Talk is cheap
Boxing has to offer up more of the fights people are calling out for in 2023
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This edition in brief…
Though things have been relatively quiet so far this year in the US and the wider boxing world, the UK scene has delivered a pretty strong start to 2023. Liam Smith vs Chris Eubank Jr. and especially Artur Beterbiev vs Anthony Yarde have both offered up a reminder of just how fascinating, intriguing and exciting the sport can be when it delivers even close to its potential.
If boxing was a more organised sport, this would unquestionably just be the start of a blockbuster year for the fight game, with a slate of already-confirmed major events on tap and promotion very much underway. Boxing’s Wild West, unregulated business landscape means nothing is ever certain though, and - with the sport really in need of a progressive 12 months - the stakes are pretty high.
The first half of the year alone could deliver a selection of high-profile crackers, including the crowning of the first undisputed heavyweight champion in more than two decades…if the bouts can be made. As the sport continues to veer from controversy to disappointment, with numerous issues bubbling under the surface, there are small signals of hope intermittently appearing in the distance. Whether boxing is capable of making the most of this opportunity, however, at a time when competition for audience attention has never been more fierce, is the big question.
The time is now
THE LONG READ
It’s sometimes quite hard to defend boxing - or to remember why you even bothered trying to in the first place. Yet, when it’s good, there is still nothing quite like it.
The final press conference for the Chris Eubank Jr. versus Liam Smith event two weeks ago featured some astoundingly tone-deaf derogatory language, with the latter using homosexuality as an insult as if we had been transported back to the 1970s. Mind games or not, for a high-profile event it was not a good look at all.
The fight itself, however, offered up the kind of shock result and dramatic events few other sports can hold a candle to. In front of a sold-out Manchester Arena, the bout offered the one result which seemed entirely unfeasible, with Smith stopping the previously iron-chinned Eubank Jr. in just the fourth round. It was sport at its most raw and engaging.
Just a week later, Artur Beterbiev vs Anthony Yarde demonstrated a lot of the best that boxing can deliver. What a fight.
Yarde gave it absolutely everything, offering up a career-best performance as he survived being backed up by his fearsome opponent and weathered some major storms before blasting back with impressive salvos of his own. He did as well as he possibly could, but Beterbiev is a special fighter. In the end, after a thrilling back-and-forth firefight, Beterbiev dropped Yarde hard at the beginning of the eighth and the latter’s corner soon correctly pulled their man out, before he could be knocked out. Maybe, just maybe, Beterbiev, the WBC, IBF and WBO light heavyweight champion, will finally be facing off against the division’s mercurial WBA champion Dmitry Bivol for 175-pound supremacy next.
Beterbiev-Bivol is just one of the plethora of fights boxing could offer up throughout 2023. There is enough talent, across the weight classes, to have excitingly matched headliners planned for almost every weekend of the year. This is boxing, though, with the politics and nonsense that come with it, so the most obvious path is often not the one taken.
On a macro level, issues still run to the very core of the sport. The amateur code is so corrupt that boxing is very close to being chucked out of the actual Olympics. In the pro game, fighters linked to Daniel Kinahan have spent the last six months plus attempting to appear as detached from his boxing companies as possible, although seemingly not being able to avoid having US travel bans placed against them. The latest developments in the Conor Benn positive drug tests saga, with the WBC reportedly restoring him to their rankings despite many questions seemingly remaining unanswered and a British Boxing Board of Control investigation still ongoing, will also only further the negative perception of boxing across the mainstream audience.
Warning signs remain prevalent on the business side of boxing too.
DAZN continues to run their organisation at a massive loss and TV ratings and pay-per-view buys are generally trending downwards. In the US, Showtime’s parent company Paramount Global have now internally confirmed major changes for the broadcaster, which has been a constant platform for boxing broadcasts for more than 35 years, in a move which leaves the future presence of their boxing provider Premier Boxing Champions on the channel in major doubt.
