Everything wrong with boxing today through the eyes of a passionate hardcore fan trying to take a fair look at boxing from a fan perspective.
The majority of boxing fans love nothing better than one a good fight, two a good display of boxing skills from a boxer who can showcase the sweet science, three a fair fight, four respect shown in the ring and five, a good list.
Come on, we all know it’s true. Ask the question – in fact ask multiple questions.
Who’s the greatest? Who is the fastest? Who has the best chin? The best left and the best right? And on and on it goes.
It’s an undeniable fact boxing fans love a list. It sends them into a state of near rapture.
Ask a boxing fan who is the current pound for pound number one and you better hop over the fence and stand back because an volcano of boxing opinions is heading your way.
If you want to crank it up a level, ask who is the all time best pound for pound fighter and you better have an underground bunker somewhere because the fallout can go nuclear.
But ask boxing fans to list the top give issues in boxing that vex them and the silence can be deafening at times.
Especially if it’s a contradictory point of view to the one held by the individual.
Feel free to disagree but here’s a list of the top 5 problems in boxing.
5. Politics
Unfortunately this is an aspect of the sport that is unavoidable from who is the “A” side and who is the “B” side to who has the biggest dressing room and the coldest bottled water on the night of a fight.
Every aspect is covered like it’s a life or death matter sometimes when trying to put a fight together.
4. Misinformation
Continual leading of fans down the garden path does happen. The flow of information is designed it seems to create a division between fans.
The concept to gain or maintain power by the age old strategy of divide and conquer works well for everyone involved expect the fans.
3. Too many weight classes
Seventeen weight divisions with many world champions per weight class. Do the math. There needs to be more of a clear cut way of doing things, easy to understand for fans.
2. Governing Bodies
The main boxing sanctioning bodies – the WBC, WBO, WBA, IBF and IBO.
Each one is self serving as you would expect. It’s completely in all of their interests to have as many champions as possible.
1. Greed
Promoters / management who take 15% to 30% from the fighters purse and don’t care about the best fighting the best.
The fights that hardcore boxing fans want to see are irrelevant unless it’s financially viable more often than not.
