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I definitely don't buy this. I'd argue the problem is so few high level competitive fights get put on that fans tend to overvalue pretty records since records are manufactured more in this era then any other era at the most elite levels. So when casual fans almost never see the fights they wanna see & even hardcore fans rarely get the level of competitive fights they wanna see that keeps perpetuating the myth that since so few guys have prime Carl Froch schedules that the guy with the prettiest record if usually the best guy. And everyone wants to watch the best guy thus everyone wants to be the guy promoting & airing that type of guy. So its all a cycle of certain things happening & its more of a self fulfilling prophesy than anything else & it can be easily altered if competition is more highly valued over pretty records by promoters & networks. Fans will appreciate certain things more or less, but the whole core reasons anyone watches anything is for the competition of it all & boxing has damn near quit giving fans that.
And as a US guy who's been watching the decline in popularity of boxing over the last couple decades & the increase in popularity of boxing over a similar time in the UK its beyond obvious. Go look at the 12 biggest shows or 12 random shows by the main promoters in the US & the UK & you'll see drastic differences in the competitiveness of those shows with a clear lean towards the UK shows. I'd expect you'd see less 0's at comparable experience levels of fighters career as well cuz UK guys will have been matched tougher & taken an L at some point as well. And boxing hasn't been as popular as it is today in a long ass time & meanwhile US boxing has never been less popular outside of a guy or two, & I'm not sure there has ever been so many elite level, fringe contenders & prospects with 0's.
The tennis thing or other sports in general to boxing as far as times you can compete in a given year is valid, but mainly its all the more reason that ever time a guy fights he NEEDS to be in a competitive fight. You're wasting everyones time by not doing so. The fighters, the fans, the promoters, the networks, everyones time is being under respected & therefore less people over time tend to keep caring about boxing cuz 1)guys don't fight that much, but 2)even when they do they fight guys in fights they are 80% or better to win & even the name guys don't fight other name guys.
Sure, but the one thing boxing does thats different then any other sport is have a traveling circus way of putting on its events. Every other sport has a clear narrative of some elite level where the sport largely takes place at. There is some sorta farm system officially or unofficially in other sports & more importantly a high point where the best compete at. In boxing the difference between the best fighters in the world & guys boxing as a hobby or part time career aren't separated in anyway.
And personally I've never seen tournaments as the fix for boxing. Injuries & time are problems in boxing as you mention. In team events where one guy tends to have less impact its fine, but any individual sport has less appeal with a tournament format the rougher the sport happens to be & boxing is among the roughest individual sports around if not hands down the roughest. And you'll notice that most tournaments in rough sports tend to happen all in the same day & for a specific example its how the UFC operated in its initial format. The people could get invested in something like that. Its much harder to keep people invested in tournaments that last several months if not over a year. People tend to lose interest & fighters might overcame injuries from their first round fight yet get injuries in training. Boxing isn't really a sport you'd wanna do tournaments in at all due to these factors. You just wanna make the best competitive fight possible each time out.
I think the solutions are more evident than some people wanna admit, but I do believing implementing those solutions are problematic & not easily done since boxing is a every man for himself sport where being the guy going against the grain requires risk taking, resolve & a roster of a high caliber or capable of reaching a high caliber that is willing to take risks & show resolve as well.
That being the case flipping the paradigm of boxing from this self fulfilling prophesy that is making boxing smaller & smaller in the US is gonna be difficult & probably doesn't happen til there are more high level failures in boxing, many more yawn inducing matchups no one cares about for the elite fighters &/or til more promoters get their power lifted from them or join together to form a bigger entity perhaps. Neither of which I can envision happening in the next 10 years.
And as a US guy who's been watching the decline in popularity of boxing over the last couple decades & the increase in popularity of boxing over a similar time in the UK its beyond obvious. Go look at the 12 biggest shows or 12 random shows by the main promoters in the US & the UK & you'll see drastic differences in the competitiveness of those shows with a clear lean towards the UK shows. I'd expect you'd see less 0's at comparable experience levels of fighters career as well cuz UK guys will have been matched tougher & taken an L at some point as well. And boxing hasn't been as popular as it is today in a long ass time & meanwhile US boxing has never been less popular outside of a guy or two, & I'm not sure there has ever been so many elite level, fringe contenders & prospects with 0's.
The tennis thing or other sports in general to boxing as far as times you can compete in a given year is valid, but mainly its all the more reason that ever time a guy fights he NEEDS to be in a competitive fight. You're wasting everyones time by not doing so. The fighters, the fans, the promoters, the networks, everyones time is being under respected & therefore less people over time tend to keep caring about boxing cuz 1)guys don't fight that much, but 2)even when they do they fight guys in fights they are 80% or better to win & even the name guys don't fight other name guys.
Boxing is just structurally different than most other sports. Tournaments are difficult, because of injuries. 1 small cut and a fighter is out of the tournament. Unless that tournament takes a year or so like the Super 6, and then most people lose interest.
And personally I've never seen tournaments as the fix for boxing. Injuries & time are problems in boxing as you mention. In team events where one guy tends to have less impact its fine, but any individual sport has less appeal with a tournament format the rougher the sport happens to be & boxing is among the roughest individual sports around if not hands down the roughest. And you'll notice that most tournaments in rough sports tend to happen all in the same day & for a specific example its how the UFC operated in its initial format. The people could get invested in something like that. Its much harder to keep people invested in tournaments that last several months if not over a year. People tend to lose interest & fighters might overcame injuries from their first round fight yet get injuries in training. Boxing isn't really a sport you'd wanna do tournaments in at all due to these factors. You just wanna make the best competitive fight possible each time out.
Its a very difficult problem boxing has. I dont know the solution.
That being the case flipping the paradigm of boxing from this self fulfilling prophesy that is making boxing smaller & smaller in the US is gonna be difficult & probably doesn't happen til there are more high level failures in boxing, many more yawn inducing matchups no one cares about for the elite fighters &/or til more promoters get their power lifted from them or join together to form a bigger entity perhaps. Neither of which I can envision happening in the next 10 years.
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