Sometimes inclusivity in boxing is not always a good thing. “If they can do it, anyone can,” might work in other sports, and professions, but in a business as dangerous as boxing encouragement in the wrong places is often asking for trouble.
An eight-rounder between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, for instance, was aspirational to so many last week. It inspired not only novices with an online presence to start shadowboxing on their livestream but also inspired men close to pension age to believe they have one fight still left in them – if, that is, enough fools are willing to watch.
Jake Paul, they say, has opened many doors and, to some extent, this is true. He has, for one, opened doors for Amanda Serrano, whom he promotes, and any female she happens to fight, and he has opened doors for other influencers to join the fun and all have a go. Better yet, with Mike Tyson now a business partner, he has managed to open the door for retired boxers struggling either for motivation or money in retirement. Get a venue, a broadcaster, two pairs of massive gloves, and some modified rules, and you can do it, too. You can fleece the uneducated and curious masses to the tune of millions of dollars.
Thanks, Jake.
Now every fighter who thought their fighting days were over, and perhaps needed all return options blocked off for their own good, can suddenly see light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Now former world champions like Amir Khan and Manny Pacquiao – former gym mates no less – are eyeing up an exhibition bout of their own just for something to do; something to keep them earning, relevant, relatively fit.
Khan, in fact, claims that he recently received an astronomical offer from a secret location to stage his long-mooted fight with Pacquiao, having previously been rebuffed by Turki Alalshikh when presenting the option to him. “Turki would never take that fight. It’s a shame,” Khan, 37, told Prime Casino. “I don’t think Turki wants to do exhibitions or fights with guys who are retired because he has such a good roster.
“But another nation is coming in hard and wants to throw money at entertainment now. I can’t say their name but, if they come in now, they’re going to follow the same footprint as Saudi Arabia.
“They were ready to throw funds and deposits down, and they’re non-refundable deposits, so you know their team is on it.
“You look at the countries and how much wealth they have… it’s a powerful one. I’m not allowed [to say] but it is another Muslim country. The country that’s backing it is very, very powerful.”
It shouldn’t take too many guesses to figure out the nation Khan is talking about, yet all that really counts in the end is the money – not where it comes from necessarily. The formula for success in boxing is now a simple one. It requires two famous people in a ring – young or old, good or bad – and a lot of money put up by a source, or nation, for whom money is no object. Get that right and nothing else matters.
“The ball is in Manny’s court if he wants to do it,” said Khan of Paquiao, now 45. “I know there’s a lot going on in his life as he’s in politics, so it’s just a waiting game.
“This happens a lot in boxing and then you both end up getting bored of it. But when you’ve seen the proof of funds from the country itself, you know that it is real. They’re not messing about.
“The motivation is always going to be there. We’re friends. We’ve fought each other. We’ve trained with each other. At the end of the day, we are prizefighters. A prizefighter, with a fight like that on the table, you’re never going to say no because it is a massive, massive fight.
“Maybe it’s a little bit too late but there’s still going to be fireworks because we’ll both have our hearts on our sleeves, and we’ll fight; we’ll fight very hard. It’d be good to do that fight but it just depends.”
Khan, if nothing else, is being honest about his motives and the minutiae of this particular idea. He has in fact always been an honest fighter, almost to a fault, and has often said either what other fighters only think or what other fighters realize should maybe not be said publicly.
Only a failed performance-enhancing drug test in 2022 has managed to besmirch Khan’s reputation as far as honesty goes. News of that transgression – for which he was banned two years – arrived after he lost against Kell Brook and announced his retirement and could even be attributed as a reason for the latter. Either way, at 37, Khan clearly has an interest in returning to the ring, if just to lick the bowl and catch every last drop.
“Obviously, me and Manny are well-paid fighters and we got paid enough for our previous fights, so we won’t be taking anything less or short-changing ourselves for anyone,” he said. “When you’re retired and you’re getting a paycheck like that, it’s a lot of money. We’ve done well in the sport, but to have another paycheck thrown at you again, who would say ‘no’ to it? Especially when you’re retired. That’s a massive motivation to get back in the ring.
“Another big motivation is to fight against such a great fighter as Manny Pacquiao, which never happened in the boxing ring when we were both active fighters but it can happen now, so why not?”
If a parent, boxing has seemingly lost the ability to not only control its offspring but even say “no” to them. Overworked and underpaid, they are too concerned with rising costs and too busy looking at their phone to instill any sort of discipline, boundaries, or rules. “Why not?” they say whenever asked a difficult question, whether by the child young and dumb or the one old enough to know better. “So long as nobody gets hurt.”