Last weekend looked like one of the biggest in a while in sports. With Mayweather/Canelo, the Manning Bowl, Manziel/Alabama, AND Seahawks/49ers on tap, people everywhere were prepping their livers and thumbs for lots of beer and remote control work Saturday and Sunday.
I was no exception.
Everything else seemed like an appetizer or distant second to #TheOne: Floyd Mayweather’s return to the ring against Saul Alverez.
I learned my lesson after Ricky Hatton.
After watching HBO’s 24/7 series leading up to the Floyd Mayweather versus Hatton fight, I was convinced this was the guy to put the “1” in Floyd’s loss column. Of course, Hatton was destroyed, and I swore never to bet against Mayweather again.
The buildup to this weekend’s fight was great. There was a hashtag, a nationwide tour, and an interesting opponent. There was even a report Mayweather couldn’t handle his sparring opponent. Could this be the up-and-comer to make Mayweather eat his words?
No.
Mayweather was the better fighter for nine to 11 rounds (depending on who you ask). Ultimately, ringside judge CJ Ross was the biggest threat to Mayweather Saturday. Floyd’s dominance has become anticlimactic. He’s the best fighter alive and cockier than a WWE heel. But how do you beat someone who’s faster, more technical, and patient enough to wait for you to give him an opening? Apparently, you don’t.
Canelo will have his turn on top of the sport, but it’ll be after Mayweather retires atop his throne of money and women.
That leads to much more pressing questions for the sport: what now?
There are no immediate challengers to the sport’s biggest draw. We’ll be content to talk about this fight for another couple days, then boxing will fade back into oblivion until next May when Mayweather gives another challenger his biggest payday.
That’s how we know boxing is on its last legs in America.
Despite cries from anyone remotely connected to the sport, boxing is effectively dead.
Sure, this fight will be the highest grossing pay-per-view event in history. But that doesn’t mean the sport is any more viable. First, “highest grossing” is a poor metric for a fight’s viability. The HD broadcast of the fight cost $75 (lol), more than just about every PPV event in history. Less purchases could actually yield more money in this case. No reports suggest this fight will touch the record for PPV buys which, to me, reinforces boxing’s decline.
Second, this fight was basically the Super Bowl for boxing. The biggest match of the year between two opponents at the top of the sport. Does anyone doubt the Super Bowl will be a huge television draw? Of course not! But what keeps the NFL relevant is the money made outside of its championship game. There are the multiple, billion dollar television deals for its regular season games, there’s a slavish devotion to offseason events like the draft (a three-day television event) and training camp (covered nationally by ESPN and the NFL network, and locally nationwide), and millions of people that play fantasy football year after year.
I know more place kickers in football than active boxers. That’s a problem.
For an entity like boxing, death does not mean there is $0 left to be made. I mean, VHS tapes are still being sold for God’s sake. Sales actually went up in 2010. VHS is not dead!
Exactly.
Props to Mayweather for making a fortune in a dying sport. Just remember that he and a handful of others are the only ones doing so in 2013.
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What do you think? Are you a boxing defender? Who else is out there we should give a crap about? Make us care about this sport again!
Honestly, aside from my Rocky addiction and an ill-fated affair with a golden-gloves finalist (don't ask), I have never been into boxing. It is an extremely helpful exercise to take up, but other than that it's kind of going the way of pageants; with more extreme and entertaining (& cheaper) events like UFC, the rebirth of WWE, etc coming up, people can get their "hit 'em till he falls down" fix much easier and are more invested in the players. It doesn't help that major stars like Mayweather are crafting an increasingly unrelateable image; his "Money Team" does more harm than good to the sport. With the economy still in flux smarter promotions are snagging crowds by pushing the never-gets-old- American Underdog story-and people are buying into it. Basically saying all to say- if they want to save boxing, Mayweather should take a dive courtesy of a downtrodden unknown from New Orleans.
It doesn't help that major stars like Mayweather are crafting an increasingly unrelateable image; his "Money Team" does more harm than good to the sport."