The often suboptimal fare being served by the lead promoters also comes at a time when it feels like there is an overall downturn in the sport. Maybe this would be happening anyway, a part of a more natural cycle driven by outside forces, but the fights people want to see so often not being made must be a major contributing factor. Risk and uncertainty in matchmaking are hugely engaging to audiences.
If we’re honest, the boxing media hasn’t helped with perpetrating the fallacy that a defeat is career-ending, with endless interviews and column inches devoted to ‘reputations being in tatters’ and the like following a high-profile or unexpected loss. This bleeds into the wider narrative from fans, and it’s genuinely hurting the sport. Sometimes, a defeat can be an indicator that a fighter should consider the next stage of their life post-boxing, even when their physical abilities are still intact. In most cases, however, a cross in the loss column can be recovered and learnt from. If a fighter can get paid big money without risking the ire of an audience aching to get cheap thrills if they take on a tougher challenge and don’t succeed, then the easier route is an understandable one to take in many ways.
Pretty much every truly great boxer ever has lost a fight, or two, or even more; it needs to be seen as an acceptable risk which doesn’t have to devalue a fighter’s future, both financially and artistically.
Boxers are not taking the chance - or are not being given the opportunity to - prove they are the best of their generation often enough, and this is negatively impacting the sport and the business which drives it.
The long-term viability of boxing as a going concern relies on the top fighters of the day being matched up with an engagingly-told narrative behind it.
At the same time as all of the above, we are clearly seeing influencer boxing taking an increasing amount of time and awareness away from elite-level boxing.
It felt like the Beterbiev-Yarde event could have been the ideal platform to announce that Fury vs Usyk was finally signed, but instead, it was Tyson’s half-brother Tommy and Jake Paul in the ring promoting their February 26th bout in Saudi Arabia. Carried on ESPN pay-per-view in the US and BT Sport Box Office in the UK, the cold hard reality is that Paul-Fury - a bout between two novices, one of whom is yet to even face a full-time boxer - is the most high-profile confirmed boxing event of the year so far. From an awareness perspective, the scale of the event is undeniable.
The news that the next Misfits Boxing event will feature a tag team boxing bout has also been sending boxing aficionados loopy over the last few days. Clearly, these headline-grabbing stunts from the crossover crowd are only just starting. Lord knows the reaction when the inevitable Royal Rumble match is announced…
As ridiculous as the last point is, it still remains true that boxing’s traditional industry needs to pull its finger out.
The thing is - this could theoretically be a better year for boxing if all, or even most, of the fights on tap end up getting made. Potential blockbusters for 2023 might include…
Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed world heavyweight championship, a crowning glory in the glamour division which was last achieved by Lennox Lewis more than 20 years ago.
Undoubted pound-for-pound contender Naoya Inoue, one of boxing’s great attractions, moving up to super bantamweight to challenge the supremely talented WBC & WBO champion Stephen Fulton in a mouth-watering clash.
The rematch between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, one of the absolute highlights of last year and a landmark, MSG-headling moment for the sport of boxing (assuming Serrano beats Erika Cruz on Saturday night in the undisputed featherweight title headliner of Matchroom’s first show of the year).
A superfight for a new generation in the form of Ryan Garcia vs Gervonta Davis - a bout which we have been assured has been signed off by all parties and that has the potential to take both fighters’ stardom to the next level, but is somewhat worryingly yet to be officially announced.
The aforementioned possibility of Beterbiev vs Bivol for all the light heavyweight marbles, for me the best fight which can be made in the sport and which - given the former’s age - feels like it’s close to being now or never to deliver.
Plenty of other intriguing clashes potentially on the agenda for the year, including both not limited to: Deontay Wilder vs Andy Ruiz in a WBC heavyweight title final eliminator; Jermell Charlo’s delayed defence against Tim Tszyu for the undisputed super welterweight crown (assuming Tszyu gets past the tricky test of Tony Harrison in March); the bad blood second act of Josh Taylor and Jack Catterall; Claressa Shields taking on Natasha Jonas or Savannah Marshall in a rematch; an all-British WBO cruiserweight title clash between Lawrence Okolie and Richard Riakporhe; and the fascinating next steps of Anthony Joshua’s career, most likely beginning with Jermaine Franklin in April.
