By Cliff Rold

It didn’t take much to know the bulk of the early 1980s Heavyweights gracing TV screens were bad.

They were on the screens for a start.

It’s how one knows that, at least in America, things are really bad for the Heavyweights right now.  This Saturday night, top five Heavyweights Ruslan Chagaev (25-0-1, 17 KO) and Nicolay Valuev (50-1, 34 KO) square off for the second time to resolve a dispute which shouldn’t be over the WBA belt (Chagaev beat Valuev for said belt in 2007 and hasn’t lost since). 

If it makes it to a U.S. audience, it will be last minute.  It certainly won’t be highly publicized.

For all the ills of previous Heavyweight down eras, and there have been more than a few through the years, the division was always able to stay relevant through media.  The days of Heavyweights other than Larry Holmes or the mid-90s blip which wrought ‘champions’ Bruce Seldon, Frans Botha and Frank Bruno were far from high times but the average American fan could at least find the fights.

In recent years, with the best of the current crop increasingly European, even that is becoming a difficult task.  Fights like John Ruiz-Valuev or John Ruiz-Chagaev or this weekend’s title tilt go largely dark.  It’s becoming more the norm for Heavyweight title fights to have difficulty securing U.S. attention at all.

Then we examine the list of fights and it’s not all too shocking.  They were missed, but was anyone really missing anything?

It’s often said that in bad Heavyweight times, the sport turns to its smaller fighters to fill the void.  It’s true.  However, it works on the assumption that the Heavyweight division is still the straw which stirs the drink.  The awesome ticket sales for the July bout between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye indicate the business of big boys is still a global affair panacea when done correctly.

However, is the evidence mounting that Heavyweight primacy has become, at least in 2009, a myth? 

In the last few months, we’ve seen hot crowds and solid TV numbers for fights like Shane Mosley-Antonio Margarito, Juan Diaz-Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton.  The off Broadway show which exploded Edwin Valero onto the U.S. scene also had rabid, filled seats.  The business of boxing is far healthier than many have been led to believe.

And it’s healthy without a single Heavyweight on the U.S. scene whose name rolls off the mainstream tongue.  Cris Arreola, a Los Angeles based Mexican-American with a heavy punch, is begining to catch on but his ceiling remains to be determined. 

Sure, there are still those who ask ‘what happened to the Heavyweights?’ but the mainstream was slipping away rapidly even when the names were Bowe, Holyfield, and Lewis.  The notion that a super attraction at Heavyweight can pull boxing into American prominence again is flawed not to mention a chance for a long wait which might not pay off.

The talent below Heavyweight might not be filling a void this time.   

It might be just fine that way.

HBO’s Larry Merchant has said on-air in the past that boxing has become a niche sport.  As a niche sport, it now behooves the market to cater to those who avidly follow and actively but casually follow.  Both of those audiences can be satisfied by quality as much as human mass.  It creates a need for good fights and those are always, have always, been more easily found below Heavyweight.

This weekend’s big Heavyweight fight is an example.  The first Chagaev-Valuev contest wasn’t terrible.  It was even interesting in spots as the skilled Chagaev gave up about a foot of height (Valuev stands over 7’) and one-hundred pounds and managed to carefully pick his spots on the way to a win.  What the fight was not was thrilling.  A U.S. broadcaster then is asked to pick between more of ‘not thrilling’ and, as HBO will televise Saturday night, a potential barn burner between Andre Berto and Juan Urango at welterweight.

Playing to a niche, it isn’t even a choice.  Berto being American makes it even easier.

The point here is not to bury the Heavyweights.  That’s been done to death and serves no function.  The division will get better or it won’t.  We wait.

It is to say boxing, in its current state, has shown itself quite capable of health and survival without them. 

There was a time when that might not have been true.

Gillette doesn’t do weekly fights anymore.     

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com