A global pandemic is currently forcing boxing to swim in unchartered waters.
The coronavirus has caused chaos with the sporting calendar and the boxing timetable is being disrupted. It is likely to get worse before it gets better.
It started in China, but multiple countries are in lockdown, the tally of those contaminated is jumping and the death toll is rising.
The boxing year started off optimistically but with numerous sport seasons and tournaments being suspended and events being held over, boxing is reacting as it always does; doing bits of everything without any kind of uniformity.
Shakur Stevenson’s fight Miguel Marriaga at the Hulu Theater in New York’s Madison Square Garden on Saturday was originally going to go on in front of empty seats. Then it was postponed.
The big show in same venue on Tuesday, St Patrick’s Day, featuring Irish hero Michael Conlan against Colombia’s Belmar Preciado was also going to take place ‘behind closed doors’ but that is now also off.
Conlan is a vastly experienced boxer who fought the world over in the amateurs, but he’s got one of the loudest fanbases in the world and wouldn’t have had the usual party atmosphere on fight night.
“It’s nothing new to me as a fighter,” he said to me in a message about the prospect of competing in front of a bland, deserted arena. “I’m just going to go in and do the business now. It might be a bit weird in an empty arena but I’ve put the hard work in so I’ll get the job done.”
A few hours later, the show was off.
The PBC also pulled their show this weekend, which was due to see James Kirkland meet Mark Hernandez at the MGM National Harbour in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
On the West Coast, the Golden Boy March 29 card featuring Vergil Ortiz-Samuel Vargas has been canned after the California State Athletic Commission shelved all combat sports through to the end of the month.
The Matchroom show in Italy on March 27 featuring Devis Boschiero and Francesco Patera was one of the first events to fall by the wayside.
Top Rank have said that Naoya Inoue is in transit for his fight with John Riel Casimero on April 25, scheduled for the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, but that it might go ahead in an empty studio.
In England, Matchroom have said their events are still on – Dereck Chisora and Oleksandr Usyk met today to announce their May 23 date – but they will refund customers if the shows do not go ahead. They have recently announced big events for May and June, featuring Dillian Whyte-Alexander Povetkin on May 2 in Manchester and Anthony Joshua-Kubrat Pulev at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on June 20 while their UK competitors Queensberry sent out a release to insist the hotly anticipated April 11 date between Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce will go ahead as scheduled.
“In keeping with the stoic position of the Government today however we remain optimistic to present an incredible night of boxing to a packed 02 crowd and there are only a few tickets remaining,” read a statement.
Huge events, including the European Football Championships, which come around every four years, and the Olympics – also every four years – could be delayed by months, possibly a year and maybe two to allow the virus to run its course.
Boxing has never known anything like it. Sport hasn’t known anything like it.
There is no quick fix and there is no real answer. And a health pandemic that sweeps the world and effects sporting fixtures doesn’t make us in the sports media experts on actual science rather than just the sweet science.
It’s also terribly hard on the fighters further up and down the bills who’ve been training for weeks and who now lose their route to a wage.
And of course, it’s bigger than boxing. It’s a very real, global fight in itself.
Stay safe, fight fans. And if you need to self-isolate, put Bobby Chacon, Matthew Saad Muhammad, Arturo Gatti, Tommy Hearns or some of your other favourites into a YouTube search and rewatch them in their thrilling pomp. Make the best of a bad situation and pay homage to some of the greats and thank them for the sacrifices they made in the ring that can still bring us entertainment even during darker times, darker days and while today’s fighters face their own career uncertainty.