Are you happy with boxing right now?

[pound per pound]

Are you happy with boxing  right now?

Usyk is great, but after him there are several media guys, and what I mean by that is  guys get a lot of press at heavyweight.

Cruiser weight was a hot division a few years ago. Now it is completely deflated.

Which brings me to light heavyweight which was my favorite to watch as the speed, skills ,and power produced some good fights!  It seems like the mega fight may not happen now and if it doest it will feature an old man. After that one star power is thin. 

The middleweight division is absouley about void of talent. This division has not had a down five year period in my year in my lifetime.  Seriously is there a fight here that you look forward too?

The  Japanese bantamweights have been excellent,  but bantamweights weigh ,but 118 pounds and just are my thing  through to be blatantly sexist,  I do appreciate  some of then as waitresses :)

I am not  here to take a dump on my  favorite sport. Enough people do that.  But boxing is ebb and flow and I am worried for the future as there does not seem to be even average talent among the up and comming fighters.  

Am I just grumpy old man or it there some truth to what I am saying?

[Ruthless-RKO]

You've only picked out the bad.

We've never had so many undisputed champions, which means all belt holders have actually been fighting each other.

Yes Canelo and Crawford and Usyk are still the undisputed in their divisions if you ask me.

We're always gonna have fights people don't want to see, but we're getting good ones too.

[Jeff_lacy_ko]

Boxing is terrible as a whole and has been on a steady decline since the 70s. The decline has accelerated rapidly with the rise of mma as the money combat sport

There are still some great fighters, but the depth of mist divisions is paper thin

[giacomino]

Are you happy with boxing  right now?

Usyk is great, but after him there are several media guys, and what I mean by that is  guys get a lot of press at heavyweight.

Cruiser weight was a hot division a few years ago. Now it is completely deflated.

Which brings me to light heavyweight which was my favorite to watch as the speed, skills ,and power produced some good fights!  It seems like the mega fight may not happen now and if it doest it will feature an old man. After that one star power is thin. 

The middleweight division is absouley about void of talent. This division has not had a down five year period in my year in my lifetime.  Seriously is there a fight here that you look forward too?

The  Japanese bantamweights have been excellent,  but bantamweights weigh ,but 118 pounds and just are my thing  through to be blatantly sexist,  I do appreciate  some of then as waitresses :)

I am not  here to take a dump on my  favorite sport. Enough people do that.  But boxing is ebb and flow and I am worried for the future as there does not seem to be even average talent among the up and comming fighters.  

Am I just grumpy old man or it there some truth to what I am saying?

Middleweight has been in recent years the worst in my lifetime. There are still some great fighters to watch: Davis, Loma, Crawford, Monster, Bam and Martinez at super fly, several Japanese fighters sub 122 and plenty of good Mexican fighters always coming up sub-147. Lt. Heavy has two great fighters. Jeff is 100% right about depth above welterweight. Below that it’s not terrible, although at some of the weights it’s been better.

[stevec@france]

just seems like the regular ups and downs that boxing goes thru .
we had quite a lot of action earlier this year and summer gone a bit flat .
All thats about to change with the canelo card this wknd and then the big one the wknd after .
Saudis have put rocket fuel up the arses of the promoters and managers to get fights made evn if they maybe dont really fancy putting their guy in vs who turki wants to see but $$$$$ talks and the fighters can now earn mad saudi dosh if they get picked .
I think this will start to rub off soon in the US as more boxers look at what they could earn over there or even in the UK for the right event and so the US promoters will have to pull their socks up or risk losing more of their stable to eddie hearn or allegedly who are clearly well in with turki boy .

[NazNaci1]

The, traditionally, the great divisions, for me, are pretty dead, compared to the late 70's, 80's and 90's.

Heavyweight. Pretty awful, talent-wise. Never seen it this bad, although Uysk is the standout.
Middleweight. Utterly dead.
Welterweights. Same as above, with Crawford moving up.
Featherweight. Ditto
Lightweight - Older Loma and Davies upper tier, Stevenson is ok, but overrated. (peak Lomo was something else).

