It's Time to Talk About Boxing
Growing up in the 1990s, boxing was one of my favorite sports. Back then, boxing was a spectacle. Millions of eyes across the world would tune in to the latest title matches and rivalries. Professional boxers like Mike Tyson and retired fighters like George Foreman were pop culture icons, easily recognizable in almost any country on the planet.
I loved boxing so much that I would watch all the old boxing matches on ESPN Classic. This allowed me to watch legends like Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali. It helped me understand the evolution of the game and is a big part of the reason I fell in love with the sport.
And that’s why I think so many folks my age, folks who grew up watching some of the greatest fights in boxing history, were getting excited for the fights this weekend. It felt like we were back in the 90s. Mike Tyson was fighting a main event, and the entire world was talking about boxing again. It looked like boxing had found a way to recapture that old glory, found a way to stay relevant in an era where it has been dominated by UFC and even WWE. It looked like, once again, all eyes would be glued to the TV to watch a boxing match.
This was a chance for boxing to thrust itself back into the spotlight. The anticipation and hype surrounding Tyson vs Paul was comparable to any great match in the 90s. Tyson looked like an absolute beast in training, and it seemed like most of America wanted to see him turn Jake Paul into a Rockem Sockem robot. Win or lose, I think just about anybody I talked to wanted to at least see some of that old 90s Iron Mike. And that alone was enough to get millions to tune in.
And the people who helped build this card did a great job to put boxing in a position to succeed. The lead-in to the main event would be a rematch of the greatest women’s title fight of all time where Amanda Serrano would get a chance to avenge a controversial decision loss to Katie Taylor in a fight we knew would not disappoint. They also included a highly anticipated WBC Welterweight Title match between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos, and a battle between India and Brazil with Neeraj Goyat taking on Whindersson Nunes. If all eyes would be focused on this event, this was a good lineup to win over the casual viewers.
And it should have been. While the Goyat/Nunes match was one-sided and forgettable, the next 2 fights reminded me why I fell in love with boxing all those years ago. But they also reminded me why I fell out of love and went from being a die hard boxing fan to a casual who would only tune in for these big fights.
The Welterweight Title fight between Barrios and Ramos was an absolute war. These two fighters combined to throw over 1,600 punches through 12 rounds. It was a back-and-forth battle with both fighters scoring knockdowns. It kept viewers on the edge of their seats right up to the final bell. The fight went the distance and ended up in the hands of the judges.
One judge scored the fight for Barrios 116-110, one judge gave it to Ramos 114-112, and one judge had a 113-113 tie. Ultimately the fight ended in a draw. Such an anticlimactic ending to such an incredible fight. It didn’t sit right with me or many other fans. We want something decisive, especially in a title fight. This decision did a disservice to both fighters, even more so for the challenger Ramos. And the fact that the scorecards between two of the judges were so drastically different, it was like they were watching two different fights.This seems to be a constant issue in boxing as there is no consistency in the judging.
But this one decision would not be enough to derail the momentum surrounding this event. There were still two incredible fights left and we all just caught a glimpse of Iron Mike in his assless chaps, so we knew it was just starting to get good.
Next we would turn our attention to what would probably be the best fight of the night as Katie Taylor would defend her Cruiserweight Title against Amanda Serrano in a rematch of the first female main event at Madison Square Garden. And this highly anticipated rematch did not disappoint.
Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor square off in a Cruiserweight Title fight
Serrano and Taylor put on a show. Serrano almost ended the fight in the first round but Taylor was saved by the bell. Serrano was winning big early on until a series of headbutts by Taylor cut Serrano open, reminiscent of their first fight. Taylor even had a point taken away in the eighth round. These headbutts opened up a huge gash on Serrano’s eye and slowed her considerably. This did not stop these two women from dueling back and forth for 10 rounds of mayhem, ultimately ending in a judge’s decision.
Now unlike the Barrios/Ramos fight, this fight saw one fighter dominate for most of the fight. Amanda Serrano was the better fighter despite the cheap headbutts. Everybody knew she won. The unofficial scorecard had her up big. Anyone watching the fight saw that she won, and even got an extra point for those cheap headbutts Taylor landed. So this was a no brainer, right?
