AUGUST 26 hangs over boxing like an angry storm cloud.
The occasional bolt of Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor lightning will hit the headlines from now until fight week and then the rain – or the money – will pour into Las Vegas before Sin City can go back to sleep the next day.
Those who have visited Nevada to see a curious event featuring two A-listers will return to their more mundane existences, with memories of a tumultuous few days in the desert behind them.
Life will go on. And boxing will continue as before.
Yes, we will have a fight – or at least an event – to discuss. For a few days, we might wonder what had just actually happened to the Noble Art.
We may have to look at ourselves closely, analyze what we have witnessed and why we chose to do so (if you have).
But boxing will go back to being boxing, the same way it did after Mike Tyson dined on Evander Holyfield, the same way it has done following countless tragedies and the same way it has done after any number of mismatches.
It will not change. It will not improve. It will not deteriorate and chances are it will not learn any lessons.
Boxing will continue to be dysfunctional, borderline lawless and open to manipulation on just about any and every level.
It will continue to be the sport with the hardest structure to explain, nay, justify, to anyone hoping to become interested in it.
I mean, how do you even start to explain to a ‘non-boxing person’ how the best fighters in the divisions often do not hold the titles, and how there are four (minimum) championships apparently telling people who the best in the world actually are. How do you explain how the person challenging for a title has done nothing to merit it, how the fighters boxing for crowns are not even the best in their own countries, let alone in the world?
_1.jpg)
It is crazy. And if you think at how deep it all runs now, then a fight between Mayweather and McGregor might be the focal point of your rage but it is the tip of an ugly iceberg that has bigger problems than a Saturday night freakshow that will come, go, get condemned, be criticised and then be over.
I mean, one wonders when the next obscure heavyweight title challenger is going to be announced so even those who make a living in the sport are sent scurrying to their laptops to find out who they are, who they have fought and left trying to understand why they have not heard of them before.
What do they discover?
Turns out they did not recognise the names because the fighters were ‘never weres’ who were about to become ‘has beens.’
That they had notched a dozen regional wins, maintained a massaged unbeaten record and starred in a few fleeting clips on YouTube is all that could be discovered. Until there were exposed.
It is either that or the oldies are dredged back up for another go round, those that are not serving bans for using illegal substances.
The heavyweight division is, of course, fair game and has been for a while.
In Deontay Wilder we have a champion who no one knows whether is really good or bang average because he’s not faced a top opponent; this is a champion who has now reigned for almost three years and made five defences. Boxing has allowed him to become a mainstay kingpin without one true test.
Argue the merits of Bermane Stiverne and Chris Arreola all you like.
So many fighters today would never have even been able to flirt with a title contest when there were just one, or even two, champions. This is not a critique of those who have benefitted by the changes in the organisation of boxing.
And now, of course, there are many multiple weight champions or multi-title holders who will not, or should not, get into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Titles in different weight classes used to be a benchmark of greatness. Now it’s a sign of a connected promoter, a recognisable name or someone in the position to take advantage of a bizarre set of politics. There was once grandeur attached to title belts, but now you can build a collection without a signature win.
Robert Guerrero paid his dues in blood, and won world titles in two weight classes, but what was the best of his 33 wins? His pummeling of a shopworn Michael Katsidis? Victory over the often-disappointing Andre Berto? Not Canastota credentials, by any stretch.
Next week, Adrien Broner takes on Mikey Garcia. Broner is a four-weight world champion but must cite Antonio DeMarco or Paulie Malignaggi as his best victims. In old money, a three-weight world champion was an icon, the best of the best. Now you do not even have to clean out one division to win belts in three.
Put the boot into Mayweather-McGregor all you like but boxing’s house was not in order before and it will not be the fault of Floyd Mayweather or Conor McGregor that its house is not in order after August 26.
Make that event the object of your wrath and hate, but once it has come and gone we will be left with the same flawed sport that makes millionaires of average fighters, that keeps some real talents hidden from view and that, through promotional and governing politics has no real sense of order, no rhyme, no reason, little regulation and remains, in 2017, the wild west of sports and an embarrassment to those who constantly have to explain how something that is broken from the top down actually manages to even work.
Click here to view original web page at www.boxingscene.com