As some have said, the lighter divisions have some top fighters, Inoue, Crawford, Bam Rodriguez, Loma (still), G Davies.

Canelo is a great fighter, too.

For me, wherever Inoue, Rodriguez, Crawford and Lomo go, it generates a bit of a buzz.

Light heavyweights are pretty good, and I love both Bivol and Berbetiev. Opetaia is handy @CW and there are a few other decent fighters, but in general, the quality, for me, has declined quite dramatically.

Throw in all this Misfits, Youtube vs veteran fighters / no hopers.....which I cannot stand, It's as if it is much, much more about hype these days (which always existed, just not on this level) compensating for far less quality. My opinion on it, anyways.

[babyjesus]

No. But I love boxing. it's a pure sport and if you are not ready then you will be hurt. Ufc is Dana white taking all the money and leaving them with nothing but concussions and days of the past.

[Lenny Cravats]

Yes and no. There's a lot of talent currently, and with AJ, Fury and Dubois, there's some decent UK heavies to get behind.
Loma, Tank, Canelo, Usyk, Crawford and Inoue are all incredible talents that don't come round very often.

Unfortunately, you need deep pockets to watch any of them and they don't fight nearly often enough.

AJ and Fury having not fought each other yet is shocking.

[Lackeos]

I think it might be falling off as far as cash cows and whether they successfully pass the torch. Mayweather's retirement without losing was a blow as far as the lost potential to pass his torch (if he had lost to Spence, and if Spence hadn't gotten in 2 car crashes, and if Spence had been active; then he could've possibly drawn tens of millions more dollars). Saul Alvarez seems to be possibly considering a retirement without passing his torch (and apparently his loss to Bivol didn't help transfer much drawing power to Bivol). Pacquiao's torch didn't successfully transfer to any new cash cow. Usyk dominated the heavyweight division without becoming much of a cash cow in the process and spoiled the potential money of a Fury - Joshua fight.

The Bivol - Beterbiev super fight is being spoiled by them not fighting while Beterbiev ages out of his prime (but I guess they fight next month, so it's kind of okay). The Saudi matchmaking has been cool, but it's produced like 80% upsets, and now everyone has losses on their records and the formerly poor-ranking guys (Kabayel, Parker, Dubois, Zhang) are near the top, but without any sort of undefeated aura about them. Crawford beat Spence, which is amazing, and he's still not a cash cow despite his insane accomplishments. Covid has probably impacted the boxing schedule at times in 2020-21, has impacted the size of live crowds and therefore the amount of money available to stack cards, impacted the logistics of international travel, and canceled / tainted fights by infecting fights 2 weeks before their fights.

Modern promoters don't appear to be stacking-up the cards as deep as they used to prior to 2000, and I think that's harmful for the long-term drawing power of the sport. Stacked cards not only give fans more entertainment value, but it gives each fighter on the card more exposure, as the card draws larger audiences / more ppv buys. Non-stacked cards means fighters are getting less exposure and drawing power, which hurts the buy rates of their future shows, as well as hurts the exposure of everyone else on all the undercards. This and under reasons I think are connected to dwindling size of boxing's fanbase.

One thing I think is good is that there is no longer a duopoly where Top Rank and Golden Boy control half of the fighters and refuse to work with each other. Another good thing is ABC's no longer seem to be trying too hard to prevent unifications / undisputeds.

(Unrelated, but I think it's worth considering a conspiracy theory in which the Saudis are rigging the fights that they're promoting in order to bet big on the underdogs and which huge money that vastly exceeds the purses they're paying. I mean, y'all don't find this really really insane amount of upsets in Saudi Arabia suspicious at all?)

[JxhDel.]

The situation as a whole hasn't been great in the last twenty years, but recent times not even that bad. There are still too many titles and rankings, too many match-ups still to be done, albeit on the latter Saudis have activated the cheat codes and the game is getting going until the gas will run out.

Traditionally great categories cannot compare to their best of times and seem pauperised (heavyweights, middleweights, in some way welterweights have been also losing steam). Surprisingly, some transitional categories have now gained depth and they look competitive (superlights, superwelters and supermiddles).

