The Sweet Science

What has happened to boxing? I've been thinking after seeing the film Redbelt, which is about mixed martial arts, and reading a review of a cultural history of boxing. There was a time, not that long ago, when boxing was a major sport on the American landscape, and not only that, it was significant in the culture. It used to be that the heavyweight champion was a household name. I can't name him now (actually, there are three, which is part of the problem) and looked the names up. None of the fighters: a Ukrainian, a Russian, and a Nigerian, ring any bells. They might as well be the world badminton champions.

When I was growing up, during the days of Muhammad Ali, boxing was a big deal. My younger brother was a huge fight fan, and we would watch fights (back then they were on network TV, then HBO) and get excited about them. I will always remember us jumping up and down when Leon Spinks dethroned Ali. Fighters from lower weight levels, like Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, were also known to many who had never even see them fight. I'm a fairly sports literate person, but when I try to think of fighters active today I can come up with...let's see, Oscar Delahoya, Roy Jones Jr.....are they even still active?

This is a far cry from the days when the heavyweight champ was as well known as the president. John L. Sullivan, Gentleman Jim Corbett, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, and of course Muhammad Ali were huge celebrities in their times, and are still known today to many.

So what happened? There's a few possibilities. Some may say that it takes a charismatic figure. Mike Tyson was the last champ to be well-known, but was it because of his greatness as a fighter or because he was a prominent psychopath? If a fighter came along with the appeal of, say, Tiger Woods, would he do for boxing what Woods did for golf?

Also, how do you watch boxing these days? It's not on network TV anymore. Long gone are the days when they would actually broadcast a championship fight on Wide World of Sports on a Saturday afternoon. Before my day fights were a regular staple on TV on Friday nights, something that ESPN seems to be interested in carrying on, but is too little too late? When boxing went almost exclusively to pay-for-view it suddenly went from a sport followed by the lower-middle-class to one that is for rich assholes. The argument against this is that huge fights like the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila weren't televised, either, but the nation followed breathlessly.

Then there's the possibility that boxing just isn't interesting to young people today. Not with mixed martial arts and ultimate fighting, which are fast-growing sports and offer more possibilities of bloodshed. It's interesting that boxing may actually be too sedate to captivate a generation that has grown up playing video games where one wins by ripping the heart out of his opponent.

Of course the biggest reason is probably that boxing succumbed to the corruption and greed of those who run the sport. Don King may be the man who killed boxing. That there are three different boxing councils and three different champions is severely telling. A reasonable person would ask--why don't the three champs have a "playoff" so there is one champ? The knowledgeable person will rub their thumb with their first two fingers, the universal gesture for "money." To follow boxing is to be forced into the gutter with con men and criminals, and who wants to wallow in that company? It's a shame.