“I always say that boxing has a perpetual cold. It was never, never in robust health even when I was a kid.” — Seth Abraham, former president of HBO Sports
When Showtime announced in October that it would no longer broadcast boxing, it continues a disturbing trend for the sport that started in 1960 with the death of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports after 18 years.
That followed the cancellations of USA Tuesday Night Fights (1982-1998), HBO Boxing (1973-2018) and now Showtime Sports (1986-2023).
Even the Daily News Golden Gloves tournament bit the dust in 2017 after an 80-year run.
So, what brings boxing back to its glorious past?
Heavyweights?
The heavyweight division, which was the fuel that drove the sport — think Louis, Marciano, Ali, Holmes, Tyson, Lewis, the Klitschko brothers, Fury — is now dominated by non-American fighters from England to Ukraine.
“If we had a legitimate American heavyweight champion then the casual sports fan would suddenly want to see him and then they start to hear about others,” points out Larry Merchant, the former sports columnist and HBO Boxing analyst, now 92. “We haven’t had an American heavyweight champion since I don’t know, maybe Riddick Bowe.
“I believe it will if we can get an American heavyweight champion like this kid [Jared “Big Baby”] Anderson (16-0; 15 KOs) from Toledo,” says Merchant about the 23-year old recently arrested fighter. He was busted for operating a vehicle under the influence. He was convicted of a first-degree misdemeanor. “Yeah, that proves he’s a fighter. A knuckleheaded fighter.”
There are signs that the sport isn’t going anywhere. Tyson Fury (England) and Oleksandr Usyk (Ukraine) will unify the heavyweight title on Feb. 17 in Saudi Arabia and after his thrilling win over Demetrius Andrade, David “El Monstruo” Benavidez looks to have a major upcoming bout with Canelo Alveraz for the 168-pound belt sometime in 2024.
Besides the need for a top-notch American fighter to jump start the sport, the media coverage has to improve, so says Showtime’s Al Bernstein, a boxing lifer of 45 years as a print and television journalist.
“One single thing, boxing needs to be covered more. Period. End of sentence. End of paragraph,” he declares. “The mainstream sports media stopped covering boxing in the late ’90s and early 2000s. It got back to covering boxing a little better in the last six years.”
“The future is still good,” believes R. Thomas Umstead, Senior Content Producer, Programming for Multi-Channel News and Broadcasting and Cable, but with caution. “I do have some concerns about how the fights will be distributed now that Showtime is leaving the business.
“They were a critical distributor for pay-per-view boxing events. They knew how to market and promote.”
So, who picks up the slack of a sport that may or may not be in a coma?
“Well, it’s somewhere between alive and on life support,” says Merchant.
The key could be Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) the long-time partner with Showtime, which has over 150 fighters under contract. That’s enough for a rebirth of the USA Tuesday Night Fights weekly series.
PBC, launched in 2015, needed a broadcast platform to maximize their fighters and they recently announced their partnership with Prime Video (in over 160 million U.S. homes). They already air Thursday Night Football, the WNBA, the Yankees and the Professional Pickleball Association in the U.S.
The companies announced a multiyear agreement to commence in March 2024. PBC is planning as many as 16 fight cards next year.
Prime Video will exclusively stream a PBC Championship Boxing series and, according to their press release, will distribute PBC’s pay-per-view events.
Haymon, owner of PBC, was unavailable for comment as he does not talk to the press.
So, now all is well with the sport?
“The promoters, the managers and the fighters all believe that pay-per-view and streaming is the California gold rush of 1849 and that every fight is going to strike gold,” says Abraham who spent 25 years at HBO. “That’s not true.
“It takes time to build a fighter’s reputation. It takes time to build fighters awareness to the public even to the boxing public when you’re promoting, managing, and training the young fighter.”
“I do not think boxing is dying,” says Brian Adams, three-time Daily News Golden Gloves champ and director of the Gloves from 2005-17. “The sad part about it is that the fans started looking for individuals in the sport as opposed to watching the sport as a whole.”
Adams sees an opportunity for boxing with Showtime out of the picture.
“Showtime getting out of the sport is good because they only showed three fights,” says Adams, a two-time U.S. national champ. “They showed the notable fighters and the main event. The streaming platforms show the entire card.”
Lou DiBella has gone from an HBO Boxing exec to a boxing promoter, and he sees a murky, polluted future at best.
“The majority of our fighters could still walk through Times Square unrecognized,” says DiBella as his boxing series “Broadway Boxing” just celebrated its twentieth anniversary on the air. “The biggest names in boxing are still the guys like Mayweather and Tyson that have retired.
