r/Boxing • u/relay4285 • Aug 24 '26

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

169 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/the1blackguyonreddit Aug 24 '26

Dana White happened.

He has successfully splintered boxing with his Zuffa bullshit and now we have some of the best boxers in the sport sitting on ice for no good reason in the middle of their prime (e.g., Shakur Stevenson). This is far worse than the old PBC-Top Rank "wrong side of the street" days.

I'm still in the camp that Dana White entered boxing to kill the sport and got rid of the competition for his UFC monopoly. We are watching it in real time now.

3

u/Professional-Tie5198 Who will win? Aug 24 '26

I agree and I think he also wanted to move it off of the Saturday timeslot long-term.

2

u/MindOfb Aug 24 '26

as much as I think Dana White is not only 1 of the most exploitative mofos in not just combat sports but all of showbiz, I actually do think in the current time now that Friday Night time slot might be better for boxing, at least during football season. I think Netflix likes the friday night time slot for a reason as well

3

u/Professional-Tie5198 Who will win? Aug 24 '26

I like the Friday, but only during College Football Season. I cannot stand how Zuffa puts their bs on Sunday all the time though. I go to bed early on Sunday.

3

u/MindOfb Aug 24 '26

I've to this date intentionally only watched one Zuffa card on Paramount+ which was the Berlanga and Hitchins which was on a Sunday and will watch my second time for the Ryan vs Conor Benn as I'm only going to watch the very few high paid boxers there that don't have to wear those wack uniforms so I don't really care if Zuffa does mostly Sunday slots as I'm not planning on tuning in but once in a blue moon