Should Golden Boy Promotions create an Ultimate Boxing Championship?

By Boxing News - 09/01/2009 - Comments

By Dave Lahr: With the rapid pace that Golden Boy Promotions is collecting fighters for their stable, at some point in the near future they may acquire enough fighters to create their own boxing league. In other words, it would be the equivalent of the UFC. Think of the benefits to boxing if Golden Boy were to do this.

They could match their best fighters against each and we, the boxing public, would be guaranteed to see exciting fights without the boring garbage fights that are usually thrust upon us by the cable networks. I’m not saying that it’s the cable networks’ faults.

They’re just showing what the overly protective promoters are willing to match their fighters against. Most boxing promotes don’t want to risk their fighters against other quality fighters for fear of them getting beaten and losing their appeal to the boxing public and cable networks.

The constant shopping around for easy marks for their fighters causes their fighter to be put in with mostly overmatched opponents that the fans don’t want to see. Sure, boxing fans are willing to put up with some mismatches now and then, but when it becomes practice that is done repeatedly by the promoters, and then boxing loses out because the fights aren’t worth watching.

This is essentially what has happened with the sport. We get nothing but horrible mismatches shown week after week and only rarely do boxing fans get to see a fight worthwhile with two competitive fighters. Even when you do get a fight that seems to be the level, if you dig down deep you’ll find that it really isn’t all that fair.

The bigger named fighter can get away with a lot of things to tip the fighter in their favor, such as using catch weight that benefits them, a bigger ring, and making the fight take place in their home city rather than a neutral location. These are just a few of the ways that promoters can ruin what would be level fight and put things in their favor.

The main problem, though, is that the sport needs to be changed and it may take a big money promotional company like Golden Boy Promotions to save the sport from all the other promoters who are taking boxing and driving it into the ground.

Even if it was smaller organization, it they had the five best fighters in each division, which would be enough to sustain the sport and give it a much better appeal to the general public than it is now. Look at the excitement that Showtime’s Super Six tournament has generated. We’re talking about only six fighters, the best in the division. It doesn’t take a whole lot of fighters for there to be excitement generated.

What the public cares about is seeing good fights that are competitive. They’re sick of the mismatches that the promoters are setting up and want a different alternative to that. I think this is the only real solution to save boxing. All the promoters, mismatches, and multiple weight classes have really destroyed the sport and taken it downhill fast.



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