BoxRec

Mr `Allegedly` says there is not a decline in British boxing and almost everybody that follows the sport is wrong.

I have read as far back as the 40`s various boxing people saying boxing is in decline, but as we know there came very special fighters around and after this time.

So is it really in decline, and most of us are correct, or is it just as it has always been?

My own view is that yes we still have fighters around who could at least compare to yester-years.
But where the decline is, is that many years ago people went to the shows, when TV started to draw money and become ever more popular the attendance at the shows fell, but the wider audience still viewed the boxers on TV, so turning them into household names.
When, in Britain anyway, the BBC and ITV dropped it and it went to Sky that was the real decline, because people had gotten out of going to the boxing shows, and without subscribing to Sky they just didn`t get to see the new wave of boxers.

Its the lack of proper coverage thats hurting the game. Go back 20 years ago and people knew Hagler, Hearns, Duran and Leonard and most of the major players in World Boxing at that time as they were shown on terrestrial TV. Now I reckon the guy on the street wouldnt have heard of De La Hoya, Trinidad, Mosley, Hopkins, Barrera or any of the guys who are major players today. As none of them are shown on terrestrial TV or are hidden away on Sky while the casual fan watches some shite Reality TV programme.

The truth is, there was far LESS coverage of the sport in the 80's.

however the fights which were covered were the biggest fights, and as you say, everyone knew who the biggest stars were, though the likes of Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson and Jack Dempsey were far bigger stars.

The 90's were probably the peak of coverage, before the arse fell out of it.

You cannot blame Warren for taking his stable to Sky, they were offering more money, and someone was going to make the move, if not SN, then someone else would have gotten in there first.

The landscape of television has changed, terrestrial TV will never get the coverage it did, but I have no doubt that the sport would be in better health if bbc showed some of the really big fights mixed with some general coverage of the sport to keep people informed.

What I think has become clear to all parties involved though, is that the game is struggling at grass roots level, because most fighters are not given any coverage in their early careers, and there aren't enough big stars in big fights to keep people interested and generate new fans. Ricky Hatton is a genuine star, were he competing in Benn and Eubank's era, he would be even bigger, but how many other fighters do we have who can fill arenas and set ratings alight....fornicate all.

I think it's no accident that some big fights are finally happening after a long weight, without the big matchups to generate the interest, the likes of sky simply aren't going to keep dishing out the cash.

I'd love to see Sky's figures for the last 10 years, I bet there is a general decline in the last four years, with peaks when Hatton fights, but a general downward trend in views of fights and pay outs for PPV.

Allegedly talks shit sometimes. Boxing is a minority sport at the moment, and his mismatches are not drawing any new fans in. I've had mate over to watch Friday/Saturday fight night who are non boxing fans and they've been shocked by the one sided nature of the fights. That's the crux of the problem in this country.

I think Allegedly is trying to put this right now to some degree but only because Sky are being more choosy about what they broadcast - about time. He made the situation by putting on one sided bills. Often he'd announce a bill in a month or two's time and practically every one of his fighters was billed against TBA! You also have to blame Sky as they were giving him licence to do as he pleased.

Nick you are right, we have had about 7 years of

8 x Sports Network V Nobby nobs/Philp fondu on every undercard....

Nobbys boys seldom turn up to win amd Fondus boys were always a weight division or two lower.... both camps were given a few days notice of course

Yes, there has been a hell of a lot of that of late, too few domestic dust ups, but I think now the bubble has burst, and we are going to see a lot more competitive fights.

I think one of the problems that is possibly overlooked, is that a lot of fighters don't want to risk their careers by taking on dangerous opponents when they can taken on some Eastern European fighter who comes in at short notice and have an easy ride, until they can get a crack at a title belt of some description.

It's much easier for fighters to make money these days, and I think it's taken the edge of the sport. I don't think we can lump all the blame on promoters. I'm not trying to defend anyone, but the whole nature of the sport has changed. As long as TV is prepared to throw money at shite belts, a lot of fighters will be content to make money the easier way, and frankly, who can blame them? Its a bastard hard business, and I don't hold it against anyone trying to make a living, but some fighters have really taken the piss with their level of opponent, and expecting big fat purses for the priviledge.

Nah the bubble has burst, the only reason (stictly in my opinion) that we are getting these big domestic dust ups is because a certain promoter needs to secure a TV deal, whether that is sky or terrestial.

If small hall promoters, with no TV deal, cannot work together on a consistent basis then what hope do we have.

