The business of boxing is convoluted, murky, confusing and sometimes downright unethical.
Its chaotic nature means things are never straightforward, when it seems they should be, and the sport’s regularly appearing loopholes frequently cause all kinds of carnage.
This week boxing did what boxing does and didn’t only shoot itself in the foot but blew it’s leg off at the knee.
We were supposedly just days away from Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua formally announcing a bout in the Middle East and sharing a $155 million-dollar bounty.
Boxing overlooked any kind of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and sold itself to the highest bidder, as it does.
Apparently, everyone should have just been satisfied the fight was on.
Too often in the sport we are told by the money men that decisions are made “For the fans.”
Fury-Joshua in Saudi wasn’t that in the slightest. Fans weren’t even an afterthought.
Neither was Deontay Wilder until an arbitrator rode into battle on the American’s behalf, rematch clause in hand, telling the world that Fury couldn’t fight Joshua, he needed to conclude matters with Wilder and grant him a rematch before any other “Gypsy King” contest happens.
Just like that, the biggest fight in the sport today imploded and boxing was left with two fights that were decent but both considerably ‘less than’ what was previously on offer.
Fury-Wilder III is now likely Las Vegas-bound on July 24 or August 14 and Anthony Joshua will probably face his WBO mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk on August 21 or August 28, possibly in Wembley Stadium.
It’s catastrophic. Casual fans had been readied for the clash of UK big men, Fury had posted on social media that it was on, and then the hardcore fans were left shrugging their shoulders explaining once more why the best were not going to fight the best and why the heavyweight fight for all four belts between the two incumbent champions had moved further away again.
After all of the negotiating between all the parties, both sides and venues, it was a giant waste of time because people were trying to buy and sell something that no one even owned.
There was laughable talk of Wilder wanting $20 million to step aside, and Fury promptly said he wasn’t going to pay him a cent and alas we had the opening lines of a reignited feud that boxing didn’t know it needed because it probably doesn’t need it any longer.
Wilder-Fury I was engaging from the moment it was announced to the moment the scorecards were read out.
Wilder-Fury II wound up being a beatdown before the table was set for a third sitting when Wilder…. Sacked Mark Breland… Claimed his ring-walk costume was too heavy… Claimed Fury’s gloves were not regulation… It’s taken around 18 months to get to where we are when it should have been tied off in six.
We were on the brink of Fury-Joshua but now they have other paths to navigate. Already some are talking about Wilder’s vaunted power and Usyk’s better boxing skills and the potential spanners they may both throw in the works.
This week’s Twitter exchanges between Joshua and Fury might well be as close as we get to them giving each other the time of day for a long while.
It’s starting to feel a lot like Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao all over again. We had years of these bluff and double bluff and on and off shenanigans and when it finally delivered the money men were proved right. It wasn’t the sporting contest it should have been several years earlier but it had never been worth more money, and that’s probably where we stand with Fury-Joshua. Maybe $155 million will look cheap a couple of years from now.
But in boxing you can’t legislate for the landscape of the business, and let’s not even start a discussion that involves Errol Spence-Terence Crawford.
In the UK, Sky Sports have announced it will broadcast Mayweather’s show with a YouTuber on pay-per-view but this past weekend’s four-belt super-lightweight collision between Josh Taylor and Jose Ramirez didn’t have a UK broadcaster. The Fite app had it but BT Sport, Sky and Channel 5, who all screen fights, did not pick it up and it’s ludicrous. It reminds me of Carl Froch’s struggle for respect, taking a gauntlet of fights that saw him become a US TV staple while getting virtually neglected in the UK until he gambled and won big against Lucian Bute and became a Sky Sports pillar. It seems networks have little interest investing in talent.
Taylor deserves more than this and so did the fight, a historic unification bout featuring the four main belts in the sport. Is this another call made “For the fans?”
There was also a serious lack of respect shown to Taylor-Ramirez by many in the newspaper trade but one wonders if people aren’t just a little fed up with the politics and the business-side of it.
Boxing has plenty of enemies and a fair amount of competition, but it’s about time it started helping itself if we’re going to be taken seriously elsewhere.