By Reveriano: The biggest complaint about Boxing today is that it is no longer a viable sport. Long-term boxing fans, new fans, promoters, and even boxers themselves all agree that boxing is all business. Meaning that fighters (performers) only focus is to maximize their revenue throughout their career. Leaving us the viewer/payer with only one option.
Boxers such as Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Miguel Cotto have clearly stated that their health and career is the biggest concern for them. That they do not care about what the fan wants to see.
They rationalize this by stating that this is a brutal sport that poses long term dangers for them. This has been epitomized into purely defensive fighting styles and/or simply by fighting fighters that are no threat to them.
Most boxing fans have accepted the evolution of a defensive fighting style simply due to the fact that the manner Mayweather performs it is purely brilliant. And this is coming from a fan who believes that “El Gran Campion” Julio Cesar Chavez was the greatest fighter of all time. What makes a style of play boring is the lack of it achieving its objective. The objective of boxing, as Mike Tyson, would declare is the utter destruction of your opponent. By this definition defensive styles of Mayweather, Adrien Broner, Erislandy Lara, or Guillermo Rigondeaux are “boring”. But all sport fans know that sometimes boring (unfriendly) styles are part of the sport. The biggest example is the Spanish style of soccer that dominated soccer for half a decade. The only choice for the fan is to appreciate that style and root for the athlete that manages to overcome that style.
Of course, what differentiates boxing from all other sports right now is that boxers are able to choose who they fight. In the soccer scenario that would mean that Spain, during the 2014 World Cup, could had chosen not to play the Dutch in order to avoid competing against a style that had evolved to defeat the Spanish defensive style. This would had created both a fake champion and utterly boring static TV. Which in my opinion is what is happening more and more boxing.
I make this argument because it seems that more and more Floyd Mayweather is not going to step up to fight WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. Golovkin to me seems like the natural evolution of boxing. Golovkin represents an ultra-aggressive fighting style to overwhelm the defensive style. Furthermore and most importantly, Golovkin right now seems like the only fighter that could challenge and realistically defeat Mayweather.
This in my opinion is the utmost most important fact because Mayweather has sold and compelled us to watch his through his marketing genius. These marketing being that this is “the fight” were we will see him beaten. Where we will see him knocked out and humiliated for being the horrible guy he has marketed himself as. This is the only reason many fans have bought his fights. And if there is no threat I don’t see why we would be compelled to watch his last fight. Especially after the debacle of the so called “Fight of the Century.”
I can’t speak for everyone out there. But like most people I sincerely believe that people should think like me. My opinion is that unless Mayweather fights Golovkin there is no way I am going to shelve out $75+ dollars to watch another of his fights. I appreciate his defensive style enough to watch it a week later for free on Youtube. I see no reason for myself to pay to watch an exhibition fight against a fighter that has absolutely no chance of winning. Boxing sanctions, promoters, and networks are not going to put pressure on fighters to change anytime soon. This means that we the fan have to declare through our wallets that if boxers don’t fight competitive challenging fights they are not getting paid.
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