Posted: 20 Oct 2006, 10:51
Not necessarily a contradiction. On a truly mainstream level, the sport is in a state of disrepair. However, it can still exist in a more "specialist" level, and still make money for everyone and provide thrilling fights for those who are interested.jamesmcdonnell wrote:viciousmaussa wrote:Boxing isn't dying at all. It's just in a different era.liamlion wrote: Dickhead. Its the attracting of casual fans that would ensure boxing recieves main stream, first-class coverage. The reason why boxing is dying is because the man on the street aint interested in being ripped off by shite promoters, putting on crap fights.
To be fair I dont think America TV companies and their considerations, are relevant to any topic of conversation regarding Joe Calzaghe.
People don't seem to have the stomach for boxing these days, it seems. If you're an American, apparently you have to justify it to all and sundry why it's acceptable entertainment. In Britain, we all saw Michael Watson & Gerald McClellan get morally injured. All over the world, PPV has changed the face of the sport, anyhow. It's become marginalised, more of a cult than anything else.
Hmm methinks there's a contradiction there. On the one hand you say boxing isn't dying, or at least very ill, on the other nobody has the stomach for boxing, which is it?
Boxing used to be MAINSTREAM entertainment. Although there weren't as many TV dates as now, that's partly because there are more channels now and also a lot more 'filler' shite fights.
Fighters didn't earn as much for sure, but look at the press coverage even only as far back as the mid 1980's fighters like McGuigan, Bruno, Honeyghan etc were household names.
I think part of the problem now is that the top line fighters want paying so much money it discourages promoters from putting on the fights. Lately there have been more instances of the top fighters fighting one another, but as I said that is because with so few new young stars and no heavyweight sensation, the sport desperately needs to inject some interest.
The fact that more American's know Taylor than know Kessler, means EVERYTHING. When it comes to generating money from a fight, America remains the holy grail, look at the biggest PPV's in history, all of those fights were staged in the USA, and most of them are pretty recent too.
It's simple economics, it's very rare for a PPV to sell even half what they do in the states, I am guessing here, but I'll bet the biggest here is probably the Tyson v Bruno II PPV, which was the very first one in this country.
what did Hatton do for the Tszyu fight, was it 300,000? That is nothing compared to how many they could POTENTIALLY sell stateside.
American TV money still drives the sport, and so long as you have fighters demanding multi million pound pay packets for individual fights, thus it shall remain. Whether you want to attribute that to the greed of fighters, promoters, whoever, that's just how it is, as you said yourself, it's a different era. Fighters like other sports stars are aware of the possible money to be made, and by jingo they are going to get well paid to fight dangerous opponents.
Nowadays, boxing in America particularly is in transition. Boxing might be dead for Joe Bloggs. And there are too many snobs who turn their nose up at the "barbarism" or just fail to have the stomach to view two men hitting each other. Who knows where the sport is heading? The cable companies, the sanctioning bodies and the promoters fvcked it up in the 1990s. (Particularly to make as much of a bomb from the Tyson return as possible).
All I know is, sure boxing is more marginalised. But it provides better fights than it did a few years ago. Could Jermain Taylor do a Roy Jones & get away with making $5m a fight, vs "Eric and Derek" - these days? No way, he has to go through Hopkins and Wright if he wants that much.
Showtime realized their error when they put on so many faceless showcases in the 1990s. No longer are they contracted to fighters/promoters. Instead, they are committed to delivering fights.
Without a major heavyweight star, and without another DLH, I like boxing. There is more of a need to create compelling matchups all round. Boxing has some real backbone at the moment.
American money is cool. & for me, it is getting put in the right places. HBO are encouraging foreign talents to come over (hence why giving US fans a taster of Calzaghe and Kessler). Showtime, too, are mostly outdoing HBO in terms of compelling matchups because if they see a potential great fight, they will try their best to make it.
In this way, the legacies of Lou DiBella (for doing B.A.D) and Jay Larkin (for his policy of 'Fights Not Fighters' with Sho) are living on, and getting applied properly.
If you ask me, what ruins the sport is promoters like Don King. Signing far too many fighters, that are way out of proportion to the # of TV dates he has. No one's even seen the excellent Steve Cunningham on TV yet! If Don is to fulfill his contracts, he has to put too many fighters on one show, so that a lot of world class fight(er)s are never seen by anyone.
Throw in Frankie 'Allegedly' Warren. Imagine how many more great fights would be on terrestrial if he didn't have to have a bleedin' monopoly on things over here.