Where does Prizefighter go from here?

Tough times ahead for boxings ‘Prizefighter’ series

Back in 2008 boxing Promoter Barry Hearn came up with boxing tournament called Prizefighter.The fights consisted of 8 boxers fighting in a knockout style tournament with the unique selling point being that all fights are only 3 rounds long. This at the beginning not only attracted hardcore fans, but appealed to a casual audience.

Since it’s iteration into the boxing mainstream and 16 carnations of the tournament, prizefighters initial wow factor has worn off and British boxing fans are becoming disillusioned with the quality of prizefighter.

The most recent Prizefighter featured a final where Sam Couzens a replacement for the injured Tony Dodson got put into the final where he was thoroughly outpunched and outclassed Travis Dickinson to end what was a thoroughly disappointing night of boxing.

Throughout the event, each fight was marred with head butts and poor quality, with the one shining light Tony Dodson disappointingly getting cut meaning he couldn’t continue. Whilst Travis Dickinson was a worthy winner he was never ever challenged in any of his three bouts due to the poor opposition infront of him.

Prizefighter is supposed to be an exciting unpredictable affair that keeps boxing fans at the edge of their seats, on Saturday it was anything but. When a commentator says “It’s been a strange night of boxing” what he is actually doing is reluctantly admitting on air that the hype hasn’t lived up to the event.

With most of the weights in British boxing having almost two prizefighter events each, we’re seeing the same boxers re-enter the event for the second time. In the next Prizefighter“The super-middleweights” Carl Dilks is making his second appearance after losing previously in the semi finals. Do the fans really want to see the same fighters in the same event over and over?

What the fans deserve is good local boxing events where the undercards are deep and full of intriguing match ups. Three rounds of boxing do not tell you about a fighter’s true ability and mental characteristics, which are best shown over twelve gruelling rounds of hard hitting action.

Last year saw some very good Frank Warren PPV shows which despite the PPV status, had seven fighters in twelve round fights against equally matched opponents, why can’t that be done on a regional level on SkySports on a Friday replacing prizefighter for the next couple of years.

Barry Hearn has undoubtedly made alot of money out of Prizefighter, and his cash cow has started to run out of milk, what he should be thinking is how to promote bigger and better events so he can compete with Frank Maloney and Frank Warren.

It’s an interesting dilemma that Hearn now faces, does he carry on Prizefighter despite its waning appeal, does he have an ace up his sleeve to re-invent the brand, or will there be a break from Prizefighter altogether for a couple of years? All of those are big decisions that Hearn will have to decide over the next six months.

It’s great that Hearn he came up with an original idea to make boxing appeal to a casual audience, but the most important audience that boxing can’t lose is the hardcore fan. It is imperative to the survival of the sport to not lose those who are the real long term fans of the sport; somehow boxing has to find a way to attract the casual sports fan, whilst keeping the armchair fan happy at the same time.

 

Barry Hearn surely can't continue this for the next two years, maybe a supersix style british tournament might be the next way forward for up and coming fighters who if they win perhaps get a world title eliminator fight? or if they're lucky a world title fight depending on how well they did in the tournament.

I understand Hearn is trying to re-invent Boxing along with snooker to attract the casuals to the sport, but casuals are interested in the best fights being made, it doesn't look good for the casual fan seeing the increasingly lacking quality of boxing in the prizefighter series.