Is boxing is decline, yes. Its been a slow steady decline for the last 10 years - its only now we are noticing it though.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:
I think one of the problems that is possibly overlooked, is that a lot of fighters don't want to risk their careers by taking on dangerous opponents when they can taken on some Eastern European fighter who comes in at short notice and have an easy ride, until they can get a crack at a title belt of some description.

not the fighters James, their management... nearly every fighter i have met really will fight anyone, anytime.... it is only the spoily minority who start refusing fights

Knockout, I agree

Most fighters I meet ( not a huge number, I grant ) are in the game not just for the cash and have enough confidence to get in the ring with anyone. They are often the worst at recognising their own limitations.

Managers on the other hand do have a duty to their fighters. Their job is as it has ever been is to take their man as high as they can with as little risk as they can. They owe the punters nothing other than that their man turns up in good condition

The promoters on the other hand, owe the punters proper fights for their hard earned. I go to a lot less fights than I used to. The main reason is that I am pretty certain ( small hall shows apart ) I am going to see people padding out their records in front of a crowd, the majority of whom would not know a decent fight if they saw it.

Anecdotal evidence suggests the decline in boxing's fortunes. Even 9 years ago, most of my colleagues knew about HOLY/TYSON 1. It was a "water cooler/coffee machine fight" When was the last one of those.

I just did a straw poll in the office. Everyone ( including 2 girls of 27 ) included knew about Benn/Watson. Only two people had heard of Ricky Hatton and no one but me knew who the fornicate KT was. If that is replicated across the country, then boxing is certainly in decline Q.E.D whatever Fwankie says

Slapsie

knockout wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:
I think one of the problems that is possibly overlooked, is that a lot of fighters don't want to risk their careers by taking on dangerous opponents when they can taken on some Eastern European fighter who comes in at short notice and have an easy ride, until they can get a crack at a title belt of some description.

not the fighters James, their management... nearly every fighter i have met really will fight anyone, anytime.... it is only the spoily minority who start refusing fights

Yes, but that spoilt minority are the ones with the backing, the TV contracts, the fans and the opportunities. They know that they can make a mint fighting hand-picked opponents, so why bother taking on a dangerous opponent unless there's a fortune in it? Those with fewer opportunities, or looking to break into the big time cannot afford to be so choosy. Money softens people and makes them choosy, or at least most people, there are always exceptions.

I'm not saying all of them are unwilling to face people, but I think that too often people assume that if fighter A doesn't face fighter B, the promoters and management are always to blame. There's plenty of examples of fighters pricing themselves out of fights in recent years, christ, Hopkins may yet do it with Taylor, I doubt he's scared of him though.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:

knockout wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:
I think one of the problems that is possibly overlooked, is that a lot of fighters don't want to risk their careers by taking on dangerous opponents when they can taken on some Eastern European fighter who comes in at short notice and have an easy ride, until they can get a crack at a title belt of some description.

not the fighters James, their management... nearly every fighter i have met really will fight anyone, anytime.... it is only the spoily minority who start refusing fights

Yes, but that spoilt minority are the ones with the backing, the TV contracts, the fans and the opportunities. They know that they can make a mint fighting hand-picked opponents, so why bother taking on a dangerous opponent unless there's a fortune in it? Those with fewer opportunities, or looking to break into the big time cannot afford to be so choosy. Money softens people and makes them choosy, or at least most people, there are always exceptions.

I'm not saying all of them are unwilling to face people, but I think that too often people assume that if fighter A doesn't face fighter B, the promoters and management are always to blame. There's plenty of examples of fighters pricing themselves out of fights in recent years, christ, Hopkins may yet do it with Taylor, I doubt he's scared of him though.

That is why you have to admire guys like Holyfield and Lewis... all that money and still wanted to fight the best

The sport is in some decline (though I wouldn't say terminal) because of the following:

1. Lack of national TV coverage.
2. Lack of big competitive fights
3. Rise of Mixed MArtial Arts / Cage fighting / K1

E wrote:The sport is in some decline (though I wouldn't say terminal) because of the following:

3. Rise of Mixed MArtial Arts / Cage fighting / K1

Do you really think this has any impact? I don't know to be honest, but I don't see massive coverage for this anywhere

Had not really thought it part of the equation until you mentioned it other than as a graveyard for retired boxers

Slapsie

Back in the day if a good British fighter wanted to make top dollar and gain proper recognition they had to fight for one of the proper world titles against the proper world champions.

i.e. Barry McGuigan, Frank Bruno, Colin Jones, Alan Minter, Michael Watson, Henry Cooper, Herol Graham, Nigel Benn...

Too often today a good British fighter will win a fringe world title and defend it against nobodies.

In the 1980s or early 1990s Boxing was such that the likes of Joke Calzaghe would have had to have gone after the likes of Iran Barkley, Ray Leonard, Nigel Benn, Roy Jones and James Toney to earn anything of a career, whether that be money, celebrity, recognition or whatever.

