Ruining Boxing
We as fans know what we would like to see and what we do not want to see. Promoters, Networks, and fighters seem to not care. So here we go.
We do not want to see women competing in the sport of boxing on the same cards as the men. Less action, less knockout’s, and overall less abilities defines their competitions. Men’s boxing matches are hard enough to sell and have been for over a century. Women hurt this even more, they should have their own fight leagues. The problem with women competing is two fold. First, they are not good in comparison to men. Second, the fan viewership does not exist and therefore the advertising incentives do not exist. While a handful of women combatants have been successful the vast majority have not been. So hand the reins over to the Katie Taylors and Claressa Shields of the boxing world. It would be a perfect way to empower these ladies. Shannon Knapp was able to create Invicta FC for womens mma. Womens boxing should do the same for their ladies.
Moving on, the next main issue is sanctioning bodies. These organizations literally do not not care at all or if they do it’s for themselves only. The rankings mean little to nothing, and the belt’s are not worth much more. They labeled one man the “Pride Champ”, that is an insult to his masculinity and the lgbt community as whole. What ever it takes to keep the checks flowing, but it’s a slap in the face of boxing fans. There are regular belts, super belts, European belts, South American belts, silver belts, and even franchise belts. It’s a bunch of nonsense, between the four sanctioning bodies there are hundreds of belts. Hundreds of champions when there should be no more than 15 in the entire sport. A Highlander once said “there can be only one”, he was right, one per division, no more than that, ever! For over two decades there has been no undisputed heavyweight champion.There are no excuses, no reasons, and no way that should ever happen. Why have boxing at all if no one can win?
Lastly, we will come to the chess vs checkers talk that has become so prevalent. THIS IS BOXING! Modern fighters like to say they are playing chess instead of checkers when asked about certain opposition. It makes no sense or cents, literally or figuratively it only hurts their marketability now and in the future. If you choose to go into combat sports, we expect you to compete in combat. It’s really not too much to ask. If you would like to compete in chess there are state and national competitions that go on yearly. Follow your dreams. Boxing is not for the daydreamers, it’s for the highly motivated. And we as fan’s expect to see highly motivated fighters dominating, entertaining, and even sometimes losing. The fan is looking for “Texas no limit poker”, not the “go fish” game that has become so prevalent in the boring 20’s of boxing.
Get the fans support, get the promoters on board, or get run out of business. The illegal streams are not going anywhere, nor should they. Either the product gets better or streams get better. The streams are much better! The streams have multiplied many times over as well. Now it’s the promoters and the competitor's job to multiply their products many times over as well. Get to work boys.