I'm a boxing fan. I couldn't care less about the financial arrangements made for fights.... who gets what.... who's the promoter.... blah, blah, blah.

As a boxing fan, I am the consumer of the product. Since boxing is no longer free, I like most everyone else pay for the occasional PPV fight and as a paying customer, like to receive value for my money.

This is a boxing forum, and yet we spend more time talking about contract ins-and-outs than we do about the fights themselves.

Why can't "X" face "Y"..... why promoter Joe Blow's fighters can't fight against promoter John Doe's fighters. As a fan, all that does is frustrate me because I can't see the fights I (as well as most boxing fans) I want to see.

I understand the marketing aspect of letting fights build up.... but boxing takes this beyond the point of ridiculous and into the Twilight Zone. And we all helplessly complain and wring our hands and then watch a fight 5 years beyond its expiration date.




Now.....

Needless to say, there is a veritable glut of boxing commissions, sanctioning bodies, governing bodies, and other meaningless names... making up a dysfunctional jumble of organizations whose functions and responsibilities, some of us mere mortals do not understand.

Also needless to say, boxing's very livelihood depends on us boxing fans, the consumers. Yet we historically put up with a myriad of problems including:


1. Inept and corrupt fight judges and shady, shameful decisions.

2. Fights that we want but do not get made.

3. Proliferation of "title" belts to the point they're as valuable and significant as a Cracker Jack surprise.


#2 is probably the most frustrating of all. Fans/consumers want the fight..... the fighters want the fight..... but we don't get the fight. All because Joe Blow "can't work with" John Doe. And so we're held hostage because of two corrupt, greedy, two-faced, lying idiots..... and products are withheld from the public until they're expired and rotten. Then we buy them anyway among the bitching and moaning.


Back to the interminable number and types of boxing organizations, commissions, regulatory boards, sanctioning bodies, governing bodies, and ALL KINDS of boards and bodies.

Someone please enlighten this poor soul.

Why can't we have an EFFECTIVE governing body (for lack of an not-already-used name) that can draw up some rules for boxing promoters??

Do they already exist? Am I missing something here? Are we not entitled to know what in hell is going on behind the scenes?



Professional football players (in the States) have their teams. But all players and teams must answer to the NFL, which sets all the rules and governs the sport.

Oh... you want individual players? Ok then, how about professional tennis players and golfers? In tennis there is the WTA, and in golf you have the PGA.

Still not the same? Oh well... can't think of any other examples at the moment.


All I'm saying is... we know the problems, as does the rest of the boxing world. Why do we have to let a handful of sleazy promoters get in the way of the sport we love? And why do we have to live with a jumble of organizations which individually have zero control over the entire sport, and collectively work together as well as a bunch of jungle predators thrown together in the same cage with one single piece of red meat?

Pathetic.