Presuming there are no mishaps in the coming months, the world’s leading boxing stars will average just under two fights each for 2024 and when you examine their activity since 2021, that figure drops further. It falls some way below their counterparts from 30 years ago.
There has long been grumbles that boxing’s most marketable fighters simply don’t fight frequently enough. In fact, we were moaning about the very same thing in 1994, when Pernell Whitaker – the universal choice for the best fighter in boxing – fought only twice.
Whitaker’s supposed laziness would be compared to champions of the past and boxing, just like always, would be accused of being in decline.
We conclude that boxing ‘ain’t what it used to be’ with the inference nearly always that it’s worse. The common complaints have remained the same: The best not fighting the best frequently enough; the convoluted championship system; and the increasing marginalization of a sport that was once a staple in every household.
The past, in boxing just like in life, is nearly always viewed through a rose-tinted haze.
“In the not-so-old days, the networks featured boxing on a regular basis,” Jim Bagg wrote 30 years ago. “The careers of ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini, Alexis Arguello, Aaron Pryor, and even Hector Camacho, were helped in part by networks. You can’t help but wonder if current potential network stars like James Toney, Gerald McClellan and Kennedy McKinney would be household names if anyone ever saw them… Unless you were an Olympian or an overweight heavyweight, people just don’t know much about today’s boxers and that stinks.”
Toney is an excellent case in point. Though it’s reasonable to conclude that he never quite became a household name, his level of activity was astonishing when measured against the leading stars of today. While a middle and super middleweight champion, he averaged six fights a year between 1991 and 1994. Granted, plenty were non-title affairs but even some of his opponents in those bouts – like Anthony Hembrick, Glenn Thomas and Doug DeWitt – were at or near world class. Furthermore, after beating Michael Nunn to win his first belt in May 1991, he waited all of six weeks to make his first defence against Reggie Johnson and after notching the biggest win of his career over Iran Barkley in February 1993, he was back in the ring in March.
For context, current 168 leader Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, has fought more than twice in only one of the last four calendar years – with Avni Yildirim (who would have struggled to beat Hembrick, Thomas or DeWitt) being the ‘extra’ opponent in 2021. But Toney was an anomaly, even back in 1994, and nothing like the market leader that Canelo is today.
A fairer comparison would be welterweight champions Whitaker and Terence Crawford. While the latter has (in)famously busied himself with one date a year, “Sweet P” – regarded as too inactive back then, don’t forget – was averaging 2.5 appearances per annum between 1991 and 1994.
The heavyweight division, then and now, is also worth a gander. Evander Holyfield had recently surrendered the world title to Michael Moorer 30 years ago but, while champ, ‘The Real Deal’ fought at least twice a year. Throw in the other titlists of that period, Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis, and the division could boast 13 championship bouts in four years. From 2021 to 2024, Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk managed to put the major belts on the line just seven times (a figure which includes the scheduled Usyk-Fury rematch).
Though it’s only fair to reference the world in which we currently live – the hangover from the coronavirus pandemic took some shifting and the Russia-Ukraine conflict unquestionably hindered Usyk’s activity – it’s nonetheless impossible to deny that the leading fighters of 1994 were clearly more active than those of today. Particularly when one considers that Naoya Inoue, who will average 2.25 contests per year since 2021 if he fights again in December, is regarded as the most prolific of the current A-listers.
What’s also true is that 1991 to 1994 was not a particularly golden period for the sport. Or rather, it most certainly wasn’t viewed as such at the time: Roy Jones Jr was still approaching his peak; Oscar De La Hoya had barely gotten started; Mike Tyson was sent to prison; and Julio Cesar Chavez started to fade. Yet fans still got to see more of those at the top of the sport than they do today.
The reasons for the drop-off can partly be explained in much the same way as Jim Bagg did back then. The biggest stars operate behind paywalls or the equivalent and thus the public’s familiarity with them, and in turn the widespread desire to see them fight more regularly, is nothing like it used to be many moons ago. Also, the broadcasting world of 2024 is unrecognizable to how it was: Today’s budgets must be spread far more thinly to accommodate multiple 24-7 sports channels; the exorbitant cost of securing rights to football, soccer and the equivalent means there are less dates in the calendar (and money in the bank) for the likes of boxing; terrestrial and network stations have largely moved away from live sport; and the internet has not only blown a hole in the entire market, it’s stolen the attention of the younger generations. Therefore, the biggest events in boxing now end up exclusively behind a paywall so that they can, in effect, pay for themselves.
It follows, then, that the increase in PPV events – both in frequency and cost – over the last 30 years has made the visibility even worse.
“The situation with pay-per-view a few years ago reached crisis point,” an industry figure told BoxingScene. “Certain fighters who should never have been on that platform got used to fighting for those paydays and would quite blatantly refuse to fight for anything less. In one respect, you can understand that. Anyone who earns a wage wouldn’t take kindly to that wage being slashed. Suddenly, we were seeing ‘box office’ cropping up all over the place – not just on the usual channels but on obscure platforms that had no chance of drawing a big audience.
“Then you had a kind of domino effect. The purse of the fighter on PPV would become public knowledge and other fighters who thought they were at the same level as the PPV fighter complained that they should be on PPV.”
It remains to be seen if the current changes in the sport, like the huge influx of money from Saudi Arabia, causes similar problems. One must look at the sparse UK boxing calendar to suggest it might; nearly all of Britain’s biggest draws (Fury, Joshua, Chris Eubank Jr, Chris Billam-Smith, Daniel Dubois, et al) are either scheduled to appear on a Saudi-funded show or are in talks to do so. Furthermore, fights which would ordinarily headline a UK arena TV show in their own right – like Hamzah Sheeraz-Tyler Denny, Anthony Cacacae-Josh Warrington, Joshua Buatsi-Willy Hutchinson and Fabio Wardley-Frazer Clarke – are set to appear on marathon undercards.
“Some boxers are now hesitant to agree to anything that might put an appearance on a more lucrative bill in jeopardy,” the industry figure added before going on to explain that the Middle Eastern riches have taught rival promoters how to get along, a welcome trend that he believes will last – and certainly did not exist in 1994.
It is worth adding further context to the comparison between then and now.
The leading stars were busier 30 years ago, but it might be concluded their fights lacked the significance of today. Though the heavyweight division and its stars may have been busier in 1991-94, the challengers included Michael Dokes, Jesse Ferguson, Phil Jackson and Bert Cooper. When Bowe, in his third title defense, fought Holyfield in a 1993 rematch, then-HBO head Seth Abraham joked, “This will be Bowe’s first legit title defense. Dokes and Ferguson couldn’t beat Bowe as a tag team.” The only fighter comparable 30 years later, in terms of being completely undeserving, is Derek Chisora who was thrashed by Tyson Fury two years ago. Usyk achieved undisputed status in the division, Crawford did the same at welter, as did Canelo at super middle, the winner of Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol will rule at light heavy, while Inoue has completed the feat at bantam and junior featherweight.
One might also want to consider the long-term effects of fighting more frequently alongside the rewards on offer in 2024 when making the case for today’s landscape being brighter. James Toney adored fighting but he didn’t do so purely for the love of it, he needed to be paid, and it might be suggested that he now pays a sizeable price for the countless blows he endured. The major reason why the leading boxers are more inactive than they were 30 years ago is simply because they can afford to be.