By Dr. Peter Edwards

In the last couple of months, I’ve noticed a few trends in the boxing industry. The first, and I don’t care what the networks or promoters mislead us to believe, the sport of boxing is not gaining new fans. As I watch each passing month, I see more and more boxing fans walk away from the sport.

Can anyone blame them?

Rather than slow down some of atrocious pay-per-view events, promoters are staging more pay-per-views than ever before. There is an average of at least 1-2 boxing pay-per-views per month, with each show charging an average of $40-50 bucks per pop. Rising costs of living, gas for the car, etc. Who do they expect to have the money to keep buying these shows?

A new fan that got in the sport a year ago, can no longer watch a fighter like Floyd Mayweather, Jr. on free TV, unless it’s a replay of his pay-per-view event. These days, fans will be lucky to turn on the TV and even watch guys like Manny Pacquiao, Erik Morales and Hasim Rahman fight live…unless they fork over $40-50 bucks for the privilege. After losing three fights in a row, you still can’t see a guy like Roy Jones Jr. fight on free TV.

The most disturbing trend I have noticed it the abundance of boxing writers that are not only walking away from the sport, but bashing the sport as well.

I have to admit, boxing was at one time my favorite sport to watch. The house would have had to be burning down for me to miss an event, but I can’t really say that anymore. At the same time, I would not be one of these guys turning my back on the sport when it needs my help the most.

The sport of baseball has arguably had just as many problems as boxing in the last couple of years. Allegations of players using steroids, constant threats of strikes, gambling among MLB employees, etc. The one thing I don’t see is sports writers walking away from covering baseball or stop voicing their opinion to try and change the wrongs.

If your favorite sports team does bad, do you walk away? I’m sure there are plenty of fans of the New York Knicks that still watch each and every game, regardless of how bad the team does. The one they don’t do is walk away when the team is doing bad.

The worst thing about these fans writers who are walking away and bashing the sport, is that they will be the first in line to get back on the boxing sailboat and praise their so-called “beloved” sport when boxing begins to build itself back up to it’s former glory.

They have these kind of guys in every sport and we all know at least one. You know the guy that bashed the Miami Heat year after year and once they win the championship that same guy is now wearing a Shaq jersey and praising the team to the entire world.

I see a lot of people jumping over to the new UFC craze. I like the Ultimate Fighting Championship, but I certainly wouldn’t stop watching boxing in order to become a fan of the UFC. There seems to be a lot of people who think that just because you are a fan of one sport, you can’t be a fan of the other. For that reason, most boxing fans look down upon and bash Mixed Martial Arts, and the feeling is mutual from fans of Mixed Martial Arts.

There is clear rivalry between fans of the two sports and God forbid you happen to be a fan of both, supporters on each side will attempt to brainwash you into thinking one sport is obsolete and why you should dump it. This sort of trend does not happen among other sports.

The overpopulation of alphabet title belts is not helping the cause either. The casual boxing fan can’t even tell who the champion is anymore, most fighters don’t even care about title belts and usually the best fighter within his respective weight division has no titles.

I love it when a pay-per-view promotion is centered around a fighter challenging the champion for this title that means so much to him to gain, only to have the fighter win the title and drop it two months later by stating that he either does not need the title or it doesn’t mean much to him. That same fighter could have spared us $50 bucks by telling us in advance. These kind swerves are what make fans sick to their stomachs.

If the fighters don’t respect the titles or take them seriously, how in the world does the boxing industry expect fans to?

There needs to be a major overhaul of the sport. Some higher power needs to take over and regulate the industry by eliminating most of the titles in each weight class, force fighters to compete at least three times per year, eliminate most pay-per-view events and even eliminate some of the weight classes to force more competitive fights, rather than have fighters hiding from each other with 4 pounds between them.