What does a post-Bob Arum boxing world look like?

[Kirkland Laing]

Does anybody know what's happening with PBC? Thomas Hauser wrote a couple of great articles about Al Haymon a while ago but since then I haven't seen anything really good. I know the fund that put the money up for PBC are being sued by their investors for basically throwing hundreds of millions of dollars away but there's no news on whether that's going to affect Haymon and no news on how he's doing at the minute. He's got a lot of fighters and I'm sure a lot of them are not getting the number of fights he promised them. Something has to happen there eventually.

A lot of guys want out because they aren't making money because they aren't fighting. My friend called that turn three years ago.

Nobody brings along talent as well as Top Rank. Arum doesn't affect that too much but guys like Bruce Trampler and Brad Goodman do and they are not getting any younger themselves.

I agree with you about Top Rank. Bruce Trampler has been an amazing matchmaker for Arum but somebody will come along and take his place. I reckon Arum's son-in-law will just keep on keeping on, Top Rank the company know what they're doing. Eventually they'll want to stream their fighters direct to the consumer I think. That seems to be the way things are going. If Haymon's firm does fall apart I think they'll go after a bunch of his fighters.

[Spicoli]

Just hope the door hits his arse on the way out. He's done well at paving the way to leave setting best guys at basically ppv apps per fight, I missed both Crawford and Manny. Just not paying a cost to see basically espn #4. The boxing world will trudge forward just fine as the Frankenstein sport it has always been. I can't see and don't believe a singular promoter in a Dana White fashion is realistic. Plenty of snafus in ufc with weight, violations and big cancellations also. For all his faults Don King ppv still feels like money well spent. He also just had a complete unknown and overmatched guy in top hbo slot. Golden Boy is basically a sausage making factory and big on favorites. Haymon recycles many but has a twisted way of keeping guys in camera rotation, in a fight or calling it you will see them etc. Individual fighters are also responsible for what happens and what doesn't.

So, we don't want the continuity of the UFC? The basic premise of question is this: is it Bob Arum that's holding it up? (Everyone else DOES seem inherently feckless) Will that be enough of a vacuum for a cult-of-personality type + big money (Billions) to come in and fix this thing? Or is Haymon enough to stop it all? (He doesn't seem to have the magic to see any of this through; his success (sic) i think it's just because of the void of anything else happening...)

When will it be dead enough for real change?

I guess I just don't see Boxing needing to emulate some things ufc is doing and believe boxing big picture continuity is already there and has proven to be. Arum was never a in front of the camera showman and as pointed out Top Rank has roots beyond Arum. He's a corner stone and massive player to be sure but personally I do not think mainlining all fighters under one man-promoter has long term thinking in mind. You need competition and rivals in any market and boxing is filled with them. Stand them side by side and ufc is still wet behind the ears and undergoing it's growing pains currently. They got stuck on a 'brand' and got ahead of themselves with huge price ppvs and getting into multiple tv markets with a great though limited number of major roster players and you get a feel of quantity over quality. Unless you're a belt holder the pay is not so great. The ratings are down and with a few biggest 'stars' recently losing badly, joining 'wrastlin, getting popped for peds or causing major shows to cancel or scramble to air them it's time for them to get back to roots. Also as with any sport and entertainment the age demographics change, fans get older. The new espn deal is huge for them and hopefully White keeps his big loud face out of the way and lets some rising talent shine. Boxing for all it's black eyes and flaws is the cock roach of sports..that's a compliment .. it will adapt and isn't going anywhere

[Alpha]

Competition is great, keeps everyone on the ball.

I think 1 overall governing body (not the sanctioning bodies) would be good to maintain rules, drug testing etc.

[Spicoli]

Competition is great, keeps everyone on the ball.

I think 1 overall governing body (not the sanctioning bodies) would be good to maintain rules, drug testing etc.

Seems we get hopes up every 5-10 yrs regarding serious reform and uniformed oversight. And we're not even talking stripping the car down to the frame but basic common sense measures you can usually find in any lucrative business. Over sight of the charlatans in the sanctioning bodies and a light put on the inner workings of rankings and officiating. Frankly holding a trinket today can speak as much to availability-rotation as it does being the top dog in a division. An across the board recognition and adherence to testing standards, suspensions and medical regulations. Rehydration clauses! Exceeding State to State in that if you are medically suspended or otherwise a guy doesn't just get to travel across the boarder as a loophole. One thing I remember joking about King was that when a guy signed with him they were basically in witness protection or could just go inactive but were tied into basically another version of indentured servant in exchange for making one or two 'big' fights. Mandate time frames that binds a fighter to promotion. A lot of boxings problems are stemmed in basic lack of enforcement and accountability, be it hard luck guys retiring with a fraction of earnings thanks to 101 individuals taking a cut and they are the ones enduring possible injuries or worse when they have that life after the sport.

[Alpha]

Yep it's crazy that we are now in 2018 and are no closer to having 1 main institution to watch over the everyday basics than we were a hundred years ago.

One that comes to mind is Povetkin fighting Duhapus after testing positive.

Needs to be 1 set of uniform rules/ regulations that all abide by.

[TAPugil]

Scandal-less

[Kirkland Laing]

Every other sport, either team or individual sports, benefits from some kind of structure. The difference with professional boxing, like it or not, is that it all stems from blokes putting their money up to finance fights. You're looking at a bunch of businessmen generally from the shady/sketchy part of town who are behind the whole thing. The current setup with multiple sanctioning bodies etc has evolved to serve the people at the top of the tree, who are the promoters. These promoters don't own a franchise like the Cowboys or the Lakers that are a guaranteed year after year money earner. They're a bunch of guys financing individual guys who are all only a punch away from being a losing investment.

Bearing that in mind you can see how boxing is kinda resistant to any kind of unified organisation. The closest you could really hope for is somebody being able to sign up enough top boxers to be able to UFCise the whole thing but then you have the Muhammad Ali Act and various other things working against any kind of setup like that. See what happens to UFC if the fighters manage to get the Muhammad Ali Act and other regulation to apply to them too. The bottom line is it's always going to come down to individual blokes in suits putting their money up to promote sportsmen with a limited shelf life and anybody wanting to be a successful promoter isn't thinking about the long term future of boxing, they're thinking about making money, and there's no getting past that.

[greynotsoold]

Top Rank and ESPN just signed a 7 year deal, for 54 shows per year.

[holmcall]

Somewhat more honest---somewhat

[Fenster]

It'll look like it does now.

How many of you Americans are buying the new boxing stream Danz? 32 shows per year plus the entire Super Series for $10 a month? I know most of you don't watch boxing outside the States but 16 shows are there and the Super Series has some American names you might recognise.

Anyone interested in paying to watch for regular boxing or prefer to buy one off fights like Floyd and McGregor?

[smashup]

I'm gonna start using DAZN... it's do-able living in the UK with a bit of clever VPN usage and you also need an email/billing ip address that's from one of the handful of countries they are currently available in. (Germany as an example)
It's a cracking deal for the price and like Netflix you can just use it month by month so your not tied down to any long contracts.

Some links with info on how to do it here 😎

https://www.expressvpn.com/vpn-servi...IaAuzIEALw_wcB


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