From the mid 90s to Present, I don’t remember a worst boxing year

[-Kev-]

Saying “boxing is dying” is so cliche, so I will just say: I don’t recall a worse/less exciting boxing year than 2022.

The fighter of the year is Usyk basically because he was the only fighter who did anything of note.

You can list all the good fights of this year, it still felt like it was the worst year.

Boxing has been a business since before any of us were born, I get that. Lots of politics. But man, it has become way more than just a business in a sports sense. It’s a business to the point where boxing has lost its identity of just a bunch of guys fighting with rules for money/entertainment. It’s just 100% about money now. Not even 10% about fighting the best.

[JakeTheBoxer]

Nah, Bivol is the fighter of the year, if he beats Ramirez.

99% casuals felt he would have no chance against Canelo.

[TMLT87]

It could have ended on a good note with Spence/Crawford and Fury vs Usyk or AJ but instead there was a doubling down on the ****tiness.

[removed]

Agreed, we had better fights during lockdown ffs

[786]

There's an increasing trend of fighters who have no intention of actually fighting each other, negotiating publicly for a fight when it's all about building each others names and who wins public opinion of "who ducked who" when both guys are already privately negotiating to fight a lesser opponent.

Fury - AJ
Crawford - Spence
Tank - Garcia

There are probably more examples of this but it's getting a little worrying that this kind of thing will get worse. I hope those fights happen very soon because they're gradually becoming less interesting/relevant and if they don't happen, this could end up being the marketing strategy to build fighters up in the same division against each other but never having them actually fight so the respective promoters don't lose their 'cash-cow' and the fighters don't lose that precious "0" while both guys can claim to be no. 1.

[-Kev-]

Nah, Bivol is the fighter of the year, if he beats Ramirez.

99% casuals felt he would have no chance against Canelo.

I agree with you. Canelo/Ramirez would put Bivol ahead of Usyk.

[_original_]

I agree it’s been an abysmal year for us.

[al-Xander]

The solution is to lower your expectations. Accept it as it is. It's not a sport. It's a business. Where can you find players of any sport playing just once every year or more? How can anyone even stamp any kind of legacy on players fighting once a year? You can't. They're simply playing for the money. Fans should get mad for even ranking such participants.

[IronDanHamza]

The standard of boxing has been decreasing for a while.

Even 10-15 years ago people were saying the general quality of Boxing was low but look at it compared to today? It's night and day.

[paulf]

I’ve taken to watching UFC this year.

Resisted it for over a decade. But guys at the gym kept talking about it and I decided to check it out. Here’s what’s sold me:

The free, early prelims at like 1pm any given weekend are better than any boxing PPV main card all year. And it’s not even close. If there are five fights, at least three of them are extremely competitive. And if the fight is a mismatch, the other guy is stopped in a round and sent packing.

From a product perspective, from a matchmaking perspective, it’s everything we want in boxing but never get.