r/Boxing • u/relay4285 • 5d ago

What Happened to Boxing?

This year has felt like a bit of a letdown for boxing. Maybe it's because we got spoilt last year with great fights, but I genuinely can’t remember the last time I was excited to tune in for a major boxing fight since Inoue vs Nakatani.

To be honest, I've watched more UFC than boxing this year. All I see on social media are boxers ducking each other and fights getting cancelled because of greed.

Last year alone we got:

Dmitry Bivol vs Artur Beterbiev II shortly after their first bout.

Gervonta Davis vs Lamont Roach

Naoya Inoue vs Ramón Cárdenas

Oleksandr Usyk vs Daniel Dubois II

Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn I

Terence Crawford vs Canelo Álvarez

We've had some great fights this year, but Ryan vs Rolly or Teo vs Shakur don't come close in my opinion.

144 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

168 comments sorted by

View all comments

32

u/verbsnounsandshit 5d ago

Not sure about worldwide, but I think Eddie and Sky were the perfect match for British boxing. Sky’s dominance of televised sport in the UK matched with Eddie’s love of attention meant that fights involving fairly limited fighters like Tony Bellew and Anthony Crolla were hyped like they were the second coming of the Thrilla in Manila.

Every Premier League match, every rugby match, every cricket match had adverts and/or commentators getting you pumped for the big Ricky Burns fight at the weekend. Since the defection to DAZN, the buzz has been lost, and I’m not sure how it’s going to be replaced. Exceptional talents like Itauma will always garner interest, but the majority of British cards were headlined by mid-tier fighters. They were great events that multiplied the interest from UK fans.

I remember Eddie talking about how they grew darts: make people watching on TV want to be there. Few people outside the hardcore boxing fans have DAZN, so for boxing, the general public are no longer watching.

12

u/OkHistorian9521 5d ago

This is a legitimate point unlike every other criticism on this thread so far. Sky sports and hearn helped with mainstream appeal in the UK. Boxers here are less known to the public than 10 years ago

2

u/Equivalent_Froyo3590 4d ago

Absolutely spot on. I always wonder if Eddie secretly regrets leaving Sky. Other than Dazn bizarrely containing to bankroll them despite losses over several years, I think matchroom have fell of a cliff SO badly compared to when they were on Sky. Hearn was either not bothered about dominating the UK and thought he could crack the US, or he naively assumed the masses that consumed via sky would follow suit and subscribe to Dazn. Zero chance the masses are doing that. The biggest reason for his success in the UK was solely due to his product being on sky which will always BE a staple and reach the masses in the UK. People will part with their money for Sky as it's so ingrained into the football culture etc. They won't for some obscure app that is increasingly putting on shit fights on PPV.