Even in 2015, the back and forth stance is still frustratingly prevalent in the industry.
Boxing is one of the oldest sports in existence and as such carries a lot of history, baggage and, in some ways, old school ways.
There are many unfair and unwanted stereotypes associated with the sport regarding things like corruption and fixing, which in my opinion are totally inaccurate, uneducated and biased insults targeting the sport in the current era of 2015.
I can’t comment on how things were in the past, but what I can comment on is today’s weather and since I started in boxing journalism in recent years.
Sport is now essentially run by global television networks, sports management companies, and sports promotion companies. In 2015, you would no longer get away with mass corruption in any sport: you would get found out.
I’m not saying that nothing unexpected ever happens in sport, I would be naive. But, in my opinion, the same can be said of any professional sport or any professional business.
When money comes into the equation, there will always be unscrupulous people looking to make a quick buck or take shortcuts.
One thing that still doesn’t exist in the game today is boxing politics. In this article I will not name any names for the purposes of fairness, balance and objectivity.
At a time when the sport is really flourishing again and is on its way back into the mainstream media for a variety of reasons, including major TV broadcasters investing in the sport again and the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao, we’re still seeing a lot of big fights that don’t get done, which is very frustrating.
A well-known observer within the game recently defined the landscape of modern boxing quite well, I thought, “It’s annoying that the big fights we want are the ones we are least likely to see. Welcome to the modern world of boxing do what you want.”. How right she was.
At present, there are still promoters arguing, that has not changed. However, what they fight has. In the past, boxers were almost slaves to less than fair contracts from promoters. All that has changed now.
Promoters work for fighters today and are more motivated by money than ever, because there is possibly less money in the business for them compared to what they used to get out of fighters years ago.
Boxing politics today is dominated by terms and arguments like “Side A vs. Side B”, “we bring more money to the table than you”, “Your fighter doesn’t do the pay-per-view numbers that ours does”etc
Professional boxing has always been a money business, but now more than ever in my opinion. You’re looking at new age promoters and managers right now, in the time of social media and near-public trading.
This has been combined with the unwillingness of many key old school players to accept modern technologies such as social media and the internet.
Unfortunately, they have had no choice at this stage, but often their egos won’t allow them to engage with the promoters and power players in the game that come from this newer, fresher, more transparent generation of tech drive, where the The customer (the fight fan) expects a better product than ever (the best fighters fighting the best fighters).
The sport of boxing is going through a lot of changes globally right now. Unfortunately, politics will always be there, so is human nature in any business.
But with the way that technology and the internet continue to influence sport, and indeed all of sport, I think the transparency of these policies will continue to surface more and more in the years to come.
Boxing has no choice but to change as many other combat sports products embrace new technology and most importantly put on the best fights.
However, it will. Boxing has been around for a long time and in my opinion it will be back to its glory days before this decade is out.