Yes, there are other combat sports that are getting the attention of the public other than boxing. But his "unrelateable" image is what is helping the sport of boxing. I would bet that most of the people watching the fight wanted to see Mayweather lose, to the tune of $41 million guaranteed in Floyd's pocket. All he has to do is to find an opponent, hype him up to the point where the public thinks the opponent can beat Floyd, not lose, and to keep playing the "jerk" card. Everybody gets paid. The only thing that is hurting Floyd is that he is so much better than everybody else right now that at this time it will be hard to take any future opponents seriously.
but are people going to fall for the banana in the tailpipe 4 more times? Canelo lost so handily that the allure of a rematch or two would just be an obvious money grab., maybe Marquez but realistically does anyone give him a shot
I didn't even attempt to watch the fight. I had no doubt Money Man would get his best Ted DiBiase laugh on in the end. I also agree about boxing being on its last legs. The only thing really memorable in last couple years is Manny memes. lol
My recent post A Few Thoughts on Acceptance and Recognition
Boxing has always been as relevant as the heavyweight division. In the past, when boxing was discussed the heavyweight champ was always the face of the sport. Sure, there were great fighters in the lower weight classes, but the heavyweight champ was considered the torch-bearer for the sport.
Only other fight that would be relevant in the sport is a Mayweather/Pacquiao bout. I don't want to see a rematch with Alvarez because it wouldn't be any different. No one else has the heart or hands to give Floyd a real challenge so if Manny isn't on deck, then let Floyd retire and boxing continue to die a slow agonizing death…since they let the cancer of money and politics choke the life from the sport!
Yeah I totally agree. Since there are no contenders in the heavyweight division, the sport has been long gone. The big names of boxing all resided in that division.
There will not be a Pacquiao bout which is shame. Would be good and the money these two could make would be off the roof. Probably would take Mayweather easily to the half a billion dollar mark (he has already made $350 million).
Mayweather won that fight on myy card without losing a round. hes THAT good.
Pacquiao is NOT in his class. its time to kill that noise.
Boxing is dying I do agree but all it takes is 1-3 people to spark it.
If Floyd didnt become a heel character, boxing would be worse off.
You make the claim that Manny isn't in Floyd's class, but all these other "so-called" contenders never measure up, and he continues to rack up the dollars, while the one fighter who possibly could be in his class, he can't agree to fight him. What happened to wanting to be the best by beating the best. I respect what Floyd has accomplished in the ring as a technician even though I don't particularly care for his bravado. But I honestly think he is more worried about his mystique of being unbeaten. To me the true measure of a champ is not beating everybody, but how you come back from a loss. Ali lost fights, but he is the greatest because of what he did after losing and he avenged the losses he obtained.
I said an American charismatic heavyweight champion could save the sport but they’ve all went to other sports when you see the two biggest names in the history of the sport, Tyson and Ali and their condition after the sport. When the sport is hinging on a 5’8, 36 year old with no knockout power you know it’s on it’s last legs, best they can do is bang out 3 more fights all the while building up the Adrien Broner legend and let him be the finale.
Broner is too telegraphed for me to really think he can carry the sport. There's being a heel, and there's "trying to be a heel." I think he falls in the latter category. It's too obvious.
Chael Sonnen has done a good job Broner-ing in the UFC. He keeps a subset of fans locked in, but there's actual talented champions as well. I think even if Broner continues to rise, he'll need someone opposite him that's actually good for the health of the sport.
Boxing is not dying. That presumes that boxing only exists in the United States of America. The sport will continue to be the most popular contact sport in the world and will NEVER be overtaken by the UFC. NEVER! The UFC lacks credibility with average sports fan mostly due to its lack of history and the still held general belief that most of the individuals fighting are just dudes off the street. That's why people still consider it cockfighting. Another thing that we forget is that public operates with stereotypes, particularly when it comes to athletics. Due to the dominance of the black and brown athlete over the last 70+ years, white people, particularly those in North America, believe, whether wrongly or rightly, that high participation of black and brown athletes is needed to validate the quality of a sport. As weird as this is to say, if the US Mens National Soccer team began to be dominated by black guys, the sports' popularity and TV share in America would increase exponentially. The same goes for Hockey.
