Comments Thread For: Boxing and The Public Trust

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

By Cliff Rold - According to the reports originating with Yahoo's Kevin Iole and verified by others, the best made fight of 2016 was far from its biggest. If Bob Arum is telling the truth about Manny Pacquiao's numbers against Jessie Vargas (a claim of around 300,000 buys), it wasn't even the biggest fight of the month...
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[komandante]

I don't consider MMA/UFC a sport at all. Pacquiao is becoming a nuisance to Philippine politics.

[Eff Pandas]

Wtf are they talking about the public trust & MayPac??? If you think the problem in boxing is cuz of MayPac you aren't paying attention to the hundred other problems in boxing that have been going on longer that fight that has drifted people away from the sport years ago & keeps many away til MayPac & other big fights happen & then they go away til the next big fight that interests them happens. Boxing is a huge clusterf#ck with an outdated structure that makes no sense to any non-******. Thats the main thing that the public has lost trust in.

Professional boxing in 2016 is like a highly dramatic sport at its best, but it has story lines like WWE that aren't actually story lines they are true things that happen just with less entertainment value than the WWE would do them. Vince McMahon could legit be the President of Boxing & boxing would make more sense than it does today.

[aboutfkntime]

By Cliff Rold - According to the reports originating with Yahoo's Kevin Iole and verified by others, the best made fight of 2016 was far from its biggest. If Bob Arum is telling the truth about Manny Pacquiao's numbers against Jessie Vargas (a claim of around 300,000 buys), it wasn't even the biggest fight of the month...
[Click Here To Read More]

GREAT article !

[aboutfkntime]

I don't consider MMA/UFC a sport at all. Pacquiao is becoming a nuisance to Philippine politics.

yea..... I'm surprised the writer forgot to mention that stuff

[aboutfkntime]

Wtf are they talking about the public trust & MayPac??? If you think the problem in boxing is cuz of MayPac you aren't paying attention to the hundred other problems in boxing that have been going on longer that fight that has drifted people away from the sport years ago & keeps many away til MayPac & other big fights happen & then they go away til the next big fight that interests them happens. Boxing is a huge clusterf#ck with an outdated structure that makes no sense to any non-******. Thats the main thing that the public has lost trust in.

Professional boxing in 2016 is like a highly dramatic sport at its best, but it has story lines like WWE that aren't actually story lines they are true things that happen just with less entertainment value than the WWE would do them. Vince McMahon could legit be the President of Boxing & boxing would make more sense than it does today.

[aboutfkntime]

..... Boxing is a huge clusterf#ck with an outdated structure that makes no sense to any non-******. Thats the main thing that the public has lost trust in.....

great point, hard to argue with that..... but I also agree with the article, and more higher-quality fights on free TV would have to help in that regard

no idea if PBC will achieve that, but here's hoping they play a part

[Nomadic]

Too many belts, greedy promoters, with one goal, squeeze the public till they dry.

[angkag]

Yes more eyes on boxing needed.

One thing I noticed the other day was that a PPV in the UK (example GGG v Brook) was around 20-25 USD, whereas Kovalev/Ward was 70 odd I think. That a big difference.

GGG/Brook did 600k buys, Kov/Ward 160k.

The cheaper model ended up with 440k pairs of eyes more on boxing, and the article suggests part of the solution is 'more eyes on boxing' however achieved.

The old model of 3 inept judges has to change too. I stay watching, but my trust that the judges will score in an unbiased, correct way is about zero. Last example being Adalaide Byrd scoring the 6th round for Walters, it just seems like the scoring system doesn't work at all any more (Ward/Kovalev, Sosa/Walters, sooo many more down the years, and as the article mentioned, Whitaker/Chavez too).

Its a system guaranteed to continue delivering rotten results. eg WHAT IF Loma had slipped and broken an ankle at the end of the 7th, and chosen to carry on to the end. Walters could have been totally re-animated in seeing the complexion of the fight change dramatically, and gone on to outpoint a 1 legged Loma over the final 5.

So everyone has Loma 7-5 up, but then we see two scorecards call it a draw. We start looking at why Trowbridge gave Walters the 1st, and why Byrd gave him the 6th, and the controversy is yet another black eye for boxing. Trowbridge scoring the first for Walters isn't so bad considering it was a feel-out round, but even then, I don't remember Walters landing a single punch while it was all about Loma feeling walters out and Walters getting felt out - so what Walters win the round on ? And as for the 6th, well, nothign to say really, except Byrd should be called to account, rewatch the 6th with the commission and point to what she saw that she felt Walters won the round. The judges can't just walk away from stuff like this without being accountable.

[angkag]

Too many belts, greedy promoters, with one goal, squeeze the public till they dry.

Also true - any dynamic where Saunders can hold a belt hostage like he has is a broken one.

Any system where Jacobs can't make December, so GGG isn't allowed to stay active without being stripped because Jacobs is hiding under a rock somewhere - broken.

The commissions don't regularly make the other belt holders mandatories (so we don't get the best fighting the best mandated most of the time) - broken.

Promoters wanting to protect fighters zeros, so not matching them with the best - broken.

The boxing world needs more heros, eg Ali, he didn't implement a rancid MBA business plan where every move was calculated to his advantage (looking at you de la hoya), he went out on a mission and got there. eg his claim of 'prettiest' was silly if looked at in isolation, but was all part of the mission, get bigger than boxing itself.

Let Canelo take on GGG at 160. Canelo didn't duck - de la hoya didn't allow it - advising him to drop the belt instead- dumb) - we don't care if he loses, he's a hero for going there.

I saw Santa Cruz say he wants to beat Frampton, then he WANTS to go to Belfast and do it again (probably mandated in the contracts anyway, but I liked the WANT part). We WANT Andre Ward to say he wants to beat Kovalev in a rematch, then go to Moscow and do it there - thats hero stuff. Instead we get a boxer who has never strayed further away from home than Atlantic City (ignoring a couple of early fights in the Caribbean), and a supposed p4p No. 1 who wouldn't dare do that.

Ali went into Henry Cooper's home territory and took on a national icon on his home ground. Thats hero stuff right there.