20 Years on; the slow, painful, bitter death of boxing

Anyone who followed the sport during the late 80's and 90's in the US got a good fill of boxing on basic cable TV. I know its talked about alot, but the USA Network had Tuesday night fights every tuesday and the fights were excellent for the most part, showcasing all the up and coming talent as they moved into contention as well as some very good title matches. This along with the occasional ESPN telecast and more fights on non PPV HBO and Showtime kept the fight fan dialed into the boxing world and kept things fresh and exciting.
Now its all about PPV. Fighters are looking to navigate their careers the safest way possible so that they can score a couple of HBO spots and then possibly cash out on a big PPV just as we saw Clottey this past weekend. In Clotteys mind he had already won as soon as he inked the contract. He could careless about the fight.
Apparently the boxing programming on USA was profitable but the new guy who came into charge didnt like boxing so he scrapped the whole series. Foolish really, and ESPN has never filled that gap putting boxing on a night that most boxing fans dont seem to be watching TV or willing to sacrifice a night out for. They would be smart to move their programming to Tuesday night in my opinion when most people are at home and not going out as it was always looked at as more of a secondary series of boxing not an event like the big fights always were.

 

Shut up you daft ****. Cricket is an older and better sport than baseball. Soccer

As for dart, yes it's a shitty sport. And soccer has indeed become a game full of fairies.

 

Its simple boxers want too much money, therefore its not good business to put them on TV. Then when boxing is on TV, the likes of Warren put on sub sandard shows as did Audley Harrison while fleecing the BBC for 1million a fight. The TV producers dont know enough about boxing to force the promoters to make a good show

The shows dont get big audiences because they are **** quality, the TV company gets burned and stops putting on boxing