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I've been thinking about this for a while and trying to think of what can be done to bring boxing back into the mainstream. Sure you get relative interest every time a HUGE fight comes up, people might watch a couple cards after that, but interest slowly fades. Whenever I tell someone I'm really into boxing, and they ask who my favorite fighters are, even when I keep it mainstream (JMM, Miguel Cotto, Juanma) they look at me like I just named the best fighters from Mars. I've tried to think of some approaches where boxing can get back into the realm of major sports.
Cleaning Up (The Hard Way)
While it's nice to be able to imagine a world without Super Champions, diamond champions, but it's a hard thing to do. The main problem I think is the weight classes. There's way to many of them. The average person would probably think you're some sort of boxing sage if you can name all of them, let alone any actual fighters. Do we honestly need 13 classes? We could stand to lose every weight class with the word "junior" or "super" attached. This would mean it would be harder for fighters too move up, but it would also group more fighters into divisions, meaning there would be more fights at every weight class.
An aside to that, no more petty bull**** about catchweights. Contracts live and die by a couple of pounds, Christ. Look at the upcoming big fights. Catchweights at 144 and 145 is ridiculous. "Yeah, they're fighting at welterweight, and this guy's at light welterweight, and they're fighting for the diamond title, but it's not at light welterweight or welterweight, it's something else...no, not super welterweight". I hate having to defend myself as a boxing fan.
To be honest, I really like Ring Magazine's Rankings. Their rules about letting an injured fighter keep their title, and not having rules about mandatories really helps solidify a person's reign with a title, and makes it more meaningful when it changes hands. The Alphabet titles are becoming more and more meaningless since rich promoters can pay mandatories to step aside, pay off organizations for rankings, and exploit the system. The WBA Super, Regular, and Interim titles make me embarrassed to watch boxing, the fact that explaining something like WHO THE CHAMPION IS requires a doctoral thesis really helps boxing as a sport (that being said with no sarcasm at all).
The UFC Approach (The Easy[er] Way)
Obviously cleaning up, getting rid of divisions and robbing Commissions of their precious precious licensing fees isn't going to be possible, but looking at the UFC, and their model, that could be an avenue boxing could pursue.
Take a promotion, give them their own title, their own weight classes, and have exclusive shows with their boxers, and stage shows with a few more fights. Perhaps every 3 months or so, have a Top Rank card where their fighters fight amongst themselves, and skip all the WBA, WBC, WBS (I'm bad at jokes) and keep that going every 3 months or so where people are guaranteed to see a big star. Golden Boy tried to do this, but the undercards were a total headscratcher with improperly-marketed unknowns for nothing or the WBA Interim title (read: nothing). The MMA model has been very successful, and if boxing (which many people including myself consider the superior sport) can make use of it and give every fighter proper marketing, I think it can be a match made in heaven.
So that's me being long-winded. Thoughts?
Cleaning Up (The Hard Way)
While it's nice to be able to imagine a world without Super Champions, diamond champions, but it's a hard thing to do. The main problem I think is the weight classes. There's way to many of them. The average person would probably think you're some sort of boxing sage if you can name all of them, let alone any actual fighters. Do we honestly need 13 classes? We could stand to lose every weight class with the word "junior" or "super" attached. This would mean it would be harder for fighters too move up, but it would also group more fighters into divisions, meaning there would be more fights at every weight class.
An aside to that, no more petty bull**** about catchweights. Contracts live and die by a couple of pounds, Christ. Look at the upcoming big fights. Catchweights at 144 and 145 is ridiculous. "Yeah, they're fighting at welterweight, and this guy's at light welterweight, and they're fighting for the diamond title, but it's not at light welterweight or welterweight, it's something else...no, not super welterweight". I hate having to defend myself as a boxing fan.
To be honest, I really like Ring Magazine's Rankings. Their rules about letting an injured fighter keep their title, and not having rules about mandatories really helps solidify a person's reign with a title, and makes it more meaningful when it changes hands. The Alphabet titles are becoming more and more meaningless since rich promoters can pay mandatories to step aside, pay off organizations for rankings, and exploit the system. The WBA Super, Regular, and Interim titles make me embarrassed to watch boxing, the fact that explaining something like WHO THE CHAMPION IS requires a doctoral thesis really helps boxing as a sport (that being said with no sarcasm at all).
The UFC Approach (The Easy[er] Way)
Obviously cleaning up, getting rid of divisions and robbing Commissions of their precious precious licensing fees isn't going to be possible, but looking at the UFC, and their model, that could be an avenue boxing could pursue.
Take a promotion, give them their own title, their own weight classes, and have exclusive shows with their boxers, and stage shows with a few more fights. Perhaps every 3 months or so, have a Top Rank card where their fighters fight amongst themselves, and skip all the WBA, WBC, WBS (I'm bad at jokes) and keep that going every 3 months or so where people are guaranteed to see a big star. Golden Boy tried to do this, but the undercards were a total headscratcher with improperly-marketed unknowns for nothing or the WBA Interim title (read: nothing). The MMA model has been very successful, and if boxing (which many people including myself consider the superior sport) can make use of it and give every fighter proper marketing, I think it can be a match made in heaven.
So that's me being long-winded. Thoughts?
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