What's wrong with boxing fans today?

Too many mismatches and boxers who arent willing to fight the best has turned fans off the sport somewhat, especially now that MMA is rising. At least with that you get to see more fighters evenly matched fighting.

 

Yes. Completely.
As has been said, mismatches and meaningless fights just hold no interest.

You wouldn't pay to see your footy team in an exhibition match that had absolutely no consequence, no bearing on the actual season.
And you wouldn't pay to see them play against the under 12's.
But unfortunately this is what we get served up in boxing all the time.

 

Firstly, great cards are your average card in Vegas or something. We simply don't get 'great' cards here. We might be lucky to get a good card made up of evenly matched fights with our top tier fighters but even then it'd only take 3 cards for them to all have fought each other (from their respective weight divisions).

This would have a lot to do with it. How many great fights have you seen on Aussie cards lately. Typically you need 'great' fighters to put on a great fight I guess. My argument there is guys like Geale have excellent fights to watch live etc, but it takes guys truly at the top to make them great.

This to a degree. It's not often you see a young Aussie boxer climb the ranks obliterating everyone put in front of them locally. The standard is usually far below - i.e. losing to a lot of subpar Aussies doesn't do well for your hype or journey to the world stage. I remember seeing every Tszyu fight I could when he first came out here. You just knew he was gonna take it. Same with Kats - when he fought out at Panthers or more towards where I could get to I'd try and be there.

This too. Needs to change. There simply is none. Boxing, in Australia anyway, survives on the fact that it is boxing. There's no promotion, there's no television advertising (hardly anyway), people who know about it, follow it etc have to chase it to get some of it. It survives on it's own merits (that is, being the best sport ever! )

No, it needs more support, from the inside and out. People want it, it's just not fed to them properly and has little to no growth whatso ever at the moment.

IMO, World Title fights and mega-grudge matches. I would also pay to see a good national title card once a year. For example and "Aussie vs Brits" "Aussie vs US" "Aussie vs Mexican" nights. Give people something to get invested in watching and make them come back each year by making it annual or something.

Overall the state of boxing in this country is poor. It's got hardly any fans because of that so it doesn't grow, it's poorly run and poorly promoted. Our limited population doesn't help either.

I could be talking out of my ass, but people need to be more emotionally invested to become more interested in your average card. Look at the Ashes for example. If there was one sport I knew more people who 'hate to watch' than boxing, it'd be cricket. But you give people a rivalry (England) something to measure glory by and play for (tiny jar of ashes) and every man, woman and their dog's, dog's dog are scrambling for a ticket.

It also helps to know the fighters your following and invested in might actually go somewhere... that if they fight and continue to win, they might be fighting the elite and you can see your investment taking on the whole world. If lucky, he'll be able to call himself the best. Most of our fighters have zip chance of doing so. Even nationally.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I'd like to attend more cards but just don't have the personal investment to turn up to every reasonably big fight card out there.

 

Ash, there are a number of issues but primarily I'd like to see promoters start to use all available mediums to promote a fight and get the interest back at the grass roots level.

You can have the best burger joint in town but if nobody knows about it the punters will stick to McDonalds.

 

All good questions Ash - and you've answered many of them yourself above.

Things that deteriorate over a period of decades (like boxing has), can't be fixed overnight, and the responsibility for the implementation of improvement starts at the top.

The greedy, grubby powerbrokers overseas will never walk away from all the bull**** organisations they've created that have only succeeded in watering down the sport to about the level & credibility of pro wrestling.

Likewise, one or two greedy powerbrokers here need to change their ways - as pointed out in the other thread currently running.

The resonsibility for change starts with the guys making all the money from the sport. Not the little battlers who are just trying to organise a kid a fight.

 

personally, i like to watch in the comfort of my home, where i can drink beer & pass out as soon as its over.

 

Apart from AFL i think crowd numbers for all sports have declined in this country. I've been offered tickets to SOO in league, Mundine boxing tickets, free tickets to Randwick races etc and still won't go.

I can get a great coverage sitting at home drinking my own **** at a cost of about $1.50 a schooner, why wld i want to pay $6 and have the discomforts from attending these events.

Example:
Mundine fight the other night, you wouldn't get home until after 1am and it's on a Wednesday night. Not only that but transport is a problem trying to get cabs from Acer arena.

Leave me out.

 

Poor matchups, poorly promoted, lack of media coverage (or favourable coverage) pricey tix compared to other things people can do.
Over the top RSA and smoking bans keep alot of people I know at home.
Using the Geale fight as an example, my tix said they were $130 and if I had paid that I would have been extremely shitty. The arvo dragged on late stuffing up other plans of ours, and there was f all food and drinkwise to buy, what was there was at obscene prices, although it is a bit like that everywhere nowdays. If it wasn't for Geale getting the KO I would have been very grumpy.

 

To put it simple Ash..........real boxing fans are sick n tired of all the bull**** that goes on in boxing today. Promoting so called 'world champions' calling them '2 & 3 time champs', when they in fact never beat the champion that held the belt, thus making it all bull****. Then the so called scoring that goes on in fights. Just look at yesterday when a legend of the sport is denied a historic achievement by a judge who thought he'd give a 10-10 rd when the others didn't. Bring back the 15 rounders I say. Thats why the cage fighting will eventually draw most people away from the sweet science & thus you will be left with the minority of die hard fans.

 

Yeah, all of the above sums it up.

What is wrong with boxing fans? They aren't getting anywhere near the best version of their favorite sport

 

Nailed it in one Pork Chop!

 

I reckon there are two levels of boxing in OZ in terms of who watches and what events get press.

Greeen - Mundine - Katsidis etc if he fought here. These guys are sold soley on the main event - the boxing fan will attend, BUT it is these nights that are the only ones to attract "main stream" sports fans. So they can get the 3000+ crowds. They get press but usually only about the main event. So the undercard is usally poor.

The other level is the local/club shows and the shows like ours. The crowd is predominately hard core boxing fans and the fighters own fan base - which come from his immediate family, his gym and the people who sponsor/support him. These shows on a great night attract 1000 - 1500 max. The press and media steer clear unless you have a great relationship with a journo and then its limited as to what goes in or gets shown because they are limited with space these days. The local "throw on your lawn" papers support fighters from their local area only.

Half of the crowd are there only to see one person fight. The rest of the time is spent outside smoking - at the bar drinking or just socialising. Should that fighter not fight next time - they would not attend.

Its a bad case of catch 22 - Usually the top line fights Mundine etc arent worth watching but get all the press - whereas the local club main event and undercard are full of great fights but get no press and a lot less fans to see it.

Hard one to solve!!!

 

Very true Brian.:deal