I feel everything plays a little role in the popularity of any sport. The actual athletes in the sport, the fans, the organization of the sport etc etc etc....

Soccer is the worlds most popular sport. Everybody knows DAVID BECKHAM. RONALDO, DIEGO FORLAN, THIERRY HENRY, ZINEDIN ZIDANE, SAVIOLA, TREZEGUET.
They hold (1) WORLD tournament every 4 yrs. to determine the Champ. of the world. And they have many branches and organization's. Theres the GOLD CUP, THE AMERICAS CUP, THE S. AMERICA, THE EURO, etc etc. but they all know that the main one to win is the WORLD. There fans ARE DIE HARD they will kill for theur team with no hesitation but that also comes from the sport side of it.

If boxing can do something like that, like before just have (1) recognized champ like before that would be great. Then we as fans would also be more into it like the way it was before where people cried after watching ALI loose or Alexis Arguello. Now we just watch a fight and say, uhh! Oh! well...