I've just noticed every time I see a press release saying X will fight Y I roll my eyes cause I expect it to fall through.
Based on my experience. 50% of them are just marketing and there was never any intention of making them. 20% of them fall through because one or both the fighters do not want it. 5% fall through due to a genuine injury or failing a PED test. So about 25% actually happen....
Also when the fight falls through people don't comment on it falling through. Its like a weather forecast being wrong.
It just shows how iffy it can get when dealing with a bunch of independent contractors. Even the most well intentioned promoter can follow all the rules. But he's often dealing with fighters and managers who did poorly in school, don't like to follow rules, and have large egos that cover for major insecurities. In purse bid situations, you can win the bid to host a fight, offer the fighters the agreed upon price, find a venue, sign deals with the location, find hotels for the participants, and the boxer is told not to follow through. Even if you manage to put a whole card together, successfully advertise it, the whole deal, boxers will show up and fail to make weight, throwing everything out of whack in the eve of the show. I've known a number of new promoters who attempted to get into the business because they were big fans, and they ran ran screaming after they tried to put on even one show. How some promoters are able to stage regular cards that do reasonably well still surprises me. Smaller cards can be hard to put together because so little money is being paid to participants that they feel they owe you nothing. But the total amount can be high for the promoter staging it. Even when you have unlimited funds, like Turki does, boxers still show up and don't make weight, give no effort, or need to be replaced last minute. Boxers are notorious for being unreliable. But you are dealing with people and often their families who grew up in unstable situations. And you are relying on a whole group of them to hold it together for one night and put on a good show.
Some fighter's managers offer a shortlist of 3 to 5 'likely' opponents and then the media and boxing forums run with each particular name as if he'll be 'the guy'. After all manner of speculation, the ultimate opponent ends up being none of the names nominated, and then pulls out due to a sparring injury. Another layer of speculation begins about who the short notice replacement will be. Welcome to boxing.
This sounds like farming subsidies. Or rather click farming subsidies. You've basically got a system where you're letting people farm fake news.
Boxing wasn't always like that. Back in the day, sure some of the big fights fell through, especially more likely the higher up you went. But not as bad as nowadays. And at regular contender level the fighters needed to fight to pay the bills, and fight often. The opposite seems true now, they keep the contenders out of the ring waiting for a bigger offer. They're virtually all in a semi retired state.
