Sep 17 2008
What Ever Happened to?
What ever happened to the sport of Boxing? It seems that the most celebrated sport for big egos and over paid athletes has gone missing of late. Where are the big names that used to flood boxing and make you want to order a $45 pay-per-view to hopefully catch a glimpse of the next big thing.
Well, the truth is one of the last big names in boxing retired, and that was Floyd Mayweather who found no competition in boxing anymore and retired undefeated. The other top names left in boxing are familiar because they were popular in their prime.
Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, and Roy Jones Jr. are amongst those fighters that are still around even though no one really cares. Maybe De La Hoya is the only fighter of the 3 to still remain significant because his strong fan base and his usual “Super-Fights” with boxings elite.
But not even De La Hoya and his large fan base can save boxing now, because the sport has yet to produce a consistant superstar. Fans like a dominant champion so they can love at first, then hate when he wins too often or beats up on the underdog.
The other factor driving fans away from boxing is the rise of Mixed Martial Arts and the excitement of quick fights and great athletes who do much more then punch. Manny Pacquiao is the best boxer around and there is not much top-name competition for him to face.
As now there is plenty of talk about MMA and the UFC who are now themselves putting together “Superfights” of their own. The next and probably last “Superfight” in boxing is going to feature Pacquiao vs De La Hoya, a fight that favors the much bigger De La Hoya.
After that, where will boxing go? The next “big” fight can be a 3rd bout between Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, but that is not a much hyped bout at all. So is December 6th 2008 the last stand for boxing, well for major media exposure yes; and after that who knows where boxing will go afterwards.
Plus that is De La Hoya’s last fight as a boxer, so the sport will struggle to find star power without the “Golden Boy”. Good luck to boxing and its fans for a rather bleek and uninspiring future.
J.M.Saucedo
