“I always say that there is a constant cold in boxing. Even when I was a kid, it was never, ever in the best of health.” — Seth Abraham, former president of HBO Sports
When Showtime announced in October that it would no longer air boxing, it continued a troubling trend for the sport that began in 1960 with the death of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports after 18 years.
This was followed by 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 failed in 2017 after 80 years.
So what brings boxing back to its glorious past?
Heavyweights?
The heavyweight division that fueled the sport – think Louis, Marciano, Ali, Holmes, Tyson, Lewis, the Klitschko brothers and 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 start hearing about others,” insists Larry Merchant, the former sports columnist and HBO boxing analyst, now 92. “We didn't have one American heavyweight champion since I know, maybe Riddick Bowe.
“I believe that will be the case if we get an American heavyweight champion like this kid [Jared “Big Baby”] Anderson (16-0; 15 KOs) of Toledo,” Merchant said of the 23-year-old recently arrested fighter. He was arrested for driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. He was convicted of a first-degree felony. “Yeah, that proves he’s a fighter. A tough fighter.”
There are signs that the sport is going nowhere. Tyson Fury (England) and Oleksandr Usyk (Ukraine) will unify for the heavyweight title on February 17 in Saudi Arabia, and after his thrilling win over Demetrius Andrade, David “El Monstruo” Benavidez is looking forward to a big upcoming fight with Canelo Alveraz at 168 pounds. Belt sometime in 2024.
In addition to needing a top-notch American fighter to boost the sport, media coverage also needs to improve, says Showtime's Al Bernstein, who has covered boxing for 45 years as a print and television journalist.
“One thing: Boxing needs to be covered more. Period. End of sentence. End of paragraph,” he explains. “The mainstream sports media stopped covering boxing in the late 90s and early 2000s. In the last six years, reporting on boxing has gotten a little better.”
“The future still looks bright,” believes R. Thomas Umstead, senior content producer, programming for Multi-Channel News and Broadcasting and Cable, but with caution. “I have some concerns about the distribution of fights now that Showtime is leaving the business.
“They were a major distributor for pay-per-view boxing events. They knew how to market and advertise.”
So who will take on the burden of a sport that may or may not be in a coma?
“Well, it’s somewhere between alive and life-sustaining,” Merchant says.
The key could be Al Haymon's Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), the longtime partner of Showtime, which has over 150 fighters under contract. That’s enough for a rebirth of the weekly series “USA Tuesday Night Fights.”
Launched in 2015, PBC needed a broadcast platform to maximize the potential of its fighters. They recently announced their partnership with Prime Video (in over 160 million US households). Thursday Night Football, the WNBA, the Yankees and the Professional Pickleball Association are already broadcast in the USA
The companies announced a multi-year agreement starting in March 2024. PBC is planning up to 16 fight cards for next year.
Prime Video will exclusively stream a PBC Championship Boxing series and distribute PBC's pay-per-view events, according to the press release.
Haymon, owner of PBC, could not be reached for comment because he does not speak to the press.
So, is everything OK with sports now?
“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 will make gold,” says Abraham, who spent 25 years at HBO. “That is not true.
“It takes time to build a fighter’s reputation. It takes time to raise awareness of fighters among the public, even among the boxing public, when promoting, managing and training the young fighter.”
“I don’t think boxing is dying,” says Brian Adams, a three-time Daily News Golden Gloves champion and director of the Gloves from 2005 to 2017. “The sad thing is that fans have started looking for individuals in the sport instead of looking at the sport as a whole.”
Adams sees an opportunity to box since Showtime is out of the picture.
“Getting out of the sport is good because they only showed three fights,” said Adams, a two-time U.S. champion. “They showcased the notable fighters and the main event. The streaming platforms show the whole map.”
Lou DiBella has gone from an HBO boxing manager to a boxing promoter and sees a bleak, messy future at best.
“The majority of our fighters could still walk through Times Square unrecognized,” said DiBella as his boxing series “Broadway Boxing” just celebrated its 20th anniversary. “The biggest names in boxing are still guys like Mayweather and Tyson who have retired.
“We are not dying and we will never die, but we are definitely at a low point.”