Well, all 3 judges gave the fight to Taylor 95-94. The crowd immediately booed, and even my wife who doesn’t really watch boxing yelled that there was no way Katie Taylor won that fight. It seemed everybody was in agreement, except the most important people: the judges. It’s almost like they were watching a different fight than the rest of us.
This is not to take anything away from these two great competitors, except maybe Taylor for her dirty fighting, but these women left their hearts out there in the ring. And it was sad that after such an incredible fight, people weren’t talking about what happened in the ring but what happened with the judges and how they got it all wrong. This has been a trend in boxing for far too long and it’s part of why I stopped watching. And part of why I have refused to watch Olympic boxing for a long time now, but that is a whole separate discussion.
For me it started with the Holyfield/Lewis decision and culminated with the decisions in the Pacquiao/Bradley fight and especially the Canelo/GGG fight. It made it so that I couldn’t take any close decision seriously. It made it so that I didn’t want to watch a fight knowing it might go to a decision and be decided by judges. It is one of the worst feelings as a sports fan to watch an entire battle and not get a winner, or even worse have the outcome decided by officials or judges. And in boxing, this happens far too much.
So despite having two great fights leading up to Tyson vs Paul, none of the talk was about the actual matches. Hopefully the most anticipated boxing match in almost a decade would turn everything around and finally win over the fans. And if you ever watched a Tyson fight, you know that it is always must see TV. He looked so fresh in training and everybody was waiting to see what he could do.
Unfortunately, we’re still waiting. Right from the first exchange it was obvious Iron Mike had rusted over and couldn’t even get his legs under him. We did not see him throw even one of his signature power punches. We watched him hobble around for sixteen minutes through eight rounds, landing only eighteen punches. It was clear by round 3 that this fight should never have been sanctioned. I went from that feeling of nostalgia seeing Tyson come to the ring in his patented towel to feeling really sad that I had to watch this fight. In a span of about 15 minutes this entire card went from bad to disaster.
At this point it seemed like everything was working against them as the streaming issues Netflix was having made the fight look more like Mike Tyson’s Punchout on Nintendo than a live boxing match. The night of the fight, and the morning after, this would continue to dominate the discussion. It’s never a good sign when you have one of the most hyped boxing events this century and the next day the only thing people are talking about is how bad the streaming quality was.
Netflix streaming issues were trending during the Tyson/Paul fight
Now this was a Netflix issue, and it shouldn’t reflect on boxing as a sport. But part of the reason why the discussion was about Netflix was because there was nothing good to talk about from the card, except some funny memes about Tyson being old and Jake Paul only fighting washed up fighters. If Tyson knocked Paul out, or even vice versa, that would have been the discussion. If the fight was even halfway decent that might’ve been what we were talking about. If Serrano was given the victory she deserved, maybe we would’ve been celebrating that victory instead of making memes about Netflix. So in a way, this is on boxing.
What does it say about the future of your sport when the biggest card you’ve had in some of these new fans’ lifetimes involved a social media celebrity turned boxer who hasn’t fought anyone yet and an almost 60 year old retired boxer? If Mike Tyson, at 58, is still your biggest draw that’s a real issue. If Jake Paul fighting bums is getting more attention than actual heavyweight championship fights, that’s not a good look.
And this is sad, because I’ve always loved boxing. I remember getting together to watch Tyson destroy Peter McNeilly his first fight back out of prison, the feeling, the electricity and excitement in the air. Even to watch Tyson chase him around the ring for two minutes before going in for the kill was better than anything I’ve seen in boxing for years. Now, if I want that I would go to UFC. Boxing is an afterthought in the sports landscape, something I never would’ve imagined growing up
Boxing has always been a symbiotic mix of sport and spectacle. I think that’s what made it so great, so appealing. But right now it’s all spectacle, no sport. Unless they would rather go the way of WWE, this is not sustainable. They will continue to lose athletes to UFC and even WWE and AEW. And until they can fix their issues with their judges, I can’t take the sport seriously. I refuse to invest the time and energy I did in the 90s, and I will only watch casually. But if this is what the casual fans get, a card like Friday night, maybe I won’t even watch casually anymore.
Nov 17 2024
By James Cahill
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