Almost despite itself, boxing has a chance to have a positive year for the sport, or at least a noticeably stronger one than in recent times. The question is, how much good faith does the sport have left that we actually trust it to deliver on this prospective schedule?
Boxing has become mainly talk in recent years, an industry in which the backstage machinations are often more interesting than what we actually get to see in the ring, but the pieces are in place if politics and self-interest don’t get in the way.
Some fights are in the diary already and look like can’t-miss bangers. Leigh Wood’s WBA featherweight title defence against big punching Mauricio Lara in Matchroom’s first UK show of the year later this month should be an absolute cracker. We have had confirmation that the bout between Caleb Plant and David Benavidez, a rivalry which has been brewing for years, will headline a Vegas pay-per-view on March 25th. It appears that Joe Joyce - while he awaits his long-gestating tilt at a full heavyweight world title - will likely face Zhilei Zhang in what sounds like a guaranteed thriller in London in April.
None of those three fights are likely to transcend the sport though, as thrilling as they might end up being, and a more organised sport would have already had a much more complete official slate to hype.
It’s now been two months since Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk faced off in the ring, in the aftermath of the former’s regrettable battering of Derek Chisora, a staredown which took place at a time when talks were apparently underway. Bob Arum has stated that fight and date confirmation could be imminent - and that Wembley Stadium, rather than Saudi Arabia, might even be the venue - but this fight really should have been signed and sealed by now. Hopefully, this isn’t a warning sign of disappointment to come.
Beterbiev-Bivol, my most wanted fight in the entire sport, may end up being scuppered by boxing politics and that classic boxing banana skin, the rematch clause.
The WBC’sban on Russian fighters could derail Bivol’s chances of fighting for the undisputed crown in the first instance, with the sanctioning body also appearing steadfast on their mandatory Callum Smith being next for Beterbiev. That isn’t a bad matchup but would feel like a considerable letdown under the circumstances, and would be an example of a boxing power broker hindering rather than helping matters. Canelo, meanwhile, appears to be dead set on attempting a revenge mission on Bivol in a September rematch.
There’s also the elephant in the room that so many major bouts have fallen by the wayside in recent times, which hinders confidence in the powers that be. I mean, last year was supposed to be the time we got to finally see Terence Crawford and Errol Spence deliver possibly the most-discussed elite-level fight of the last five years, with Crawford’s departure from Top Rank in November 2021 apparently the final piece of the political jigsaw to get the undisputed welterweight showdown over the line.
As we now know, that didn’t happen. It’s difficult to decipher whether Crawford’s recent sit down with Golden Boy Boxing leaders Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins makes the potential of the Spence blockbuster even slightly more likely to happen…
At this stage, Crawford and Spence should by all rights probably have contested an all-time classic trilogy. It should be the only fight on the table for both men next - but who knows if we will ever see it now.
Even if that bout may end up being one that got away, however, boxing can make up some lost ground this year.
When it hits a run of form and delivers exciting, well-matched fights with outcomes which aren’t easily predictable, boxing can still feel like the best sport in the world. It currently is very far from the best sport in the world, and most fans would openly admit they have a love-hate relationship with boxing in 2023, but there is at least hope for a better tomorrow. At this stage, and with the manner in which boxing continues to be run, that feels as good as we can expect.
Some scribes have opined that boxing is now becoming a sport which delivers occasional big spectacle events and is only a constant concern for a smaller, more hardcore audience. If that’s true, and if boxing is to begin a renaissance in public opinion and positive sentiment, then the least it can do is start making more of those big events a reality. Hyperbole or not, it’s starting to feel like a bit of a make-or-break period for the sport in so many ways.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, boxing needs to be less chat and more hat in 2023. Hear ye, hear ye.
