Saving Boxing

[klunderbunker]

Obviously, boxing has died off almost completely with a large amount of this being attributed to the rise of MMA. However, boxing had been dying for many years and now is on the verge of being completely pointless in the public eye. However, the sport could indeed be saved if certain measures were taken. In my eyes, the following things could be done to save one of the oldest sports of all time.

1. More free fights. Nearly every big time fight is on Showtime, HBO or PPV. A lot of people, myself included, would likely watch some of these fights if we actually had the channel to watch them on, or if we didn't have to pay $50 for them. Back in the glory days of boxing, as in the 60s and 70s, many fights were shown on national networks for free, such as ABC, NBC or CBS. While the fights were free, people would watch because they were great fights. However, not a lot of people are going to pay a lot of money for a fight they're not interested in. Why are tehy not interested? Well let's move on to issue #2.

2. Better marketing. How many times do you even hear about a big fight more than about a week beforehand? There's no time for build up, and therefore the people that would actually spend the money to pay for a show don't have the time to set the money aside. Also, we only hear of the main event for the show. There's probably 4-6 total fights on the broadcast, so advertise it as such. Don't say that you're paying for one big fight. Say that you get the main event PLUS another 5 fights or so. It makes the customer think that they're getting a good deal when in reality it's the same thing.

3. More personalities. The most famous boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali is famous for many reasons, but the most is his persona. Ali was loud, in your face, and made sure you remembered him. He was in all kinds of media, appearing on TV often, giving interviews, promoting the fights, and talking about anything. The fans saw him every week at least and when they saw him they remembered him for his personality and how he was different. Then when he got into the ring, people saw that he had the skill to back it up. While a lot of people couldn't stand him, that's what made him a bigger draw. if there's one thing people like more than seeing a good fight, it's seeing a fighter they can't stand get his head handed to him. In wrestling, why do we like a heel champion? We like it because we always want to see if the face can shut the heel up. When is the last time that you saw a big name fighter appearing anywhere advertising his appearance in the ring? It hardly ever happens anymore, and this leads us to reason #4.

4. Too many championships. At the moment, there are four different belts that are considered to be the World Heavyweight Championship and three fighters hold them. Think about that. There are three world champions. All of a sudden I feel like I'm watching WWE. Why are there so many champions? With so many people, how can you focus on one man to build the sport around? Mike Tyson took the world by storm and to me, the biggest thing that helped him do so was Don King being able to point to him and say this man is the greatest boxer in the world and is the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. How purely awesome does that sound? Now the title certainly is disputed, with four separate belts and three champions. Also, how many of you can name the three champions? Since the title is split so many ways, the attention can't be focused on one man, which keeps one person from rising up to be the face of the sport. This ties into reason 5.

5. Too few fights. The titles are defended maybe twice a year anymore. This is simply unacceptable. Looking at Tyson's record, he was fighting once a month and sometimes more often than that. It got his name out there which kept him around in people's minds. When you see him once every month or so, he gets stuck in your head. When you see the big time guys now once every six months you don't remember much about them, especially given how little boxing is talked about now. It's not like this is a new thing either. Ali, the greatest of all time, fought 4 or 5 times a year, which while that's a far from the amount that Tyson did, it's still almost triple what you get now. With this few title defenses, how can a guy become a household name? When I hear the name of the champion(s) of the world, I have to stop and think for a bit before I remember anything about them. That just can't be the case.

Either way, boxing certainly can be saved, but barring something drastic changing, it won't be anytime soon. PPV has corrupted the sport and while there is still good boxing out there, it's not going to be a big deal for a long time, if ever.

 

[jmt225]

In my opinion, boxing needs one thing and one thing only: Heavyweights.

Look throughout the sport's history, and who are the most known fighters and biggest draws? Every single one of them are heavyweights. Hell, even in MMA Brock Lesnar and Light Heavyweights are the biggest draws in the company's history. People just love seeing huge men duking it out. They respect men who are big. They look at them and say, "Damn, I would not fuck with that guy!" However, it's hard to feel that way for lightweights and what not, even though Manny Pacquiao could kick any of our asses.

