British boxing at the end of an era

It’s really slumped, shame to see. Hearn and Sky went perfectly together, helped the game so much. Mistakes were made and it’s gonna be costly, British boxing will suffer and is already suffering badly.

 

We’ve already had the end of the era about 12 months ago when Eddie went to DAZN.

Today, I’m actually feeling better about the sport. For one, Probelum have gone, which helps to ease the pressureof too many promoters/not enough quality fighters.

We’ve already started to see Matchroom benefit by being able to bolster their stable by recruiting Dickinson & McCormack. I reckon he might sign Shabaz Masoud and Peter McGrail also which is good news and maybe even Sunny Edwards.

Ben Shalom/Boxxer coming in has been a breath of fresh air especially with his willingness to do business with other promoters. He and Warren have already done a few good fights like Joyce- Parker and they are playing ball again with Essuman - Kongo.

Shalom seems to have a plan for cruiserweight which should see some nice fights this year between Okolie, Riakporhe, CBS, Lawall etc. I also like the look of how he is starting to build his cards etc .

Over at Queensbury, we have seen the emergence of George Warren who is now the force behind the company. He is another positive sign of better things to come, as BT cards have taken a pretty drastic improvement and George has delivered the massive Beterbiev - Yarde fight on standard BT.

We’ve also seen him reach an understanding with Eddie during the Fury talks and they have already made fights like Parker - Ryder with minimum fuss. That bodes well for potential cross promotional fights like Yarde - Buatsi in the future.

We have a new star and now a fans favourite in Joe Joyce coming up in March against a top 15 opponent on standard BT.

If Yarde can somehow beat Beterbiev and become unified Champion that would be a big boost to British boxing.

Im expecting Eddie to respond by making Bivol - Buatsi off PPV. He’s also hopefully got Canelo - Ryder lined up for London which is great news.

In general, all 3 promoters know with the reduction of event attendances, they need to improve their cards which they have all started to do & i’m expecting that to continue into 23.

Just some random thoughts which I hope reads coherently.

 

Let's hope it does not end up with a long period in the wilderness like USA Heavyweight Boxing

 

Good points that I agree with. I don't understand people's need to constantly draw scary pictures and give lectures about how bad the state of professional boxing is. I am actually quite positive about the start we get in January and believe that 2023 will be a good year.

 

Another thing is the demographic of bods in this country.

20 years ago the average 20/30 year old etc would relate with say a Ricky Hatton etc. and watch him, go to his fights.

Nowadays they’re more interested in man child personas like KSI.

I’ll get slated for this as well but the black community don’t tend to support their fighters either, so you’ll get someone like Okolie with a world title who couldn’t sell 100 tickets off his own back. Same with Buatsi, Yarde…

 

Interesting point you’ve raised at the end there and I hope the mods don’t hand out bans or prevent a debate that is not race baiting but genuinely quite interesting.

You might be right there. We’ve seen with Khan in the past and now Azim that the Asian fans really get behind Asian Brit fighters and they travel in good numbers to watch them.

Typically the best followings come when fighters align themselves with their local football teams.

 

Yeah your last point is spot on, Conor Benn tried / is trying to do that with West Ham, but you can tell it’s not a genuine thing.

With the race thing, someone like Johnny Fisher has Essex turn out for his fights, whereas Yarde who grew up 10 miles down the road has no-one from his own area / community show up…

 

You are correct when you say we have past that stage but I have to disagree with some points here.

1) Joyce is not a new star. He is 37 years old and probably has 18 months left. And he isn't a star as he could not fill out a stadium.

2) I'm not sold on Ben yet. He isn't lighting the scene alight.

3) To whoever mentioned Fisher being more popular than Yarde, and black people not being interested in boxing. That's nothing new. I have known one black person be obsessed with boxing in my time. It's of no interest to black people really.

4) This thinking that Yarde is a star NEEDS TO STOP. He is like a light heavy version of CEJ. Stepped up against worser opp and failed. Hasn't won a belt. His best win is a Brit level guy. When he loses, which he will, I don't see anything out there but retirement. A 7 year pro with no marquee wins or a belt, Buatsi won't fight him, and the belts will be tied up in a unification for a while.

Whyte and Del don't have long left, Neither does Tyson, and AJ fights once a year and won't get a title for a good while. So the HW era is deffo done.

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing about the race thing, but popular fighters tend to be either really entertaining and good in the ring or are a 'personality' Fisher is in that mould of someone like Hatton or Dave Allen "could have a drink with him at the pub" "just one of the lads" owns a chip shop says "bosh" a lot which was the public seem to love. Bruno was also massively popular because of his personality and to a lesser extent Nigel Benn. Yarde doesn't really have that but neither does someone like Callum Johnson for example, boxed at a high level, but never a big draw.

 

I get what you’re saying as well, I just thought the likes of Okolie, Yarde or Buatsi (all quite different characters) would appeal to some section of their community at least. Same way Fisher does with his community, without going too deep into the race side.

Johnson always struck me as a fairly miserable character, and openly admits he don’t like like boxing, so I can see why he wasn’t exactly shifting tickets…

 

Britain definitely does have a fascination with a working class hero, more than other places.

It is a worrying time. There isn’t really any flag bearers coming through the system as far as I can see.

 

If the last 10 years was the Matchroom/Sky area, what were the previous ones?

Late 90s to 2012 or so - no real standout, boxing in decline
Late 80s to late 90s - even split with Warren, Matchroom and assorted others - migration from terrestrial to Sky
70s to 80s - Cartel and BBC?

 

To be honest I get just as much enjoyment out of watching a great Ukranian, Mexican or American fighter as I do a British fighter. A lot of the British boxers are tits and I'm happy to see them lose lol. Probably an unpopular opinion but it's never been a sport where I get overly invested over national pride.

Having said that it is great to have big shows in the UK so from that perspective it's sad to see the British talent well dry up so to speak. Part of me feels like its an issue with boxing globally though, not just the UK. A lot of the big stars are over the hill or overly protected. We've definitely been in a run for a couple of years now.

You'd like to think all the big Joshua/Fury/Matchroom shows over the past decade have inspired the next generation of Furys and Joshua's to give us some big fights 10 years down the road.

 

People in general don't like that gangster road man shite.