and meaningless. It’s even worse for the fighters that are being jumped ahead in line, that’s totally unfair as far as I’m concerned.

Let’s say you work hard for 10 years trying to get a title shot. You get ranked high in the top four or five, thinking that you’ll be getting a title shot soon, yet then a fighter from another weight class like Haye or Hatton move right on in and get a title shot against the champion in that division. Would you say that his is fair?

Also a problem that’s hurting boxing is fighters that avoid fighting the top fighters in their division. Instead of Hatton fighting someone like Pacquiao, Hatton really needs to be fighting Timothy Bradley or Junior Witter instead of being able to move about freely, fighting whoever he pleases.

That’s not right and it can’t be good for the sport, because it keeps the best fights in a particular division from being made. Pacquiao isn’t a welterweight, even if he does bulk up temporarily to fight at that weight. If he was planning on being a welterweight, then he should fight his way into contention at that weight and if he’s any good, then go ahead and fight Shane Mosley. I wish you luck and hope you have another set of teeth ready for you after yours get knocked out.

Something that is really dragging boxing down, I think, is fighters that retire suddenly when faced with a real threat in their career. They may be cruising along in a division, such as the WBO super middleweight division was for most of the 90s until 2008, beating their mandatory and non mandatory contenders easily because of the lack of competition that exists there. Then, suddenly when the division starts getting populated by top fighters that look to be a real threat, the fighter decides that it’s time to retire. What good is that?



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