The current state of Boxing

By mattybuckland - 04/19/2013 - Comments

By Matt Buckland: Are Politics and promoters destroying boxing? With 4 major boxing titles per weight, TV coverage, box office, pay per view, boxers not fighting because they want $20 million just to turn up, in my opinion the answer is a simple one. Yes.

A champion and there promoters should not be able to pick and choose who they fight on every occasion. Sure a Champion should be allowed an easy fight after a few hard contests but this is not the case for World Champions today. And because of the amount of champions you have in each weight division, unifying the divisions should be at the top of every fighters list. And then in an ideal world scrap all but 1 of the belts.

Top Boxers used to be household names but now only a select few are known to your casual boxing fan. Chances are Andre ward, Saul Alvarez, Sergio Martinez, Danny Garcia and Adrien Broner could, for the most part, walk down the street with no one bothering them. Why is this? Because of money, the networks, the promoters and to some extent the fighters themselves. It all comes down to greed and to a lesser degree a fighter and promoter protecting that sacred “0”.

Unless your a hardcore boxing fan you’re not going to know who the champions are, maybe but for a select few. But even then would your average sports fan really know who Floyd Mayweather is? I don’t think they would and he is by far the biggest name in boxing.

Gone are the days where in Britain everyone knew who Frank Bruno was, whether you liked boxing or not. Mike Tyson could not go anywhere on the planet without being hounded. Even now he would be mobbed. Could the same be said for Vitali Klitschko? A great champion and an ambassador for the sport but would your grandmother know who he is? But she chances are she would recognize Tiger Woods or David Beckham.

The reasons for this are quite simple. Boxing isn’t readily available to watch anymore to your average TV viewer. Unless you pay for boxing you’re not going to see it as it’s not on mainstream networks. Add to this the promoters who don’t let there fighters fight for a ridiculous amount of money against a, usually, unworthy opponent, then this makes it even less appealing for your hardcore boxing fan.

The big promoters, governing bodies and TV networks are destroying boxing. It’s been said before but I’ll say it again, 1 belt 1 champion per division. Something like the Olympic committee should be set up for sanctioning fights and promoters should not be allowed to protect fighters because they are cash cows. But eventually there will be no fans left and this is a reality. Gone are the days when we would discuss fighters from different eras fighting like mike Tyson v Mohamed Ali or Sugar Ray Robinson v Marvin Hagler.

Now we discuss fighters of today on dream match ups? Who would win Sergio Martinez or Gennady Golovkin. Or the big one that is Manny Pacquiao v Floyd Mayweather which should have been made years ago and every boxing fan wanted to see this. But it never happened because of boxing politics. Chances are it will happen in ten years time when both fighters come out of retirement as they are bankrupt or in need of that last one fight. But by then, would anyone really care?



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