From lightweight to below, things look good and in some ways have never been better. However, they are not that considered.

MMA is gaining and has gained a lot due to his lesser categories and titles, and it shows.

[gregregegg]

Happyish but concerned.

It’s a big turning point.

canelo, Aj, Fury, Usyk, Loma, Crawford, betterbieve, Spence, Charles, and many more elite guys starting to fade out.

Tank, benivedez, boots, bam, tszyu, shak, Haney, zepeda, fundora, Morrell, opetia, itamu, huni, DDD, Anderson… some solid guys to step in. (Many more too I will have forgot).

My concern is rich fighters are hard to make fight… and it’s hard to take 200k when you might get a pat on the back from the excelent one and make 2 million… so will people just wait for Saudi money.

Also low level boxing sounds tough right now . I really think big promoters need to help out a little bit at small halls (or the excelent one) Putting a few hundred grand loss into sub tv level boxing each year might sound dumb, but it’s the only way boxing will survive long term. Having 20 people making mega millions and hoping to trickle down to the other 20,000 dosent cut it.

[pound per pound]

Happyish but concerned.

It’s a big turning point.

canelo, Aj, Fury, Usyk, Loma, Crawford, betterbieve, Spence, Charles, and many more elite guys starting to fade out.

Tank, benivedez, boots, bam, tszyu, shak, Haney, zepeda, fundora, Morrell, opetia, itamu, huni, DDD, Anderson… some solid guys to step in. (Many more too I will have forgot).

My concern is rich fighters are hard to make fight… and it’s hard to take 200k when you might get a pat on the back from the excelent one and make 2 million… so will people just wait for Saudi money.

Also low level boxing sounds tough right now . I really think big promoters need to help out a little bit at small halls (or the excelent one) Putting a few hundred grand loss into sub tv level boxing each year might sound dumb, but it’s the only way boxing will survive long term. Having 20 people making mega millions and hoping to trickle down to the other 20,000 dosent cut it.

I fell the same way. With the blooded bath and loss of men in Ukraine and Russia they are not  producing any new champions anytime soon.

The Star and Stripes are going to be heard less and less.  

While talent at boxing has always been top heavy, at least it has been for my lifetime, I am alarmed with the overall depth at the top in 2024. It is very thin.  Good fights will be promoted by the Saudi's for the next 2 to 3 years, but after that I think they might fold camel and go into MMA  promotion.

[KiwiRider]

The last 12 months have been pretty great, all that waiting for one princess to fight another finally happened for the most part.
The problem, as outlined by others is the depth and the aging current stars.
And yes, middleweight is dire from what it was ten years and further back to the 70's.

[Perseus]

As long as I get to see entertaining fights I'm ok with boxing.
That's all I care about and I don't expect EVERY fight to be good.

[Tony1244]

No, not at all. Hard to follow fighters who fight once every 2 to 3 years.

[1286809]

No, not at all. Hard to follow fighters who fight once every 2 to 3 years.

I definitely feel very similarly.

This morning I was giving some thought about who Canelo could choose as his next opponent.
"Virgil Ortiz" popped into my head after I had been initially thinking maybe "Madrimov" will get selected as the next Canelo paycheck lottery winner.

Seriously though I'm probably most frustrated with Tank Davis. Well, not him, but his promoters. I don't blame Tank.
I've been reading recently that Tank is entertaining the idea of going back down to 130, because there's some new superstars that are currently brewing in that weight division.

I was actually initially hoping to see Tank take on some certain opponents at 140.
Teofimo Lopez, Jack Catterall, or even Josh Taylor, as a decent tune-up showcase opponent.
Tank-Teo would be very explosive and entertaining while it lasts. I'd pick Tank by 8th round devastating Ko.
Tank-Catteral would be a very interesting clash of contrasting styles. Slugger versus Boxer. I could see that one going the distance. They don't call Catteral El Gato for nothing. He's very tricky.

Tank-Taylor would be the most one sided amongst these bouts.
Taylor in his prime would likely go the distance but not nowadays.
He'd serve well as a knockout reel opponent.
3rd to 5th round he'd go Tiiiiimber ..!!