Does anyone else it's crazy how the UK is THE place to have big fights now?

[Cobra_]

The old tradition in the UK was building up fighters in the UK and once they hit fringe world level they went to the US to become a star in boxing but now it's all changed.

UK fighter become big in the UK and now the money fights are staying at home while others have to travel to the UK. It's crazy how much it's changed over the last few years. I'll be surprised if we see many UK fighters fight mostly in the US anymore like Khan, Lewis, Naz, etc.

Froch was a weird hybrid of both traditions. He was a travelling UK fighter early into his world title career but then he fought exclusively in England late in his career and was pulling in record high purses. In a way Froch was the first fighter to really start this new UK fighting scene thing.

At this rate Wilder might have to come to England to fight AJ as AJ might not even fight in the US ever.

[Prince Madison]

Not saying UK have the best fighters but we have a hell of a lot of very good ones. Sky sports do a good job of promoting the fights too. Whereas boxing is declining in most countries, it is still popular here and is most football fans second sport. The atmosphere is always good and the country gets behind its fighters. Boxing is dying a slow death in america with haymon running things and a lot of their fighters are boring and fighting useless guys, know thurman v porter was good but thats more an exception, so no reason for UK fighters to go over there now.

[deathofaclown]

Just different times really. There's a wave of talent in the UK now which helps a lot. Also, I'm not much of a Hearn fan but him and Sky have done good work getting the public talking about boxing again and tuning into fights. Even my sister watches boxing now and didn't care for it before. People are going to these events for a night out, it's the place to be that night, just like the big events in USA a while ago. It does create a lot of hype around fighters who haven't fought anybody, like AJ fighting on PPV is a bit of a joke really, but at least people are tuning in and gives talented fighters a platform and opportunity to get their names out there.

Hearn said himself that fighters now are trying to get to the UK to fight. They see the likes of Charles Martin getting well paid here or Vargas being offered 3x his highest purse to fight in the UK. Back in the day, fighters didn't need to leave USA but now the tide has turned and apart from huge names like Floyd and Manny, the big money is in UK for some fights. And like anything in life, people will go where the money is.

[Scipio2009]

The old tradition in the UK was building up fighters in the UK and once they hit fringe world level they went to the US to become a star in boxing but now it's all changed.

UK fighter become big in the UK and now the money fights are staying at home while others have to travel to the UK. It's crazy how much it's changed over the last few years. I'll be surprised if we see many UK fighters fight mostly in the US anymore like Khan, Lewis, Naz, etc.

Froch was a weird hybrid of both traditions. He was a travelling UK fighter early into his world title career but then he fought exclusively in England late in his career and was pulling in record high purses. In a way Froch was the first fighter to really start this new UK fighting scene thing.

At this rate Wilder might have to come to England to fight AJ as AJ might not even fight in the US ever.

Matchroom Sport/Sky Sports, over the course of the 3-4 years, have been able to develop the UK into one of the top markets for big-time fights. Las Vegas is still THE top market, but London is in the mix just behind that (with Montreal, Germany, Moscow, and a re-emerging NYC).

You add that the UK is also buzzing with world-level talent at the moment, and the ride should be on for a while. Now, let's see how the UK holds up with the coming world-level consolidation.

Wilder/Fury/Joshua at heavyweight, Bellew/Drozd/Ledbedev at 200, Degale/Jack/Smith at 168, Eubank/Saunders/Jacobs/Golovkin at 160, etc.