If you look at the UFC, it was not until Andersen Silva, a black brazilian, that the general public started recognizing the quality of the athleticism found in the UFC, which in my opinion is still quite low. The UFC is only really big in the US. Boxing is still far more relevant in every country outside of the United States and that will not change. In my opinion, and I know that Dana White knows this, the UFC's only chance of supplanting boxing will come with more striking and greater martial arts specialization. In effect returning it to its roots when it was more welcoming of multiple and varied styles of fighting. He knows that no one wants to see submissions. It lacks the visceral impact of striking. Anyways I've gone on too long.
P.S. The author lacks credibility if he actually though that Hatton would have beaten Mayweather. That's ridiculous!
I had a friend respond on Facebook with some similarly good points. I think I should say that boxing is dying *in the United States*. I can't comment on boxing versus UFC internationally, but I know that boxing is bigger abroad than in the US. Fair point.
I know that UFC has had big bouts in Canada and South America. So that tells me they have some kind of a foothold abroad. Similar to what I said in the post, though, that doesn't mean they are necessarily thriving.
I've never claimed to be a boxing purist, lol. That 24/7 had me going. I need HBO cameras following me around all the time, because they made Hatton look like Sugar Ray Leonard!
This is simply not true. The only place where MMA "lacks credibility" IS in the United States. In other countries it is recognized as a legitimate, albeit less popular sport. And to only include UFC in the discussion shows the lack of respect it has in the US- PRIDE, K-1 (kockboxing) and other promotions long had a foothold globally before UFC took off in the states.
HOWEVER, that wasn't the point. For example, I alluded to pageantry because with the rise of reality shows and internet pr0n, pageantry seemed like a primitave, simple way to get a "pretty girl" fix. With greater accessibility and more connection with the characters available in easier formats, it's just not as exciting anymore. And that is how I feel about boxing. I'm not invested in the competitors. I hardly know them,. And the ones I do, I don't like. Add to that the fact that I can't watch boxing without getting annoyed that the guy can't just kick him in the head and end the fight (but that's just me, lol).
And "low athleticism"? Come on.
Apologies for not being clear, but I was referring to the United States and western Europe when referencing legitimacy. In the context of my comments I, like many who comment on sport, conflate legitimacy with economic viability. For instance Women's Soccer in the USA is not economically viable which is evidenced the by the constant failed attempts at maintaining a league. The same is also true of the WNBA. So my comment in the context is true. Pride and K-1 existed in Japan as singular entities. Pride was bought out by UFC years ago which in itself is evidence that the appetite in a country that has more a historic interest in combat sports was losing its appetite. Pride no longer exists as an independent promotion. It is defunct. K-1 nearly went bankrupt. Their are few if any viable promoters of MMA/non-boxing martial sports outside of the UFC globally. Perhaps I'm being hasty in saying this but your point is moot. Also none of the promotions you references were even close to being 30 years old before effectively folding.
You're lack of knowledge of who boxers are is not indicative of the sports diminished standing in the American consciousness. The average American had no idea who Sandy Saddler was. The average American had no idea who Kid Gavilan was. The same goes for countless boxers who were HOFers from bygone eras. Even at its peak popularity very few if any boxers had endorsement deals. Foreman wasn't a household name till the grill. Boxing's position in the American consciousness is where it should be. Boxing's golden age lasted due to the lack of other huge sporting leagues in direct competition for ears and eyeballs. The same goes for the diminished standing of Baseball and Horse Racing, which all still make huge money despite diminished prominence. Its just a market correction. Think of it like this, in the history of boxing, which is over 100 years long, there have been less than 25 transcendent stars. This is speaking from a US centric perspective.
As for your statement, "With the economy still in flux smarter promotions are snagging crowds by pushing the never-gets-old- American Underdog story-and people are buying into it." I'm not sure what that statement does but prove the necessity of the Floyd Mayweather's of the world. An underdog scenario only exists in environments where there is obvious dominance. People want to see the best fight the best. Ratings prove that. Underdogs are good one off stories but the viewer wants to the see the best more than not. That's why ratings for the Final Four and national championship game in Basketball will always be highest if traditional powers are battling. TV ratings prove this.
As for low athleticism, I said in my opinion. The average UFC fighter has lower athleticism than the average boxer. Muscles don't make an athlete.
The UFC doesn't do big bouts in South America, they have them in Brazil and that's due to the presence of Brazilian Jui Jitsu.