The one thing that hacks me off is the paying fans have to watch on TV and can no longer attend Fury v Usyk type fights. The loot grabbers selling their soul to this murderous regime.
Must have been his last fight where his boxing looked a cross between a peak Marvellous Marvin Hagler with the power of Harry Styles.
Saudi's have bought Golf, Tennis, Boxing and making serious moves into F1 and Football. The World Cup will be at the Home of Murder and Limb Removal soon along with the FA Cup.
I'm in two minds about the Saudi 'takeover' of boxing. In the 'pro' camp - they're seemingly making fights that were previously unmakable. If all goes to plan, by the end of the summer we'll have seen Fury-Usyk and Bivol-Beterbiev, as well as several Queensberry v Matchroom bouts. On the downside - UK boxing has been crap this year so far because all attention taken by the Saudi fights. Some good UK scraps that would have been UK headliners are on their undercards which is bad. Acid test is going to be when these boxers who have been put out in Saudi fall out of contract with Queensberry / Matchroom etc. Will the Saudis become bona fide promoters in their own right? What don't you like about the LIV format?
Long term it's going to ruin the sport as it's not a sustainable model. We got beterbiev vs bivol though.
The shotgun starts are the main problem for me, completely kills the suspense and excitement of players going down the 18th needing a certain score. Then that team game they've incorporated in to it is just totally pointless.
Be interesting what money fighters like Mark Chamberlain is getting for this? Could it make a fight in the UK seem like pocket change? If so it could really kill the UK shows.
I hate LIV Golf and all matchplay tripe including Ryder Cup. Nothing better than 72 holes in strokeplay format.
The shotgun starts and the leaderboard pylon are genuine innovations for me. The movements are more dramatic and I like the way things can change in a matter of seconds with the players all on the course together. Knowing for example that the leaders are always playing simultaneously increases the suspense - no more "clubhouse leader". Frankly I feel I see more golf on a 4-5 hour LIV broadcast than I do in a 12 hour day on the European / PGA Tour. Partially agree on the team thing. It does feel a bit forced at times and there's only a handful of the captains who seem to take the team element seriously. That said, the Team Championship is a good idea, it does make sense to have more of a Ryder Cup end of season event on a tour, and I thought it worked well last year. Some critics have suggested that the teams need to become national teams. There's already Aussie and South African teams, and an almost fully British team, so perhaps that's the route forward to make the team concept a bit grippier.
Watched for 10 mins the other night on DAZN UK and lost interest quickly. No idea what the teams are called, who is in each team and cannot see me ever being interested in watching this tripe. Very impressed that Johnny Rahm jumped ship to this garbage as he was attracted by the team element and not the £500m signing on fee. Saudi parasites
And this is the dilemma for proper boxing fans. Money finally makes fights that probably wouldn't have happened, but only on the money's terms. As I said elsewhere, would it hurt Saudi to host some of these events somewhere else, and plaster them in Aramco logos? Americans must hate the fact boxing was their thing for years, now it's second-rate compared to UK promoters and Saudi money about 8 time zones out of the way.