E wrote:The sport is in some decline (though I wouldn't say terminal) because of the following:

1. Lack of national TV coverage.
2. Lack of big competitive fights
3. Rise of Mixed MArtial Arts / Cage fighting / K1

Yep. I'd maybe add innactivity into that. It has to be convoluted/complicated/greedy promoting that means, for example, an injury-free Klitchko fights 2 or 3 times a year as champ. But people want to see him in action, to see if he can take on whoever wants him whenever. It's starting to piss me off. And some just arn't getting fights, like Dean Philips. Starting to piss me off to be honest.

Slapsie Maxie wrote:

E wrote:The sport is in some decline (though I wouldn't say terminal) because of the following:

3. Rise of Mixed MArtial Arts / Cage fighting / K1

Do you really think this has any impact? I don't know to be honest, but I don't see massive coverage for this anywhere

Had not really thought it part of the equation until you mentioned it other than as a graveyard for retired boxers

Slapsie

Well, I don't believe this is such a factor in the UK, but it definitely is a contributor in the States.

Mixed Martial Arts are getting very popular over there, in terms of attracting viewers. I don't think that it is yet given much credibility in the newspapers in the sports section, thogh think it is a matter of time.

IF you have Bravo, it is all over that channel, though clearly this station is not a major player.

I think that the UK does tend to follow the US some 5 years behind, so we should expect a similar trend here.

MMA audiences eat a lot into yound audiences that may have traditionally wathced boxing.

Part of the problem as i see it, is that there isn't a great fighter leading the Heavys, during Ali's reign boxing was at its most popular, then after him it was supposed to be in decline, as apart from Holmes there wasn't any really great heavies.

After Holmes you had Tyson, and boxing was back near the top of sports, along with Tyson there was Lewis , Bowe, Holyfield.
Now we don't have any leading Heavy and when this happens the TV companies tend to lose interest, and people then say boxing is in decline.

If you look at the moment you have in the lighter weights, Tarver, Johnson, Hopkins, Trinidad, Dela Hoya, Gatti, Mayweather, Berrara, Morales, Pacman, Morel, to name but a few, and all these guys are willing to meet the best in their division, so IMO i don't think the game is in complete decline.

The York hall regularly gets packed to capacity for MMA contests, and I'm willing to bet that is the case around the country in various venues. I don't think it has that much impact on the televising of Boxing, at least not yet, but it's definetly becoming a factor in terms of live attendances.

On the subject of MMA, wrestling was the `big thing` before boxing, but the excitement of boxing took over and has led us to where we are now.

But with so many one sided fights, as said earlier, with most fight bills merely being a chance for a select few fighters to pad their records out and once they are up to a good nunber of fights they chuck them into a `intercontinental W?? whatever championship fight.

MMA especially the one they show on eurosport ( Bravo American MMA is quite tame by comparison)is a very exciting fight style, very rough, and this is what will get peoples attention, so will this be the new `big thing`?

When Mr Allegedly went to Sky he had all the trumps, he had built a big following of the name fighters he took with him, but now he has no big names, its that simple, he has no big name fighters in his stable.

Sky have wisened up, BBC and ITV have moved on and aren`t so interested so what does he have to do?
Make the sport exciting again, he has to make the proper matches to get peoples attention, and then hopefully he can get the BBC or ITV to get on board so he can build up a new lot of boxers again.

Lets not forget that TV made household names of not just the super tallented, Bruno if he only fought on Sky would have been lucky to get one title tilt, and Dennis Andries would never have been known outside of the fight game, but the little exposure he did get helped him that little bit to help him achieve that little more in the long term.

Absolutely

There is a list of fighters from the late 7o's/80's/90's who were household names ( or at least known by the public at large ) because of the TV coverage. if they were coming up in the current scenario, they would barely get a look

Dave Boy Green
Colin Jones
Terry Marsh
Dave McCauley
Billy Hardy
Nicky Piper
Herbie Hide

etc etc

Slapsie

How was wrestling the big thing before boxing?

Jack Dempsey drew a crowd of 90,000 at the polo grounds and even in the bareknuckle days they used to draw massive crowds. I don't know of any wrestling matches which did similar business.

Boxing has been the big thing far longer than wrestling, although the first boxing magazines were also wrestling magazines.

Why are we even comparing wrestling? Its not a sport its glorified acting.

I've always wondered how the old school (1900s) wrestling worked, surely it wasn't the same as now. Was it like the wrestling you see in the Olympics? some of those guys were huge

K1 is absolutely huge in Japan. I remember reading that they get something like 70% of the Japanese viewing market. You see guys like Bob "The Beast" Sapp who are superstars over there and have supermarkets selling his merchandise. The annoying thing is if he stepped into a boxing ring he would get his big ass handed to him.


Bob Sapp

Bob Sapp[/quote]

"I said I wanted Clarins Beauty Flash Balm mutherfuka"