I just saw that Tyson and Mayweather will fight an exhibition next year, plus Jake Paul is facing off against Gervonta Davis. When I started to get seriously into boxing in the early 1990s it felt like I had probably come late to a party that had peaked about 10 years earlier. From everything I read and saw, the golden era of the early 1980s when only a max of two belts were on the line and the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran were headlining in Caesar’s Palace might have been 40 years earlier given how little it bore a relationship to what I was watching - an era of 3 or 4 split titles, ‘champions’ avoiding each other or being actively discouraged by the alphabet orgs from meeting. It all seemed a world away from the Fab Four and with Tyson locked up, the heavyweight division seemed to lack excitement too. Fast forward about 30 years and the biggest boxer in the world is a YouTuber, followed by guys who have been retired for 10 (Mayweather) and 20 years (Tyson), one who is knocking on 50 and the other who will turn 60 next year. The 90s suddenly seems like a halcyon era relative to today. Boxing, more than any other sport seems to have the ability to shoot itself in the foot, and often both feet at the same time. And right now, the sport seems to be taking a howitzer to both appendages. So, is this the lowest point in boxing’s somewhat chequered history in terms of its public perception and the overall quality on offer? Or do the 2020s have things to compare favourably with bygone eras like the 80s and 90s? Discuss.
The truth is boxing NEEDS a Dana White central figure. Needs to be only one belt per division. The best need to fight each other and often. We need more ranked men contesting other ranked men for title shots. Then the sport will boom. Till then it will continue to decline because every fighter avoids tough fights to avoid getting an L on their record.
Nature abhors a vacuum; commerce even more so. It's not just about a relative absence of genuine superstars. The more profound impact has come from the loss of that 'Great-for-TV' talent and regular coverage of the same. Fighters like Fletcher, Green, James, and Parker, inspired by Briscoe (who was still featuring himself in the early 80s); Mugabi, Rosario, Camacho, Gómez, Laporte, McCrory, Kenty, and Jimmy Paul --- the list could go on and on. The sport and the networks have somehow managed to extinguish this layer of coverage. Without it, you have no steady continuity of viewership, just one-off interest in the occasional, well-publicized, big-money event. Meanwhile, the point made by @Gazelle Punch in reference to MMA competition is on the nail and supported by the great strides made in that sport and its coverage. It's like White has taken a leaf out of 80s/90s boxing coverage and, not only applied it to current MMA competition, but also consolidated this approach, whereby it presents layers of localized proving grounds and feeder leagues towards DWCS and UFC. The audience is engaged in the storyline of the fighters. It's not just about UFC-level competition. Attempts have been made in the sphere of boxing to try and recapture something similar, but they have been fragmented and have, for the most part, either died out or failed to re-establish a proving ground and mid-tier level. With such a void, mediocrity becomes the new normal; the unpalatable seems palatable. The novelty acts (Jake Paul) can easily talk their way into becoming events, and senior veterans (Tyson) can be recalled to gain traction - in both cases, because promoters see commercial opportunities. But it borders on peddling in the macabre and does no good to the sport, in my opinion - it certainly won't help in its recovery as a regular presence in the living rooms of ordinary fans.