But yeah, that's the only thing the sport needs. There is not one good Heavyweight in boxing. Not one. There are a couple of Russians, who nobody gives a damn about, dominating the division, and they're doing it in extremely boring fashion. There are no big knockouts, and there's no intimidation. That is what's killing the sport, if you ask me. In any combat competition, you need big motherfuckers who people fear, and who destroy their opponents. Boxing doesn't have that at the moment, and hasn't since Mike Tyson retired.

 

[OIL]

1. More free fights.

There are free fights. But if you're looking for a big free fight then you're stupid. Seriously, they need to make money. For a long time, Amir Khan's fights were on free TV, so there's no problem. They have their fights for free on the TV until they have a solid fanbase, then they move onto PPV to get money.

2. Better marketing. How many times do you even hear about a big fight more than about a week beforehand?

The marketing is fine, you just aren't watching the right channels obviously. Here, Sky Sports News markets the fights months in advance with the press confrences. Within the last month it's advertised everyday, with numerous interviews and video packages on the websites of sports channels. Seriously, how can't you find the stuff?

3. More personalities.

I cba to quote your whole post about that, but you'll remember what you said. They want someone they love to hate, and want to see lose? Do you SERIOUSLY have any knowledge about boxing? FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR. Jesus Christ KB, I thought you were smart. He's the most hated man in boxing in America, THAT'S who they love to hate. As for personalities, the boxers still have them, but they're not as dramatic. Mayweather is the cockiest boxer in the world, Hatton is the biggest underdog, and then you have the trainers like Floyd Mayweather Sr. who talks the most trash, and Freddie Roach who's the quiet type. Seriously man, jeeze.

5. Too few fights. The titles are defended maybe twice a year anymore. This is simply unacceptable.

Health reasons is your answer. Fighters need time to get better after a fight, if you're telling the champion to fight every month the quality of the fights are going to drop, because they're neither mentally nor physically prepared.

Plus, they need more time to prepare for a fight. They need time to work out their gameplan, you can't rush that.

 

[NSL]

Obviously, boxing has died off almost completely with a large amount of this being attributed to the rise of MMA. However, boxing had been dying for many years and now is on the verge of being completely pointless in the public eye. However, the sport could indeed be saved if certain measures were taken. In my eyes, the following things could be done to save one of the oldest sports of all time.

I agree on almost all of this. You should check out my thread on PacMan v Cotto. Pretty good discussion on boxing v MMA.

1. More free fights. Nearly every big time fight is on Showtime, HBO or PPV. A lot of people, myself included, would likely watch some of these fights if we actually had the channel to watch them on, or if we didn't have to pay $50 for them. Back in the glory days of boxing, as in the 60s and 70s, many fights were shown on national networks for free, such as ABC, NBC or CBS. While the fights were free, people would watch because they were great fights. However, not a lot of people are going to pay a lot of money for a fight they're not interested in. Why are they not interested? Well let's move on to issue #2.

I agree we need more, the main thing of this point is, they need to be on the right channels. We get a few on ESPN, and I think there's one other channel that shows a few, but they need some exposure on network TV. Channels like my9, who need to draw ratings, would be well served to put boxing on one night a week. Even if it's Thursday night 9-11, or after Smackdown, they'll get people to watch. They can keep it cheap by using fighter's that don't have big names, but once ratings start to plateau, they'd need to draw the big(ger) names eventually.

If they're going to stay on cable, they need to get on channels like Spike and VS, where there's built in viewers from the MMA and wrestling they already show.

2. Better marketing. How many times do you even hear about a big fight more than about a week beforehand? There's no time for build up, and therefore the people that would actually spend the money to pay for a show don't have the time to set the money aside. Also, we only hear of the main event for the show. There's probably 4-6 total fights on the broadcast, so advertise it as such. Don't say that you're paying for one big fight. Say that you get the main event PLUS another 5 fights or so. It makes the customer think that they're getting a good deal when in reality it's the same thing.

This makes it sounder easier than it is. People will see they're paying for 6 fights, and "know" the other 5 suck, and that will outweigh how great the main event would be. They need to take a page from MMA, and put at least 3 good fights on a card, with only one or two undercards. This way, even if one of the main events is a 2nd round KO, at least there's 2 more, or the chance at an undercard stealing the show.

