With the collapse of Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua and the Terence Crawford vs Errol Spence Jr. undisputed bout, boxing is slowly killing itself.
Boxing promoters or the fighters themselves need to take a good, hard look at why they continually fail to make the battles fans want.
Pay Per View is booming again at the moment. Every significant top-ten fighter seemingly believes they are worthy of campaigning on the paid platform.
It’s the Netflix era of boxing, and it’s not helping the top match-ups get made. Too many platforms, and people want to make money from the boxers.
Why don’t the best boxing matches get made?
But the bigger picture would bring the fact that those top-level boxers could make far more in one fight than a series of fights nobody cares about.
Fury vs Joshua should have gotten over the line. There are no two ways about it. Both Brits lack any other options in their homeland.
As for Spence vs Crawford, the unlikeliness of a new PPV entity snagging the latter makes the collapse even more dumbfounding.
They’ve been in talks for months. So what could have possibly been the hold-up?
It doesn’t bear thinking about and is just another example of why fans are switching off from boxing and moving elsewhere to other combat sports.
Even more shocking is that the current blueprint for the sport will see fans turning to YouTube boxing with the appalling addition of so much Pay Per View.
Although bereft of skills, YouTubers are not charging the earth to view. More importantly, they are not avoiding each other.
YouTube fans ask for a fight between two no-hopers, and they usually get it.
That’s about as much praise as I can give that entity at the moment.
Boxing is broken
Boxing cannot put two fighters the fans want inside the ropes. It’s proving to be mission impossible.
Gervonta Davis vs Ryan Garcia could save the day if that clash gets made, but even that isn’t a certainty.
Out of the five most wanted fights of 2022, we might get one if we are lucky.
Boxing has been broken for some time now. And whether we need a shake-up of promoters or the fighters need more coaching and advice from better managers are questions that need answers.
I’ve been writing about this sport for twelve and a half years and watched boxing for a quarter of a century before that. I’ve never known a time like this where nobody expects a fight they want to get made to happen.
We live off scraps when promoters throw us a bone and expect us to be happy. Well, we are not, and we want the best fights now.
Sort it out.
The views expressed in this article are the opinions of Phil Jay.
WBN Editor Phil Jay has over ten years of boxing news experience. Furthermore, follow WBN on Facebook @officialworldboxingnews, Instagram, and Twitter @worldboxingnews.
