The state of boxing today.

You are 100% correct and unfortunately it’s often so called boxing fans saying this.
I think the only difference is nowadays the media push narratives that it wants so hard, which tend to manipulate our minds.
like boxing is dead and needs a saviour (enter turki and Dana) or “4 belts are too many, it’s confusing” (enter 5th belt).

 

Hi mate, I personally find it absolutely baffling that these guys need a 12 week camp.

A 12 week camp??

For what?

For who?

It's bizarre.

 

Meh, on one hand, boxing is just a cyclical sport; peaks & troughs. More to the point, boxing has had to adapt to the technological & economic forces that change consumer behaviour. It's still adapting in a way. It's probably gonna continue to evolve/devolve further down the line.

I think the reality of professional boxing is that it's not really that appealing or economically viable as a long term career. As well as being high risk with slim pickings. Like, you'd have thought by now, at the very least, that outfits, sponsors, promoters and managers would've had better (more structured, established, etc.) ways into the sport, more like basketball and football (European kind) where there are scouts, traineeships, links with specific amateur gyms/schools, post competition career (manager, coach, etc.), etc. Professional boxing doesn't seem to give anything back to the amateur system. Professional Boxing has more in common with Hollywood (the acting profession) than a legitimate sport.

What grates me is the lack of media attention given to amateur tournies - regional, national, and international tournaments (outside of the Olympics). Less profile, no journalism on the participants, no advertising or promotion of it, no backing by the big players that make a mint out of the blood sweat & tears that the amateur scene endures. Amateur clubs struggle to stay open and really they're the lifeblood of the entire sport.

Tldr - professional boxing has been slowly dying due to market forces, tech changes and behaviour/tastes changes. But, it's the amateur system that's being killed which is slowly killing professional boxing. Boxing killed itself.

 

PEDs and taking off weight they accrued after sitting on the sidelines for 12+ months.

 

This is a bit delusional. Clearly the sport is not as healthy today in the US as it was in 2013, I dont see how you can argue against it.
Right now most of the cards are on DAZN, an app that is not popular in the US. Also, all of the big US promoters are basically gone too. There are hardly ever any major cards in the US these days.

 

With the economic nature of boxing, the sport will go through natural peaks and troughs. I feel the sport is in a cyclic state whereby when the sport is popular, fighters can demand ever bigger and more unsustainable purses to make the big fights, which leads to a dearth of big fights due to financial infeasibility. As the big fights dry up, the economic power of the fighters dwindle and the big fights become economically feasible again. It is important to note the injection of funds from external sources (ie the Saudi's) can artificially influence this cycle. However on a fundamental level I believe the sport is stable; as long sporting talent enter the sport on a grassroots level then the sport will persist. I think it is an unfortunate truth of boxing that as long as poverty and aimlessness amongst the lower class exists, people will flock to the sport looking for purpose and direction, so in that respect the stream of talent that flows to boxing isn't going to run dry any time soon.

 

I’m not sure boxing is dead, it’s arguably as popular and as “big” as it’s ever been, but its integrity, yeh that’s in the gutter….

 

Good post. I think one of the misconceptions of boxing and most individual sports is that talent correlates with success. Boxing, as with individual sports, music, acting etc are primarily a business offering an entertainment service, almost similar to a self employed contractor on a building site.
Most of the responsibilities of funding your rise, progress and career is your own personal funding or what you can generate.

 

Absolutely. The only thing I'd say as a plus for these individual, egocentric industries is that they do produce creative pieces of work quite consistently (& eccentric characters!).

I'd like to see a return of the WSB semi pro setup. I think the fact that you have fighters representing a team is a really cool idea, and I don't think it needs to be built around nationality. Economically it probably isn't very popular or realistic. I guess we inadvertently get that with promotional outfits but the contractual arrangements don't lend itself to a more team oriented setup. Imagine: 5 fighters from 5 different weights classes called the "Cholo Bangerz" vs the 5 other fighters from "Slick Ricks" team. A card of individual fights with the winning team being whomever wins most individual matches with a winning bonus to the team.

 

From an American perspective, it's been going steadily downhill since the late 90s I would say, and probably before that.

A small part of it is how the pay-per-view companies treat businesses that want to show a big fight. I have a buddy that owns the bar across the street from me, and he said in order to get a big PPV fight they have to pay all these extraneous fees and it's not worth it financially.

 

I don’t agree with boxing thriving in Britain, but it is certain that it will never die.
The truth is a lot gyms are having to diversify to compete and having to offer MMA as an option to generate revenue.
I don’t think there’s a single dedicated boxing gym left in my area.
It’s a case of adapt or die.

 

We literally had this exact thing a year ago with the 5 v 5 matchroom and frank warren it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t the saviour of the sport.
The fact is that we live in a world where the slap championship is a thing, and the fact that boxing is actually competing with that says more about society than anything.
Regardless of how often champions fight or how often the best fight each other, it’s still always about the moments when you get to see pure heart on display, padley v Stevenson, deryevchenko v Mbilli, that’s why I love boxing, you simply don’t get the level of attrition in any other sport.

 

Boxing is the busiest I remember it in Australia, and appears heathy in the UK, continental Europe and Asia. Not sure what happened in the US? What has deteriorated is the level of hype and marketing like the Tszyu boys here for example. Nikita even entered the ring after Dylan Biggs when they fought, even though he was the challenger and Biggs was a reigning regional champion.

 

Crawford and Haneys saynhi