3. More personalities. The most famous boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali is famous for many reasons, but the most is his persona. Ali was loud, in your face, and made sure you remembered him. He was in all kinds of media, appearing on TV often, giving interviews, promoting the fights, and talking about anything. The fans saw him every week at least and when they saw him they remembered him for his personality and how he was different. Then when he got into the ring, people saw that he had the skill to back it up. While a lot of people couldn't stand him, that's what made him a bigger draw. if there's one thing people like more than seeing a good fight, it's seeing a fighter they can't stand get his head handed to him. In wrestling, why do we like a heel champion? We like it because we always want to see if the face can shut the heel up. When is the last time that you saw a big name fighter appearing anywhere advertising his appearance in the ring? It hardly ever happens anymore, and this leads us to reason #4.

The problem with this, as bad as it sounds, is that there are too many foreigners in boxing right now. The biggest names speak little to no English, making it nearly impossible to give them media time, or put their face in a TV ad. Fans don't want to have to try and follow an interview. They want to hear "I'm going to kick his ass.". Mayweather and Mosley are probably the only two going right now that can achieve everything you stated.

4. Too many championships. At the moment, there are four different belts that are considered to be the World Heavyweight Championship and three fighters hold them. Think about that. There are three world champions. All of a sudden I feel like I'm watching WWE. Why are there so many champions? With so many people, how can you focus on one man to build the sport around? Mike Tyson took the world by storm and to me, the biggest thing that helped him do so was Don King being able to point to him and say this man is the greatest boxer in the world and is the undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. How purely awesome does that sound? Now the title certainly is disputed, with four separate belts and three champions. Also, how many of you can name the three champions? Since the title is split so many ways, the attention can't be focused on one man, which keeps one person from rising up to be the face of the sport. This ties into reason 5.

Yes! This is my biggest problem with boxing. Even when Tyson was fighting, there was still 2 or 3 different main titles. There was one or two for every other division, and usually, one champion held all the belts anyway. If they eliminated, say half, the titles around right now, fans would be forced to focus on one guy, and one guy only. Every fighter he fought would instantly be credible if they lasted a few rounds, and anyone that was climbing the ranks would have to fight them before they can be considered credible.

5. Too few fights. The titles are defended maybe twice a year anymore. This is simply unacceptable. Looking at Tyson's record, he was fighting once a month and sometimes more often than that. It got his name out there which kept him around in people's minds. When you see him once every month or so, he gets stuck in your head. When you see the big time guys now once every six months you don't remember much about them, especially given how little boxing is talked about now. It's not like this is a new thing either. Ali, the greatest of all time, fought 4 or 5 times a year, which while that's a far from the amount that Tyson did, it's still almost triple what you get now. With this few title defenses, how can a guy become a household name? When I hear the name of the champion(s) of the world, I have to stop and think for a bit before I remember anything about them. That just can't be the case.

This is true for the heavyweights, but not so much for the smaller guys. Almost any division that doesn't have "heavyweight" in it, has their guys fighting 3-4 times a year, except for the big names, and that's not totally their fault.

Guys like Cotto, Pacquiao, and Mayweather don't fight as often, because they've beaten almost everyone they can face, and only have fights against each other left. Hopefully, some names can start popping up, and giving these guys some competition.

Either way, boxing certainly can be saved, but barring something drastic changing, it won't be anytime soon. PPV has corrupted the sport and while there is still good boxing out there, it's not going to be a big deal for a long time, if ever.

It's a damn shame.

 

[NSL]

There are free fights. But if you're looking for a big free fight then you're stupid. Seriously, they need to make money. For a long time, Amir Khan's fights were on free TV, so there's no problem. They have their fights for free on the TV until they have a solid fanbase, then they move onto PPV to get money.

The problem with your argument, is that most fighters are getting moved straight to PPV without much of a fan base. Not many people have ever seen someone like Pacquiao on free TV, and never will. De La Hoya never got time on free TV either. Once a fighter has 10-15 fights under his belt, whether they're in a church basement, or in a gym in Bumfuck, SD, they get moved to PPV. Promoters automatically think 9-1 is a good record, and the guy can draw millions. They need to lay off, and let these guys get some real experience before selling their fights.

