Has The Sport Of Boxing Seen It's Brightest Days?

[Richard Fernando]

I remember being a little girl sitting on my father's lap and waiting for the boxing matches to start. I knew who Marvin Hagler was, Roberto Duran, Leon Spinks, and Larry Holmes. I was fixated on the anticipation that would surround these fights, everyone in the family picked their winner and hoped that fighter had the bigger heart.

I also knew of Don King. A fight promoter who had his own agenda, and it seemed like most people thought of him as shady. About the time in my life I understood Mr. King's position, I also realized that boxing had a dark side. I couldn't believe that this sport that millions of people ogle over in the main events, matches may actually be fixed.

It further came to my attention that boxing fights most mayweather v pacquiao tickets with since the days of Jake LaMotta who admitted his participation in a fixed fight, even possibly going back to Jack Johnson.

Though even with all this unethical behavior, you still felt like the boxing matches were going to be good, competitive, and mostly fair. In the last 10 to 15 years the boxing world seems to be falling apart. After the dominant era of Mike Tyson we looked for the next boxing legend to take over the next generation, but it never happened.

To make matters worse for the boxing world, other fighting sports began to come into play and taken seriously. Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), for example, took over in popularity partially because the winners are more obvious. There is less room for judging errors. There is less room for fixed fights.

We are at the point of boxing history where most people do not know who the Heavyweight champion is. Most people don't care. You still hear of a couple names like Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao; though Floyd is sitting in jail right now for being a gentleman to his girlfriend (sarcasm), and Manny was just caught up in ANOTHER shady fight against Timothy Bradley where most of the watching world saw this as an easy victory for Pacquiao, yet the judges gave the bout to Bradley.