Good, average, or poor year for boxing? I’d say it’s been a decent year and there’s been plenty of good fights as well. We had some anticipated fights taking place such as Benavidez against Morrell, Shakur vs Zepeda, Bivol vs Benavidez 2 that turned out very good. Benn vs Eubank kids actually having a surprisingly good battle. Usyk KOing Dubois in the rematch, Inoue defending his titles 4x, AJ KOing Paul. Canelo vs Crawford was the big one this year where it solidified Crawford’s greatness and a farewell to his career. Of course there were some stinkers as well but what year didn’t have any? But overall not too bad of a year. 2026 seems like it’s already off to a good start.
I honestly don't follow the sport on a hardcore level to the same extent that I used to. I still re-watch old fights, but even that is down to a few times per month. At my peak fandom it was literally daily. I would never characterize myself as a casual, as I know 100x more than any casual, but this is the first era in my adult life where I dont know a lot of the fringe guys, only the elite P4Pders and mainstream names. I'm looking forward to Shakur-Teo and Boots-Ortiz, but I couldn't list for you any other fights on my radar for 2026.
Was an average year. None of the big fights were good, bar bivol beterbiev, and there wasnt that many big fights
Agree. Seemed like there were several 3, 4 and 5 week stretches with no worthy fights. Those are tough times!
Barely care for years now.. it's all MMA now baby.. Will watch an occasional big fight like Jake vs AJ... but that's that... gave Canelo Crawford a chance and no thanks
Did ESPN lose their contract with UFC? They had s card on damn near ever week during '23 & '24. I haven't seen Jack shit lately. I saw they now show faggot fake wrestling I guess on their app. So now these roided up freaks come on Sportscenter and the hosts have to pretend they're interviewing a real sports figure.
I wonder if theres a world where HBO, soon to be under the ownership of Netflix, brings back boxing under HBO MAX. I've always felt it was a possibility. Paramount is gonna be their main competitor, and if UFC is exclusive to Paramount, Netflix/HBO may deem it a viable idea to compete with them in combat sports.
Thanks for the info. From memory Paramount /Spike TV was the host of Bellator. Hopefully they put some cards on regular Paramount not streaming. But they have a history of fucking fans over. Most notably during the Pandemic. TBS/TNT had rights to Champions League and Europa League and showed matches every round live on their cable channels. Because COVID extended the season, the contract ran out at the end of May, 2020. Paramount/CBS took over and immediately put every fucking game on their streaming service until the final (shown on CBS.) During a pandemic that had most of the country out of work. I have always thought of them as fucking scumbags ever since.