“We’re not dying, and we’ll never die but we are definitely at a low point.”
With Showtime out after 37 years and streaming services like DAZN, ESPN+ and Prime Video airing the sport, is that the future?
“If it is, you’re not growing fans through a streaming service,” cautions DiBella. “Anyone thinks that is a f–king idiot.
“Paramount is a pretty powerful streaming service, an important one. If Paramount believed that there’s huge money in streaming boxing, they probably would have figured out a plan that involved keeping boxing.
“They haven’t done that.”
So, what change fixes the sport?
“There’s no such thing as one change,” says DiBella. “One change ain’t going to do s–t to this sport that’s faded dramatically in the last 25 years and faded over the course of a century.”
DiBella knows of boxing’s problems.
“We have too many champions, too many weight classes, too many interim champions,” he says, not to mention inept judges and corruption.
Still, DiBella believes there is hope coming from another combat sport which has a proven winning strategy.
“The UFC effectively keeps competent levels of competition to be the highest,” points out DiBella about the sport run by Dana White. “They match fighters and fights that are high risk regularly. If their fighter loses in a great fight, the fighter is not much worse off than had he won.
“One thing that Dana says is true,” says DiBella, “boxing has a history of everybody looking to milk the tit, bleed the stone, take the last dollar out without any regard to the future.
“We’re always on a going out-of-business sale.”
If anyone knows the intricacies of boxing it’s International Hall of Famer Roy Jones Jr.
He went from silver medalist at the 1988 Seoul Olympics (robbed), world champion (in four weight classes including heavyweight), broadcaster (HBO) and promoter (Roy Jones Jr. Boxing).
He sees light at the end of the endless tunnel.
“Boxing is in really good shape because a lot of the top fighters are starting to fight each other again,” says Jones who just signed a four-fight promotional deal with Legends Casino in Toppenish, Wa. “That’s how it used to be back in the day. That’s what made boxing so big and so good.
“Now they’re being forced to do it, or people don’t want to see it.”
Removing Showtime from the equation does concern Jones.
“It’s a big hit that Showtime is out of boxing, but everything is always advancing,” says Jones, 54, whose last fight was a split draw exhibition versus Mike Tyson in 2020. “There’s streaming. DAZN came in first. Streaming is there and as long as there are good fights, boxing is going to be OK.”
“While boxing’s popularity may ebb and flow at various times, it will always be appealing and thrilling to sports fans,” notes eternal boxing optimist Ed Brophy, executive director of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y. “I’m a strong believer that the future of boxing holds many more memorable moments.”
Like the children’s story “The Little Engine That Could,” boxing keeps chugging along, falling off the track, gets put back on and keeps chugging along to an uncertain future.
All aboard anyone?
* * *
What is so puzzling about Showtime pulling out of boxing is their track record with big-time events.
The year of 2023 alone was huge for Showtime with the Tank Davis-Ryan Garcia, Errol Spence, Jr.-Terence Crawford 147-pound unification bout and the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade super-middleweight bout making for an excellent year.
According to GiveMeSport.com, Showtime/PPV has produced six out of ten of the most watched fights in history.
Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson II (7th), Davis-Garcia (6th), Mayweather-Conor McGregor (2nd) are all in the top ten.
Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao (1st) and Lennox Lewis-Tyson (5th) were done along with HBO. Now Showtime goes the way of HBO with nothing left but fistic memories.
“I hope that our group will be remembered for the level of excellence that we pursued,” says David Dinkins Jr., senior vice president and executive producer of “Showtime Championship Boxing” and a four-time Emmy award winner. He’s been at Showtime since 1987. “I think we shined the brightest on those [big event] shows.”
How many did he actually do?
“How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?” he says with a chuckle. “ It’s a lot.”
He’s done over 600 championship bouts alone.
Dinkins was in the truck producing most of them. He spoke quietly, not trying to brag as reality approached.
He was cleaning out his office.
“We rose to the occasion time after time,” says Dinkins, the son of the late New York City Mayor.
While Showtime hears the final ten count, what comes next?
Sure, there will be the occasional mega-fight, but if the fighters don’t take control of their own sport, the machinery will grind to a halt.
Boxing’s motto used to be “The best fighting the best!” now it’s “Look at my shiny championship belt. Ain’t it pretty!”
In the meantime, the organizations-managers-promoters-TV/executives conglomerate will still remain intact. The sport will still function in a slimy orgy kind of way.
If the sport doesn’t get its act together and soon, they may self-cancel their final irreplaceable asset.
The fans.
What if you put on a fight and nobody cared?
