By Edward Chaykovsky
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya believes 2016 has been a complete dud for the sport of boxing.
There were huge gaps in televised coverage by HBO, Showtime and Premier Boxing Champions. A lot of the top fighters were barely active this year and plenty of lackluster fights were showcased by the networks. Several potential high profile fights fell apart.
As far as the pay-per-view market, no event has even come close to reaching the one million buyrate mark. The May encounter between Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez and Amir Khan generated around 500,000 buys, and it's likely to stand as the highest seller of the year. Manny Pacquiao vs. Jessie Vargas [on November 5] and Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward [on November 19th] are not expected to reach the half million buy figure.
“I think 2016 should go down as one of the worst years in boxing history, maybe the worst,” De La Hoya said to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports.
One of the biggest problems, according to De La Hoya, is the lack of big stars and boxers who are recognizable to casual fans of the sport. He also says the right fights not being made.
“That is a concern,” De La Hoya said. “Our job as promoters is to get these guys the exposure they need. I’ll be honest, you don’t see fighters being promoted like we’d gotten used to seeing."
“When [Top Rank’s] Bob Arum promotes someone, you know it. When I promote Canelo, you know it. There is talent out there, but promoters need to step up to the plate and promote their fighters. We need to go to the highest mountain and shout about all these guys and what they bring to [the table].”
“I think there is a lot of talent out there, but the fights the fans want to see are not being made. I strongly feel that when we do make Canelo-Golovkin in 2017, it’s going to give boxing the boost that we’ve been waiting for. That will get people talking boxing and writing about boxing and it will be ‘Boxing, boxing, boxing,’ everywhere.”
