Times are changing in the sport of professional boxing but at its core the sport will never change in terms of it being one of the best sports there is.
The sport traditionally with traditional promoters and managers used to be controlled by a small number of people in America like legends such as Don King and others in America.
Sure, Don King may have made some mistakes, but his Hall of Fame credentials as a promoter speak for themselves.
In more recent times advisers like Al Haymon and promoters like Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy and Bob Arum of Top Rank were the main promoters in America.
Sure, they still put on shows but they have staff around them who do most of that stuff for them, same with Haymon who has the excellent Sam Watson.
But Haymon, Arum and De La Hoya have become less relevant than ever before in boxing and in America in the last year or two alone.
Enter the likes of DAZN before that who disrupted and changed everything in the market.
Now its out with the old and in with the new with the likes of DAZN, Eddie Hearn and Matchroom, Dana White, Turki Alalshikh, Nick Khan, Ben Shalom, and even resurgent promoters in the UK like legend and Hall of Famer Frank Warren.
No one will stop the East and the powers that be behind the scenes in the West and East in taking boxing to new levels not seen before since the 80s where the boxing product’s demographic actually got a bit younger where the masses were watching big fights on TV in those days.
De La Hoya still puts on shows but not to the level Golden Boy used to anymore, at all, Top Rank lost their ESPN deal recently and Haymon although was doing some good production on Amazon Prime video events simply doesn’t do enough of them and doesn’t keep his boxers active enough.
Why Al Haymon, Oscar De La Hoya and Bob Arum Are Less Relevant Than Ever In Boxing In America
This is all changing now with Paramount, Netflix and DAZN actually upping both their quality and quantity of fights and production on non pay per view channels, which is what boxing fans actually want at the moment.
Haymon didn’t get the memo that pay per view particularly at the crazy prices of 80 to 100 dollars in the US no longer works.
That’s the mistake he made.
TKO Boxing with Netflix recently did a huge event for Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford and now Paramount are coming to boxing with a big budget alongside their UFC output of fights.
Most of Arum’s and De La Hoya’s best fighters have basically left them in recent years now, truth be told, Terence Crawford, Shakur Stevenson and more are going to new levels since they have, just look at the success they have had since leaving them.
It speaks for itself.
Same with Canelo Alvarez in recent years. Gervonta Davis basically has his own promotion these days and you never hear legend Floyd Mayweather really mentioning Al Haymon anymore, same with the Boxing Writers Association in America where better managers have come along now in recent years in their awards.
Boxing will never change as a sport but the big players and corporations and big governments moving into America and the East now to expand boxing will not be stopped and will only have the support of some very powerful men behind the scenes to help them and the sport succeed at a level not seen since the 1980s.
Even the BBC are back in boxing showing boxing on free to air television in the UK through Ben Shalom’s BOXXER.
That is huge.
That is bigger than the ITV days in the 80s for boxing in Europe as the BBC is a bigger network and is one of the biggest networks in the world, they are also backed by the government in the UK.
Big times ahead for the new age of boxing.
Welcome to the new age.
