One fourth of the year has gone by and the only major fight so far has been Spence vs Garcia. Kovalev vs Alvarez was meh, Pac vs Broner etc have been mismatches from the start, WBSS 2 hasn't picked up. Not too many big fights are even in the horizon, it is difficult to get excited with Joshua - Miller nor Crawford - Khan either. Boxing is not dead, it won't die either. And we have exciting, good young fighters around. But the structure of the sport is problematic for this era, where things should happen fast to be interesting. In pretty much all other sports you know what and when to expect. As boxing fans we can only keep hoping that we actually get good fights in the future
Boxing is a business. The people running it and the boxers themselves are in it to get rich while taking the least amount of risk. If you want real fights, watch UFC where fighters don't have any choice but to take the fights they're forced to or risk getting demoted or punished.
If I want to see a western shootout, I won't watch Brokeback mountain and if I want to see a fight, I won't watch UFC
I think the issue right now is that boxing doesn’t really have a consistent outlet outside of Showtime. You’ve got DAZN and other streaming services but I don’t know how reliable that is today. Another issue is having to wait and deal with promoters to get things done. It always was a failed system that just refuses to right itself. Mock the UFC if you want but it moves so quickly I have a difficult time keeping up. It’s also a much more popular and growing form of self defense which will continue to find top flight talent. Boxing needs a similar model as the UFC or at least a completely revamped one from what boxing presently has.
I completely agree with both points. It is just that I can't replace watching boxing by simply watching UFC anymore than I can change hockey to synchronized swimming
UFC is a privately-owned company. And UFC fighters have no power on the negotiating table. They'll sign the contract they're given and that's that. Boxers have more bargaining power. They can demand far bigger purses. There's much more money in the sport. You're not likely to see undercard boxers on a boxing PPV get paid $1.5K as what happened to most of the MMA fighters on the Golden Boy MMA card a couple months back. LOL
Exactly Every person I know assumes that because I'm the "boxing person" they know that must mean that I also enjoy watching one homosexual hitting another while he is down like a criminal savage in a B-movie torture cage ... they get so confused that I don't see any particularly relevant comparisons
My wife thought it'd be nice to pick me up a "boxing" magazine once when she was at a book store... it was a magazine about cagefighting ... I recoiled as if I were a vegan being tossed a copy of Field & Stream
I'm not sure having more outlets would matter a whole lot. The issue with promoters would still exist when it comes to the big fights.
Promoter = Vested Interest, More Promoters = More Vested Interests... This HURTS Boxing More than Anything Else..."Smart Business" RARELY Equates to "What's Best for the Fans/Sport"... People Grew WEARY of Teddy Atlas and Max Kellerman's Ideas on LESSENING the Leverage of Promoters, But They Made VALID Points in REED's Opinion... REED
It WAS???... Thurman Made it Clear he WOULDN'T Entertain Spence or Crawford Until 2020 and it was Apparent Spence-Crawford WOULDN'T Happen in 2019 Either, But Aside from That There Was (& Still IS) Potential for 2019 as a QUALITY Year of Boxing, if Not a BANNER Year... Certainly Not a "Dry" Year... REED
A divorce wouldn't bother cdogg. He doesn't have sex with his wife anyway out of fear of having kids. So they just sit next to each other, holding hands and masturbating to each other.
In @ Least 1 Way it Already Has... Televised Cards Consist of MORE Fights Than They Used To...Back in the Day, HBO Would Show 1 Fight Quite a Bit, 2 MAX...Now, You're Pretty Much GUARANTEED a Triple Header on Showtime, for Example... You'd Always Get Multiple Bouts on Tuesday/Friday Night Fights, but NOT on HBO/Showtime Back Then... Another Instance Occurred the Night of Spence-Mikey... Like UFC, PBC Had the Non-PPV Portion of the Card Broadcast on Regular FOX...UFC's Been Doing That for Years, a PERFECT Segue Into the PPV...REED Couldn't Count the Number of Times he Watched UFC Prelims, Then Headed to the Nearest Hooters for the PPV... REED
This... Believe it or Not, There's MORE Televised Boxing CURRENTLY Than @ ANY Other Time in History...More Outlets Offering Access to More Fights Than @ ANY Other Time... Yet Promoters are STILL Finding a Way to Fuck Shit Up... REED
Wilder-Fury 2, for Certain... The Winner Could've Conceivably LEVERAGED Joshua Into a Fight...Despite Holding 3 of the 4 Heavyweight Titles, Anthony Joshua Wasn't In THE Biggest Heavyweight Fight of 2018... Even Knowing Spence vs Crawford/Thurman WASN'T Happening in 2019, Spence-Porter and Spence-Danny Were and Still ARE Out There...It's Even Looking LIKELY Spence-Porter is Next... Pac-Thurman is a Big Fight... Loma vs. Mikey is Still PLAUSIBLE, @ Least...If the WBSS '40 Tournament Plays Out as Projected, That's an IMPORTANT (If Not "Big") Fight...REED's Expecting '54 to Be CLOSER to Full Unification as Well...After J-Rock, Hurd's Very Next Fight NEEDS to Be a Unification, Period... Then There's Usyk, Inoue, Tank, the Super Middleweight Division... No Excuse for 2019 to Be a DRY Year... REED
1. Boxing's Deemed the "Red Light District" of Sports, so it's Only Going to Get Soooooo Far in Terms of ENDORSERS and MAINSTREAM Opportunities... 2. More Shit to Watch... @ Boxing's PEAK, Only Baseball Resonated @ a Similar or Higher Level...These Days, the NFL, NBA, NHL, SPECIAL INTEREST TV Stations, etc., Have ALL Carved Their Slice of the Pie... 3. The Best Aren't CONSISTENTLY Fighting the Best...w/That, There's Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Toooooooooooooo Much AMBIGUITY Regarding Who's the "Champion", for Mainstream Fans to Pay Attention... When You Have 4 "World Champions", You REALLY Have 0 "World Champions"...Even the BEST of the Lot is LESSENED... REED
Don King's PPV Cards were Loaded... REED's Referencing Subscription Satellite/Cable TV Broadcasts...HBO's "Boxing After Dark" or "World Championship Boxing"/SHOBOX or Showtime Championship Boxing... REED
Boxing doesn't have many stars today. Not like 20 years back when DLH, Trinidad, Vargas, Hamed, RJJ, etc were all active.
Also, the way it's fragmenting, it's almost like the separate leagues that exist in MMA. You have UFC, Bellator, etc. You've got DAZN, PBC, etc. And just like fighters in UFC don't face off with guys from Bellator, it's looking like guys from DAZN will not be facing guys from PBC, etc. So it's shitty. But it is totally possible even the best DAZN guys won't face each other, and the best PBC guys won't face each other (e.g. Thurman/Spence), in which case boxing will be even shittier.
One thing to point out is, G seems like it really wants to make the best fights it can. Top Rank? Not so much. Just my impression.