Was HBO cancelling boxing the final death of mainstream boxing

When HBO cancelled boxing it felt like the final blow to a sport on life support. It made sense in one respect because cable is an outdated 90s service. People dont subscribe to 500 channels anymore in the era of streaming services.

So now we have DAZN. Its advertised on TV and what not, but nobody is going to subscribe. I know one single person in real life who cares about boxing.

So now we have DAZN. And Al Haymons PBC on TV which feature his band of fighters who only fight each other once a year.

And Showtime doesnt have anybody. Their biggest draw Deontay Wilder is an American Heavyweight KO artist who cant sell. If a HW American champ cant draw then what is left as far as fans?

Boxing has been underground for decades now. But since HBO cancelled boxing it's really dealt the sport the final blow.

Mainstream boxing is totally dead now without HBO boxing.

 

Just because boxing in America isn't booming doesn't mean boxing isn't doing well in other parts of the world.

 

I think the big fights coming off ABC and on to HBO might have done more damage

 

Call me crazy but I Lamplet had seen better days. I think they were doing boxing a disservice towards the end imho

 

Pretty much. Which is ironic since this year has had some excellent fights and for the fans it's been great. But HBO ending their stakes in boxing shows they see no real marketable future in it (for American audiences). Which does suck since no other network/service did boxing with such high quality production as HBO.

As for the sport itself, boxing can't ever be a big mainstream sport in the US. Its too far apart from the general public eye. One thing I will give mma credit is its ability to stay in the public's sight by having shows on tv like ultimate fighter, ufc gyms popping up, having mma techniques being constantly incorporated in modern action movies, etc.. But at the end of the day combat sports overall are too few in recognizable athletes, and the months of waiting for truly significant fights means it can only ever be sustained by the true passionate fans.

Now it's not all doom however. Of course here in the US, the large latino demographics of mexican and puerto rican fans help keep the sport afloat. Every once in a while some fighters will pick up a decent amount of followings from fans based purely on their talent or somewhat celebrity status. Its rare but I can indeed confirm that there have been several times where I've publicly ran across triple GGG fans (showing that a fun to watch boxer can achieve some level of recognition without having to rely on their ethnic background). And of course from what I see in this forum, and boxing status in general, it does seem like the sport is fairly healthy in places like Britain (am I correct???).

So I guess my point is that yes HBO quitting boxing will probably push the sport further from the public eye than what it already was (but by how much is unknown). But overall for the actual dedicated fans, there are still plenty of great fighters out there and for us the sport will continue to move on with future opportunities and great fights for us to enjoy.

 

It's not dead and the thread never said it was. Boxing has totally lost its mainstream appeal that what the thread said. Everything about the sport is hardcore now that HBO got rid of boxing.

 

HBO kept boxing off the mainstream forever anyways because most people didn't have HBO. There hasn't been any lack of fights or diminishment in quality since we moved to the new DAZN, ESPN, Showtime model. I don't give two farts for casual fans and nobody owns this sport.

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When I checked a week ago the number of fights and fighters has almost doubled since 2000. The sport is more popular now than it's been in decades.

 

It died a long time ago, and will not come back until they eliminate screwjobs and multiple sanctioning bodies. People will not watch until they feel that they are watching legitimate champs in real athletic contests.

 

A week ago in my own thread I did some rough calculations.https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/top-2-by-weightclass-1950-vs-2019.639721/ Begin quote.

You would be correct. According to boxrec almost twice as many:
Active Boxers
1950: 12,233
2018: 23,535
Total Bouts
1950: 21,544
2018: 25,953
https://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=101907&start=75

Here's an interesting wrinkle. There were more active boxers in 1950 than in any subsequent year until 1997. According to these numbers we're experiencing a renaissance in boxing popularity here in the twenty-first century. You have to go back to the 20s and 30s to see as many active fighters as now. 1950 was midway through a rapid decline in popularity. For 1946 we have 17,500 boxers in the database. 1930 has more active boxers than any other year in the database with 30,006 fighters and 46,826 bouts, the second highest number of fights in history after 1931.

World Population
1930- 2.07 billion
1950- 2.5 billion
2019- 7.5 billion

Compared to 1950 we've tripled the population and only doubled the boxing talent pool. And since 1930 we've increased the Earth's population 360% while seeing a decline in talent pool of 16%. 84% goes into 360% 4.2 times; so boxing is about 1/4 as popular now as it was in 1930. Compared to 1950 the ratio is about 1.5 so now boxing is roughly 2/3rds as popular as it was in 1950 by percentage of population. End quote.

I thought about making a graph to chart the rise and decline of boxing in terms of talent pool, number of fights, and overall percentage of population but decided that since I can't post images anyway it would be a waste of time.

 

Bad economy = more boxers. Peeps get hungry.

 

Not really, tbh boxing is probably being talked about more now than it has in the last 10 years, especially in the Latin community. Ruiz's name spread like wildfire after becoming the first Mexican HW champ(my guatamalan friend huge fan of his, going next week to watch rematch with him) and there's also Canelo who's a global superstar. I think boxing is transitioning nicely after the Pacquaio/Floyd era, their rivalry and rabid fanbase were honestly the highlight in boxing media from 08-15 that it made boxing sort of into a joke because they wouldn't fight each other for so long while everyone in the UFC always fought the top contenders at all times. HBO only cancelled their boxing program because Showtime wasn't their only competition anymore so they decided to opt out, that doesn't mean that boxing is dead, it's actually going through a renaissance.

 

Not True the sports been coming back a lot of my friends who ive never talked to about boxing talk to me about Wilder and Canelo and Davis Haney and Ryan Garcia are also gaining popularity here too the sports in the best shape its been in since the early 2000's

 

To the general public Boxing lately has dropped to the level of Professional Wrestling. They think its all pre arranged & fixed. Sad part is theyre not completely wrong when you look at some of the judges decisions in big fights. Are they ever dragged up before the Commission to explain them ?? No Theyre back the next day dealing out the same thing. The Commissions have no one regulating them they seem to do as they please. Its a shame because to me boxing is the ultimate sport. It takes a team to prepare a boxer for a fight, but as my old buddy Randall Tex Cobb aptly put it " When that bell rings your support climbs down the steps Its your ass alone on the line in there"

 

Incredible research. At least to me!