Al Haymon & Premier Boxing Champions

[Kirkland Laing]

Haymon is basically setting up his own version of professional boxing. He's going to cut out the existing sanctioning bodies and have his own PBC champions.

What that means is, if he's successful, is that you have PBC and then all the other promoters working with the WBC/A/O/IBF and so on. Boxing becomes even more bi or trifurcated than before, as it's highly unlikely that Haymon manages to sign every single boxing attraction out there.

For example, Kovalev-Stevenson is now an absolute nonstarter as Kovalev is on HBO and Haymon is never going to allow Stevenson to fight on HBO.

The best thing that can happen is for Haymon to bomb and the people bankrolling him to pull the plug. If that happens we go back to guys like Arum and Fishnets occasionally doing business with each other. Maybe these guys get into the habit of doing business while threatenend with Haymon and if/when Haymon does blow up they stay in the habit. So long term Haymon may turn out to be a good thing.

Don't know if he is good or bad for boxing. My guess is that boxing will ultimately benefit. However, many boxer destined for greatness may get their path impeded.

If Haymon's shows get ratings and he starts getting networks offering to buy his shows instead of him buying airtime then he'll be putting a lot of shows on free TV.

[SlimTrae]

If Haymon by some weird chance kills all the sanctioning bodies, casual fans would find it possible to finally name a champ.
There is no silver bullet to making fans and fighters all happy.
But killing the ABC org belts is a good start.