By Simon Hirst: Boxing over the years has seen some of the best fighters in each division fight for the right to be the number one champion of their division. These champions would duck no-one with the real winner being the fan who enjoyed watching the worlds best fighters slug it out. Recently however, exciting fights that the world wants to see are struggling to be made for a number of reasons.
With the increase in sanctioning bodies, and therefore an increase in world titles for each division, several fighters per division can claim to be the best without having to fight hard opposition, let alone other champions. Think about this, if there was one world title, I wonder which Klitschko would have it considering they won’t fight each other. As soon as one had the title, what would be the point of the other one fighting?
Unfortunately, I think boxing changed for the worse when more world titles were introduced. It lowered the value of being a world champion, it gave promoters more power in who they line up as their champions next challenger and the fan was no longer a major priority. I don’t want to discriminate against all champions and boxers, some fighters/promoters are all for lining up the two best fighters and making boxing matches that fans want to see.
However, there are those promoters who protect their fighters far too much. Kelly Pavlik is a fighter who’s promoter makes fights that the public don’t want to see. The clear fight for Pavlik is Abraham, with second choice being to move up to super middleweight where there is a wealth of competition. Even an all American showdown with Paul Williams would interest fans. But he settled for Lockett, didn’t turn up against Hopkins and was forced to fight Rubio. Hardly exciting line ups.
However, the Pavlik/Abraham touches on the point of this article and that is boxing has many world champions from Eastern Europe. The heavyweight is full of contenders and challengers from there. Same with the cruiserweights and even the light heavyweights. Yet they won’t go over to America and fight. On the other side of the coin, Americans won’t go over to other countries to prove themselves. The only way either of them would consider going to a different country is money-related and sometimes that’s not enough.
Let’s take the heavyweight division, America are starting to get a few heavyweights through the ranks, with Chris Arreola, Eddie Chambers, Kevin Johnson. There are a number of good Eastern European heavyweight fighters too, yet so very rarely do they fight each other. The main reason is neither fighter is willing to give up home advantage and therefore the fan suffers as they get the unpleasant pleasure of watching boring fights where the outcome is very rarely in doubt.
I think promoters wanting to protect their fighters from risk and make as much money as they can, build unbeaten reputations against bums and become world champions at the lowest risk possible are the reasons that big fights don’t get made.
Boxing is crying out for a boxer who will go anywhere in the world, fight the best, make the best matches possible and excite in the ring. Pacquaio is the closest thing I can think to someone doing this. Boxing needs more people like this wanting to fight anyone, anywhere at anytime and not negotiate themselves out of a fight via money or place. Will anyone step up to the plate? We’ll see I guess.
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