Is Showtime no longer there after 37 years and streaming services like DAZN, ESPN+ and Prime Video broadcast sport? Is this the future?
“If that’s the case, you won’t gain fans from a streaming service,” warns DiBella. “Everyone thinks he’s a real idiot.
“Paramount is a pretty powerful streaming service, an important one. If Paramount believed there was a lot of money to be made from streaming boxing, they probably would have come up with a plan that involved keeping boxing.
“They didn’t do that.”
So what change fixes the game?
“There is no such thing as change,” says DiBella. “A single change will do nothing to help this sport that has faded dramatically over the last 25 years and has faded over the course of a century.”
DiBella knows the problems of boxing.
“We have too many champions, too many weight classes, too many interim champions,” he says, not to mention incompetent judges and corruption.
Still, DiBella believes another martial art that has a proven strategy for success offers hope.
“The UFC is effective in maintaining the level of competition at the highest level,” DiBella emphasizes about the sport led by Dana White. “They regularly bring together fighters and fights that are high risk. If your fighter loses in a big fight, the fighter is not much worse off than if he had won.
“One thing Dana says is true,” says DiBella: “There's a history in boxing where everyone strives to milk the tit, bleed the stone and squeeze out the last dollar, regardless of the future. “
“We’re always in a sell-out that goes out of business.”
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), to world champion (in four weight classes, including heavyweight), to broadcaster (HBO), to 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,” said Jones, who just signed a four-fight promotional deal with Legends Casino in Toppenish, Wa. “That's how it used to be. That’s what made boxing so big and so good.
“Now they’re forced into it or people don’t want to see it.”
Removing Showtime from the equation worries Jones.
“It's a huge success that Showtime is no longer in boxing, but everything always moves on,” says Jones, 54, whose last fight was a split-draw contest against Mike Tyson in 2020. “There is streaming. DAZN was first. Streaming is here and as long as there are good fights, boxing will be fine.”
“Even though boxing's popularity ebbs and flows at different times, it will always be attractive and exciting to sports fans,” notes eternal boxing optimist Ed Brophy, executive director of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, NY. “I am a strong I believe that the future of boxing still holds many unforgettable moments.”
Like the children's story “The Little Engine That Could,” boxing keeps chugging along, falls off the track, gets pulled back on, and chugs along into an uncertain future.
Everything on board?
* * *
What's so puzzling about Showtime's withdrawal from boxing is their track record at major events.
2023 alone was huge for Showtime, as the 147-pound unification bout between Tank Davis, Ryan Garcia, Errol Spence, Jr. and Terence Crawford and the super middleweight bout between David Benavidez and Demetrius Andrade were banner years.
According to GiveMeSport.com, Showtime/PPV has produced six of the 10 most-watched fights in history.
Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson II (7th), Davis-Garcia (6th) and Mayweather-Conor McGregor (2nd) are all in the top ten.
Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao (1st) and Lennox Lewis-Tyson (5th) were finished along with HBO. Now Showtime is going the way of HBO and is left with only a handful of memories.
“I hope our group is remembered for the excellence we strived for,” said David Dinkins Jr., senior vice president and executive producer of “Showtime Championship Boxing” and a four-time Emmy Award winner. He has been with Showtime since 1987. “I think that’s where we shined the most [big event] shows.”
How many did he actually make?
“How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?” he says with a laugh. ” That is much.”
He has fought over 600 championship fights alone.
Dinkins sat in the truck and produced most of them. He spoke quietly, trying not to brag as reality closed in.
He cleaned up his office.
“We rose to the occasion again and again,” said Dinkins, the son of the late New York mayor.
As Showtime hears the final ten votes, what's next?
Sure, there will be the occasional megafight, but if fighters don't take control of their own sport, the machine grinds to a halt.
Boxing's motto used to be, “The best fights the best!” Now it's, “Look at my shiny championship belt.” Isn’t that pretty!”
In the meantime, the conglomerate of organizations, managers, funders, TV and executives will remain intact. The sport will still function in a slimy orgy sort of way.
If the sport doesn't get its act together soon, they may find themselves canceling their last irreplaceable asset.
The fans.
What if you had an argument and no one cared?
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