Feelings about the current state of boxing?

I think that the "Money" hangover is slowly dissipating and some of the youngsters are actively refuting that mindset by their actions. It appears to me that there are up and comers that want to be legit great at least as much as they want to be rich and famous. I'm actually kind of optimistic.

 

I actually think the state of boxing has improved quite a bit over the past year or two. The COVID era of 2020 was the low point for me in my history as a fan.

 

I think the quality of fighters have been better, but fights are bring made again with a little less ducking and dodging

As long as the best start/keep fighting the best then it can only improve

I certainly remember it being in a better state, but it has definitely moved in the right direction in recent times

 

Post-Covid boxing has been in a relatively good place.

The Saudis have positively impacted the sport, bringing Hearn and Warren together, and incentivising better matchups by giving fighters big purses. I don't think it will be like the early days of DAZN which was a bubble that eventually burst, because the Saudis are government-backed by their sovereign wealth fund so they'll be here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Boxing also needs big stars, and there have been quite a number of big stars in the post-Floyd/Manny era - Canelo, Fury, AJ, Tank, Ryan are the most known by casuals, even guys who aren't huge celebrities like Usyk, Inoue, Bivol etc get quite a lot of social media attention when they fight too. I've noticed my casual friends are watching more fights and asking me about boxing more.

 

If only HBO Boxing returns...

 

I think it’s in a good place. The sport is more international than it used to be and the Saudis have done a pretty good job so far in getting us the fights we want to see. Unifications are more common now too.

 

There doesn't seem to be many PPV stars, the ones that are PPV stars like Canelo, Crawford, Fury, Wilder have the exit door in their sights.

It's a blow to the sport for whats going on with Garcia because it looked like he was on the verge of crossing over, maybe in time he still might.

 

It's about to be in a better place with the Saudis willing to bring the money to the table to make big fights happen.

 

The Saudis have good idea in theory, the best fighting the best all of the time.

There’s an issue though, if the best fight the best all of the time, the stars of the sport will start dropping like flies because they’ll start losing and their careers will be shortened. Now that’s fine if you have a great feeder system creating new boxing stars every year but that isn’t the case, as I mentioned in a previous post, there’s only a handful of PPV stars and half of them are on the way out.

The best fighting the best all of the time theory could potentially wipe out all top-level boxing PPV studs. It could be the equivalent of snorting several lines of cocaine in quick succession, it’ll be great whilst it lasts but it might not be a sustainable approach.