By John Kelvin: A lot of people like to claim that boxing is dying and that casual fans are no longer interested in the sport. The huge pay-per-view numbers generated by Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather contradict these claims. However, the sport would be a lot healthier and popular if the current conflict between the top two promotional companies, Top Rank and Golden Boy was brought to an end. This conflict has and will continue to have a significant impact on the sport as the top champions will be unable to face each other to decide who is the very best in the division.
This may be a reason why many boxing fans have stopped watching the sport and switched to the UFC instead because that organisation regularly puts on fights were the top champion faces the top contender. A lot of people think that Top Rank is solely to blame for the conflict and that is understandable but I refuse to believe that. There is always two sides to a story and Golden Boy will have contributed in some way to the two companies not working together. The biggest fight in the history of the sport was prevented because of these two companies being unable to work together and not because of drug testing.
Floyd Mayweather does not work with Top Rank and Top Rank does not work as stated with Mayweather’s representatives, Golden Boy. The fight would only have happened if Manny Pacquiao became a promotional free agent and that was extremely unlikely to happen. Recently, Abner Mares and Nonito Donaire were unable to fight to decide the world’s best 122lb fighter due to the promotional feud between the two companies. Many other excellent fights like Rios vs Garcia, Rios vs Matthysse, Broner vs Rios, Rigondeaux vs Mares and Micky Garcia vs Mares are unlikely to happen because of what is going on between the two promotional companies.
This is a unfortunate because it denies fighters the chance to prove how good they are and that they are the best in their division which is what they set out to do when they started boxing. The fans also suffer because they pay money to buy expensive pay-per-views and subscription channels to watching boxing and expect the best fights in the sport to be made.
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