By Tris Dixon

WHO would be a fan of the heavyweight division?

Who is chomping at the bit to watch Deontay Wilder-Dominic Breazeale, Tyson Fury-Thomas Schwarz and Anthony Joshua-Jarrell Miller?

Who has Showtime/ITV, ESPN/BT Sport and DAZN/Sky Sports?

What numbers will those fights do? How much will they cost?

There are a lot of side issues to consider when you think of the above but one the thing that is certain is the second name in each contest is not designed to spoil any kind of party, derail any money train, blockade any momentum (although ironically they all have) or jeopardise the golden egg, which is an event featuring two of the above fighters named first, be it Joshua, Fury or Wilder.

While the bouts will all still create a level of intrigue and big money, the immediate lustre of a huge heavyweight fight has gone. They just aren’t not happening yet. They might not even happen this year.

Momentum and impressive performances whet the appetite for superfights. If Joshua, Wilder and Fury win emphatically and devastatingly through May and June then the cravings will grow.

And while each network has backed their man with lavish contracts, hefty bounties and low-risk opponents – as promoters and executives compare how fat their wallets or how deep their pockets are – they have and will continue to shell out extortionate purses so they are not left behind, without a heavy hitter amongst their ranks. They’ve split a pie three ways but aren’t even sharing a knife to divide their slice.

But if one of their men loses, or looks far from impressive, their bargaining power at the table decreases. And it’s already hard to assess who brings what to the table because without each other they are worth comparatively little. The bonanza comes when they face one another.

Yet all three heavyweights still talk a good game. They blame each other for failed negotiations and say they want to face the best while then scouring down the ratings to find an opponent who might have an element of relevance, who may have a story to tell (see also sell) or who may bring another negotiating or marketing chip to the table.

There’s another angle here, though.

To fight for a legacy is a noble pursuit, indeed it is, but credit where and when it’s due and nobility have not always allowed boxing to put food on the table.

It’s a dangerous sport and it has taken far more out of fighters than fighters have taken out of it.

It is only the minute percentage of boxers who, in their thirties, retire on their terms, when they want and with more money than they and their children can get through. Elite boxers are now fighting for generational wealth. Fury, Wilder and Joshua all have children. They want them set for life. And they want their children’s children set for life, too.

Lessons have been learned from the many greats who have frittered their cash or allowed themselves to be ripped off.

These men are now apparently shrewder. They don’t want to be a statistic on a scrapheap of fighters who had it all and lost everything. That story has been on loop for decades.

These three are now making business decisions that suit them.

They might not suit the fans but we would only then be reminded that the fans are not the ones taking the punches.

While we do not have the heavyweight contests we want now – and might not get them – what we do have is a game of chicken, between the three rival fighters and factions, that one would call intriguing if we weren’t so impatient and wanted the big three to face off in a micro-tournament as soon as yesterday.

And there have been bigger shocks in the heavyweight division than Dominic Breazeale dethroning Deontay Wilder, Jarell Miller toppling Anthony Joshua and Thomas Schwarz felling Tyson Fury. Of course, it’s unlikely but it’s possible. There could be more than one faller as they wait for the right time to sit down and sort out the small print. And the longer they are kept from one another the closer one of them will come to stumbling before the marquee matches can be made.

But for the meantime the game of roulette will persist. They will attempt to pluck relevant victims from a shallow pool for brilliant money while not making the riches they could for fighting a top rival. The thought process is, as we know, that these fights ‘marinate’. In this ridiculous game of one-upmanship, A-sides and B-sides and purse split percentages the longing for the Fury-Joshua-Wilder fights heighten and then, when they are ready for their pension funds to be cashed in – and they are probably somewhat past their best – they sign on the dotted line. We have seen it time and again.

Annoyingly that system works, from a monetary perspective at least. Mega fights have done better at the box office and at the gate even when the stars are nearer the end than the prime of their careers, look at the two times networks famously worked together in America, with Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. You cannot deny the business logic, as frustrating as it is.

Who wouldn’t want these guys to fight two or three times each rather than have that one climactic pay-off?

Who wouldn’t want the boxing calendar to suddenly be filled with two years of the fights we want between the big men?

Yet for some reason I’m torn. Historically so many fighters have lost so much having given everything that it’s hard to begrudge those who work the system in their favour.

That may seem an unpopular opinion because we all want microwaved big fights, served immediately and consumed while they’re hot. Sure we do. That’s the allure of the sport in so many ways and often its best advertisement, with the top champions and contenders facing one another to unveil one true king. You know how it goes now… One face… One name… One needn’t go on.

But if these three leave the sport exceedingly rich men, have acquired fortunes for low risk but yet they come out with their faculties, set their children and grand-children up and remain positive adverts for the sport then is that good or bad?

In the small picture we want wars between the best. In the bigger picture, you can’t blame these three for picking the lock to the vault rather than fighting over who holds the key.