Frank Maloney On The Current State Of Boxing

When we’ve all been expecting some really good fights for this coming year, it seems that boxing has gone topsy turvy once again. Here in Britain, were all waiting for Ricky Hatton to fight the likes of Gatti, Mayweather or Corrales but it seems that his new advisors have decided to take him another way at the moment. In the long run, only time will tell if he has made the right decision or if the people who are guiding him know how to play in the big pool.

Also, we’ve seen my own man WBO Featherweight Champion Scott Harrison’s fight with Joan Guzman fall out after all the name calling and bravado from the Guzman camp about how Harrison can’t make the weight and was looking for excuses to get out of the fight. It turns out that it was Guzman who seems to have the weight problem and who doesn’t fancy the fight. There are two losers in this situation; one is Scott Harrison, who really wanted this fight even though I was against it, and the other losers are the true boxing fans who were really waiting for that one.

It may be that Joe Calzaghe’s next outing in July won’t be the huge fight that as was originally hoped for. But knowing how Frank Warren works, I’m sure that Joe’s next fight after that will be something truly special. There isn’t a whole lot to look forward to in the heavyweight division at the moment, compared to the division’s glory days. People talk about being around during the Ali and Tyson eras but for me, I was pleased to be around in the Lennox Lewis era. Whatever you want to say about Lennox, he dominated the heavyweight division for ten to twelve years and he won a Gold Medal at the Olympic Games.

People say that winning the Olympic Gold Medal is a ticket to success in the pro game but ask Audley Harrison about that. He won a Gold Medal, but in the professional ranks he’s still trying to make it. He won the medal six years ago and has had twenty-one pro fights. At that stage of his career, Lewis Lewis was ruling not only his division in Britain and Europe but I believe at the world level as well. I think that says a lot about where Audley Harrison is at despite winning a Gold Medal.

I did say about five years ago that fighters from the Eastern Bloc countries would shock the boxing world and they’re now doing it. Currently, Nickolay Valuev and Sergei Liakhovich hold two of the major world title belts at heavyweight and another Eastern European, Wladimir Klitschko, is contending for the IBF Heavyweight title when he challenges Chris Byrd in a rematch this weekend. It looks like the Eastern Europeans could soon be dominating all the belts in that division.

People may say that this is good, that the Americans are no longer controlling the heavyweight division but let me say this; without a big American champion in the division, the money will go down and boxing will suffer. I’m a great believer that American TV isn’t as keen on boxing as they had been in the past because there are far fewer good Americans in the heavyweight division.

People say to me that boxing is in a bad way in Britain, but I must disagree. The managers and promoters here do look to bring British talent through rather than going into overseas markets and bringing over all other nationalities like the Americans have done. This may be one of the reasons that American boxing is so weak, because they have concentrated on Eastern Europeans and other nationalities instead of focusing on bringing American talent through.

I’m not saying that we don’t have some foreign fighters based in England but overall, the likes of myself and other leading promoters do try to build British talent first. British TV seems to be more interested in building their audience shares through televising the fights of domestic fighters rather than focusing on those from other areas of the world other than some Continental boxers.

I’m not saying that this policy is the right one, because if you look at our premiership football teams, most of the players are from overseas, but boxing is a unique sport. Over here, a boxer has to go out and sell tickets; he has to get the public to like him and it seems that the British public only warm to it’s own.

It does seem that in their respective countries, a Brit fighting another Brit or an American fighting another American does generate more excitement for boxing than an overseas fighter against a second-rate Brit or American. The only country that I know where foreign fighters have really made it is in Germany. But then, if you take those fighters out of Germany, they either do nothing or they can’t command sizable purses.

Lennox Lewis has to be an exception to this rule. He was a Brit that made it in Britain but also made it in America. Maybe Ricky Hatton will be able to do the same if his people pick the right fights over the next few years.

But going back to domestic fights, you only have to look at what is coming up. We at Maloney Promotions have a fight coming up with British and Commonwealth Super Middleweight Champion Carl Froch meeting ex IBO titlist Brian Magee at the York Hall and we also have British Light Middleweight Champion Jamie Moore defending against Matthew Macklin. Sports Network has the rematch between Danny Williams and Matt Skelton and I’m sure that Frank Warren will have a rematch between cruiserweights Enzo Maccarinelli and Mark Hobson.

Speaking of the cruiserweights, I’ve been trying to put together a fight between my fighter, European Champion David Haye and Carl Thompson because I know that would be a mouth watering rematch, certain to draw a big crowd. Unfortunately, Carl Thompson will not come into the real world and has overpriced himself. As a result, the making of this fight certainly isn’t in the near future. But then, Carl may not even step into the ring again if he keeps pricing himself out of fights, believing that he was a world champion who was forced to give up his title. He was a champion, but of the IBO, an up and coming sanctioning body.

This brings up the question of do we really need all these sanctioning bodies? I think that it is one of the reasons that boxing has suffered. Since going on my own, I have now decided to take the old fashioned route with my fighters. That is title fights for the British, Commonwealth, European crowns followed by the WBC, WBA, IBF and the WBO because I firmly believe that this is the way to go but time will tell.