Rescuing Professional Boxing
Sam Sykes ~ 01/22/2024
Tyson Fury has (once again) retired from boxing. A great showman, the gypsy king has dominated as a towering heavyweight since his win over Wladimir Klitschko almost a decade ago. He’s been a fun-loving, entertaining badass, that everyone just loves to watch as he beat the shit out of prototypical hyped-up fighters. In December, he was, in his own words and in my opinion, ‘robbed’ of the world heavyweight championship in a split decision against Oleksandr Usyk. The way it looks now, he’ll never hold a unified title. Whether or not this is Fury’s last bout, the sun is setting for his professional boxing career and it’s the end of an era. Boxing is changing, long-suffering from having at least four fucking belts for every weight, fighters putting off fights for years at a time, poor judges, and too many stoppages and regulations are just a few things destroying boxing. Here’s how to fix it:
Lighten Up
It may sound crazy, but lighter gloves cause less damage, at least, internally. The data is in, and heavier gloves DO slow down punches, but they cause far more serious damage, both to the body and the head. Bare-Knuckle fighting has less severe concussions, especially compared to regular boxing with standard 10-gloves. Yes, there is more exterior damage like cuts and severe swelling in bare-knuckle, but it’s significantly more difficult to cause serious brain damage compared to mainstream boxing. Lighter gloves would make boxing way more fun to watch and much safer. Less Parkinson’s, and more blood, cuts, and swelling. What a show.
Free The Fighters
Speaking of cuts, the criteria for stopping a fight for a cut needs to be reevaluated. I have to say, as bad as the Paul-Tyson fight was, the chick fight between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor was reffed pretty well. He let Serrano have a massive cut above her eye, and let the fight go on, allowing the fighters determine the outcome. He recognized that Taylor was not responsible for the head clashing and really let things go.
Now I’m not sure if that’s because it was a girl fight and they really can’t do any damage to each other, but I think men should be allowed to decide the fight between each other as long as they are within the rules. Besides allowing more severe cuts, professional boxing should adjust the knockdown rules. Right now if a fighter touches the ground even with one knee, he is considered down and his 10 seconds begins. To warrant a huge 10 second delay, a full lay down should be required by a knocked down fighter. Which means, he should have to lay down to stop getting punched, instead of sometimes taking a timeout by taking an intentional taking a knee. The argument against this may be safety, but allowing fighters to barely recover and just get up for more punishment is way worse. They should take punishment on their way to the ground, there's no breaks during the round, sorry.
Also, there should be a two knockdown per round rule. It would incentivize an attacking fighter to really increase the pressure after knockdown while also saving the defending fighter from unnecessary punishment in the future rounds. They should also look to stop standing stoppages. Referees have a tough job and they are there to protect fighters, but a fight should only be stopped if a fighter is on the ground. Stopping a fight should mean there is a definitive winner with no bitching and moaning about a stoppage.
One Boxing League
The UFC has done something amazing and obviously profitable. Dana White’s fighting league has brought scores of young men together every Saturday night to watch MMA madness. Boxing must do the same thing. The sport really needs fewer leagues, ideally one that people really care about. At the moment, boxing has at least four major leagues and it’s very common for all four belts in one weight class to be owned by different people. It makes it hard to determine who is actually a real champion-level boxer, and who has had easy matchups. At the moment, the heavyweight champion (the most important belt) is Oleksandr Usyk with the WBA (Super), WBC, IBO, WBO, The Ring, and TBRB champion belts… But he’s not unified because Daniel Dubois is the current IBF Heavyweight champ. What the fuck is that? A guy holds six belts but can’t be the undisputed champ because he’s missing one league’s endorsement. This shit has to get straightened out.
Promoters Kill The Sport
Having a single league would also be a death blow to boxing promoters, and that’s a good thing. Promoters have destroyed boxing and been a driving force behind multiple fighters holding the belts in the same weight class. For decades now, fighters dodge real challenges so they can protect their careers, unbeaten records, and title defenses. In the mid-20th century, champs used to fight a lot, now they barely fight once a year if we’re lucky. Promoters hate letting their champion fighter get in the ring with someone that is not represented by the same promoters, so they are often fighting shitty boxers that are “in the family”. It’s amazing that some of the top heavyweights of our time have barely crossed paths. How have Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua, and Tyson Fury have never fought one another while still in their prime. It’s just sad to watch who they are fighting, I mean, Anthony Joshua is roughly the 2nd highest ranked heavyweight boxer, and one of his last fights was against Francis Ngannou, a UFC fighter with an 0-2 boxing record. It just sucks that we never get to see great fighters against one another anymore.
Right now, boxing is the boring old man version of professional fighting. Young fans are flocking to UFC in record numbers for the action, the entertainment, and the thoughtfully competitive matchups. They have definitive champions that are forced to defend their titles often and against top talent. By returning to a more traditional version of the sport, boxing can have a resurgence. Lighter gloves, less intervention and more freedom for boxers, a single boxing league with one belt, and the death of promoters would breathe new life into the sport.