The marketing is fine, you just aren't watching the right channels obviously. Here, Sky Sports News markets the fights months in advance with the press confrences. Within the last month it's advertised everyday, with numerous interviews and video packages on the websites of sports channels. Seriously, how can't you find the stuff?

We're not in England is the logical answer. All we get is the interviews after the fight is announced, the weigh-ins, and then the fight, IF we buy it on PPV.

I cba to quote your whole post about that, but you'll remember what you said. They want someone they love to hate, and want to see lose? Do you SERIOUSLY have any knowledge about boxing? FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR. Jesus Christ KB, I thought you were smart. He's the most hated man in boxing in America, THAT'S who they love to hate. As for personalities, the boxers still have them, but they're not as dramatic. Mayweather is the cockiest boxer in the world, Hatton is the biggest underdog, and then you have the trainers like Floyd Mayweather Sr. who talks the most trash, and Freddie Roach who's the quiet type. Seriously man, jeeze.

The trainers get almost no publicity here, except for Roach, because every one wants him in their corner. Mayweather isn't hated as much as you think he is. He's certainly not liked, but he's not hated as much as Tyson was after biting Holyfield, or as much as even Morrison after Rocky V. Ali had real heat when he converted to Islam. Mayweather has a big mouth, but that's it. No real character there.

Health reasons is your answer. Fighters need time to get better after a fight, if you're telling the champion to fight every month the quality of the fights are going to drop, because they're neither mentally nor physically prepared.

We're not saying the champion needs to fight every month, but get someone to fight more often. Tyson was able to do it, because no matter who he stepped in the ring with, they were knocked out in 5 minutes, and he barely had a scratch laid on him. Ali was able to make a fight last 7 rounds, and I'm sure you remember his famous post-match interviews with Cosell. "Am I still pretty? Of course I am!"

Plus, they need more time to prepare for a fight. They need time to work out their gameplan, you can't rush that.

Who needs a gameplan? If you want to be a real contender, you'd follow everyone in the division, and you'll know well beforehand what kind of fighter they are. The biggest thing is "Don't get punched in the face", and the next thing is "How do I knock this guy out?". If you can't do either of those, you belong in the record books with a 1-15 record.

 

[The Todd]

I don't know about the US so I will talk about UK boxing, which the popularity of has dwindled spectacularly but it was so different just a couple of years ago.

In the last two years Britain has had at least eight different world champions, ITV has shown many free fights, including the start of Amir Khan's career and for a time the whole Enzo Calzaghe stable's cards. However, ITV has suffered extremely badly in the recession and simply can't afford the fights. Also, they have focused more on live football to attract more viewers.

With marketing, for the well known fighters the hype is unbelievable. Sky Sports have brilliant build up, you can't miss when a fight is on. BBC always cover big fights, with plenty of journalists sent to Vegas to describe the atmosphere. The Hatton/mayweather fight was simply the biggest sporting build up in history. Everyone and anyone was talking about it, "There's only one Ricky Hatton" became the national anthem at times and everyone seemed to be awake at 4 in the morning when it started. Had Hatton won, Boxing would have been comfortably the nations number two sport.

As for personalities, we have had Hatton, a cult hero, Joe Calzaghe and now David Haye and Amir Khan who know how to generate interest. The problem comes from Hatton losing the super fight and his fall from grace, Calzaghe retiring and never having that one massive fight against someone at his level, because there was simply no one left at the end.

People like Junior Witter, Gavin Rees and Enzo Maccarinelli have showed promise and then spectacularly failed. Carl Froch deserves more recognition than he gets but he doesn't have the media exposure needed to be a superstar. He can be huge, he needs a tv company to show faith in him.

David Haye needs to fight someone big soon because people are forgetting about him. His fight with Maccarinelli was built up to Eubank/Calzaghe proportions, but since then he has not done a lot.

With Khan, Froch and Haye it has the potential to get back to the golden year of 2007, but the problem is not marketing. Free to air TV needs to show more of an interest in broadcasting fights. When the recession is over I fully expect ITV or BBC to air some massive fights.