Dana White announces Zuffa Boxing will have its own belt and will NOT recognize the other bodies

They should add that qualifier then instead of just throwing around boxing is dying

What they mean to say is its down in US

Some of that is just inevitable, all those decades where US dominated were also the decades all the soviet bloc talent couldn't turn pro. All the guys who are/were champs at the higher weight classes like Bivol, Usyk, Beterbiev, Janibek wouldn't have been pro before collapse of USSR unless they fled & in their place some American or Canadian may have been dominating which may have strengthened boxing in those 2 countries but would degrade it on a world level

Japanese boxing has arguably been stronger than it is right now

 

True. They view the sport through an American lens, but we cant really fault them for it given the history of the sport.

Yes and no. When the Soviets and many Europeans could not turn pro, they still competed in the amateurs. Who else was in the amateurs? The Americans of course, and they did very, very well. So its not as if they got their asses handed to them in the amateurs but then dominated in the pro ranks. The Americans had a very strong amateur system and also a strong professional system.

The Eastern-Europeans still perform at a very high level in the Amateurs, but the Americans are only getting worse and worse. IMO the sport is clearly in a steep decline in the US, and so on all fronts.

Maybe, but they have been on a tremendous run for a couple of decades now.

 

You could have said the same thing about the IBF when they popped out of the cornflake packet in 1983. One year later, their inaugural heavyweight champion was who?

....Larry.

and who else has since held that 'new' IBF belt since?

....Iron Mike, Evander, Riddick, George, Lennox, Wlad, Tyson Fury, Usyk.

 

There are many talented fighters outside the UFC but the UFC was the first organisation so it has most of the prestige. In boxing the alphabet belts have most of the prestige and that will not disappear. I personally think for this to work it would take decades to build up name value or they’d have to buy up the existing sanctioning bodies and turn it into this new proposed Zulfadli organisation.

 

Remember when the pbc tried that **** and the wbc ran up and put the belt on the winner

 

Great post in summing up the current state of US boxing

The fracturing of TV and entertainment definitely hurts. I think boxing moving to something like Netflix would be great because that's where young people generally go to watch TV. Network and cable TV are dying and I don't think bringing boxing there is a long term solution

Right now I think the sport has two major buckets to draw fans from. Potential boxing fans, young men who might be curious about the sport but just don't have the desire to seek it out. These are the fans who may see it on Netflix and throw it on to watch out of curiosity. The other group is lapsed boxing fans. Guys who watched it in the past and haven't kept up with the different streaming services or got fed up one way or the other and stopped watching. I think Ring and Turki tried to get these fans with nostalgia moves like bringing back Lampley and Kellerman and bringing back the print edition of Ring Magazine

At this point I really don't know what is going to take the sport back to the mainstream. I just think there is a total lack of US star power, not talent but big name crossover stars

 

I don't understand why people are fixated on TV still. I hardly ever watch TV & get all my entertainment from internet (I am a millennial)

As you said Netflix is a much better platform for catching the young people. In that sense Jake Paul & his freakshows might be doing some good since he was the first on Netflix, that freakshow against Tank has a good fight in Hiraoka vs Russell, imagine casuals tune in for the freakshow but end up seeing legit boxers put on a great show

UFC was in talks with Netflix but chose Paramount because Netflix told them they are looking for big events not weekly apex slop

 

I do not think the UFC chose Netflix over Paramount. I think they couldn't get a deal with Netflix and Paramount was their only option. There is a decent chance Paramount plus does not survive the duration of the contract.

 

Paramount is dying

And it is no threat to the Status Quo at all.

 

This is a weird way to frame it. Netflix wanted the 12-13 numbered cards per year, thats still far more than their boxing content. They've had 4 boxing cards this year and 2 of those were Jake Paul cards. They were willing to commit much harder to the UFC than boxing, but the UFC (stupidly imo, but it is what it is) turned them down.

Also the "weekly Apex slop" is for the most part still better than the usual Top Rank, PBC or Matchroom card. They havent even been at the Apex since August lol.

 

This is wishful thinking. The UFC is a far more valuable property to have on a network/streaming service than boxing. Like I said above, Netflix wanted the monthly (formerly PPV) cards but not the weekly Fight Night cards, but the UFC didnt want to split their content between multiple networks, Paramount also took Zuffa Boxing as part of the deal.

 

Wowwwwww not in apex since August, just 5 years after the pandemic, amazing achievement!

Good for you if you find apex weekly slop better than boxing cards, I don't

The 2 parties wanted different things, Netflix wanted formerly PPV events but UFC wanted to give them both the big events + weekly apex slop, so couldn't come to an agreement. So Netflix also turned down what UFC offered them

 

I hate the Apex too, but its not "weekly", or even close.

The non-PPV cards are only slop relative to what long time MMA fans were spoiled with by back in the day, not random Top Rank and Matchroom cards.

Right, so why are you trying to paint it as a negative for the UFC? they could have had the deal if they wanted it, and it would have resulted in them getting far more content on there than boxing gets, with no Youtuber fights in sight. Instead they signed a 7 year near $8billion deal with someone else.