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Boxing > General Boxing > Whats Wrong with Boxing?

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March 19, 2012, 09:33 AM

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I got this from my twitter feed (@ncshvdavid)

@stevemaxboxing: So 50,000 tix sold for ****-Mormeck, huh? I guess #boxing isn???t dead where there aren???t TV packagers and Indian casino???s.

This was RT???ed to me on my twitter from a from a friend whom is a huge boxing guy. Will (@RingRulers) cares a TON about boxing, even more than MMA, even though he promotes both.

I DM???ed him back that I thought that once my generation is dead, the only fans boxing will have are Hispanics in the Southwest.

Strange to say, he agreed with me.

Coming from a man that has done far more for the sport of boxing than plunk down 59.95 every few months, I was a bit stunned that even he thinks boxing may become marginalized.

Why is that?

Let me say first off, I???m going to have to compare the sport to MMA, since they are after the same market, and direct competition.

Problems Boxing has.

Promoters.

Don King is one of the best talkers in history. The man can get you interested in watching a sack race at a family reunion. That said, DK has a tendency to overshadow his fighters and even damage them. If King and/or Arum can make an extra dime, even at the cost of a fight or six months of a fighters prime, they will. Ali fought **** fighters from time to time, but it kept him busy.

We don???t see them!

Ali fought four times at the age of 29, and SIX times at the age of 30, four again at 31, and only twice at 32. Mayweather, in contrast, fought 5 times in that age span, Mayweather, in fact, has only fought more than twice a year just ONCE since 2001. (He???s 35) Evander Holyfeild fought EIGHT times from 29-32.
Ali not only was a great talker, but was always promoting or reviewing his fights, todays fighters vanish for 6 months after a bout.

We only see the good ones on PPV

Bit of a caveat here, Showtime has done an excellent job of getting good fights, and normally we get replays of fights on premium cable a bit later. But we got the UFC Heavyweight title on free FOX TV, and there are a TON of great fighters we will see without plunking down a day???s pay. We will never see Jon Jones or GSP defend a title, but Strikeforce and Bellator???s champs are on Free-ish TV more than any alphabet boxing champ is.

Worth the show?

Say you buy a Boxing PPV and it ends with an accidental headbutt in the first minute- you???d riot! You wasted a C-note for nothing, since the undercards are normally a waste, and normally not even reported.
UFC 46 had Randy Couture lose his title due to a headbutt, and even though that stunk, fans that night did get to see the premier of GSP, Frank Mir vs Wes Sims, not to mention the semi-main event of Matt Hughes vs BJ Penn. Quite often in the UFC the best fight of the night isn???t the main event. That almost can???t happen in boxing. If I gave you tickets to UFC 150 for April 2013 not even knowing who is on it, you???d be excited, knowing there is going to be at least a few good matchups.
If I handed you a ticket to a Don King Production at Vegas on April 2013, and all we knew is DKP has reserved the space, do you care, not knowing if its Vlad or Maywether? Or even Hopkins? Hatton?
Try and find who was on the undercard of major fights. Heck, on the Hatton vs Mayweather fight, only two fights on the undercard featured fighters big enough for both to have their own WIKIPEDIA page!

Too many titles

WBO,ABC,WBA,IBC,IBF,WBC,NWO,
WNBA plus the Ring?

Add that to the fact that there are a TON of weight classes ??? the WBO has 17 male champions and 18 female champions- some divisions are as small as THREE pounds. Who???s the best? Who knows?
There is no doubt who the best Middleweight in the world, or Welterweight, or Heavyweight etc, even where there is a case to be made- its going to be from a SMALL sample size ??? and one fight can answer most questions. Hard to do that in boxing.

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March 19, 2012 09:35 AM ET

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Records.

Ricky Hatton was 43-0 when he fought Mayweather. How many of those guys did you know? Once he was beaten, he wasn???t the draw, and after his next loss, was out of Boxing. Name me a guy in Boxing with more than 10 losses that wasn???t considered a bum. You matchup 2 fighters with a combined 14 losses, and that???s the undercard. In MMA, that???s Hendo vs Shogun.

Tyson.

I grew up watching Tyson. On USA Network no less. Tyson would comeout, kill a guy and go home. It kind of spoiled a fan. Then I found old Ali fights, old Joe Louis fights, Sonny Liston- heck even black and white title fights where the only sounds were Bert Suger. Then Hagler and Hopkins were killing guys. Even Lennox Lewis only saw 9 scorecards in 41 wins.
No real Finishers

Today? Fighters drop rounds all the time. Mayweather ???dominates??? a guy like Judah- but you see scorecards like 116???112, 117???113, and 119???109? Take the Mayweather/De La Hoya fight- and we get scorecards like this- 116-112, 115-113 (Mayweather), and 115-113 (De La Hoya). Compubox has the stats in Mayweather???s favor as 207 to 122 in total punches and 134 to 82 in power punches, bad judging is rampant in MMA- but combined, Mayweather won 4 rounds more in a dominating win.
This brings me to the big question
Why havn???t the Brothers gained love?

They are not great white hope(s), and its not the boring decisions- they both finish fights )Big V has the second-best KO rate in history) and they fight in the Heavyweight division, not like its two flyweights out there.
Don???t give me the foreign barrier. Lennox Lewis was English, and couldn???t sell water to a man on fire.
So whats the solution?
I just don???t know. Will MMA kill off the sport? Will someone show up that we all care about? Will the one fight we all care about feature the next big thing? Can Showtime save Boxing?

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March 19, 2012 09:35 AM ET

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Bloggers Needed

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March 19, 2012 09:36 AM ET

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Bloggers Needed

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March 19, 2012 09:36 AM ET

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Ignore the 2&3 triple post please

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May 17, 2012 12:08 PM ET

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Too me it seems obvious. The powers that be in boxing have decided to take the sport away from it's fans. When I was a kid, boxing was a regular event on tv, where we saw not only the up and coming fighters every friday night, but also every championship bout...for free.
I saw all the fights of not only fighters like Duran, Ali, Leaonard, Hagler, Holmes, Arguello, Chavez, Lopez, Sanchez, ..(sorry, I could list 50 more champs), but I saw the fights of thier opponents too.
I knew when a big fight was signed, who was fighting and what kind of fight it was likely to be, and I knew the guys on the undercard...and I SAW IT FOR FREE.
Who wants to pay to see a fight between a guy you never saw, and a guy you saw once?
I knew when I saw a fight signed between Cornelious Boza Edwards and Bazooka Limon that it would be a great fight (one of the best I ever saw) because I KNEW those fighters.