I'm really ****ing sad at what's happening to the sport. I'm not talking about the joke that was Fury and Joshua making noise with little intention of fighting each other. I'm not even talking about Mayweather making a mockery of it fighting a clown. Or any of the other clowns fighting washed up MMA fighters. Eddie Hearn and Matchroom are leaving Sky Sports to chase money with "Da Zone." Sky have done so ****ing much for boxing in the UK over the last decade. They have given Heard and incredible platform and he's just ****ing pissed on it to chase even more money to stage even more ridiculous reality tv style fights. So disappointing.
Agree with all you say disco but apart from that boxing started going downhill years ago. Not knocking the boxers themselves but it went from WBA/WBC to then WBO, IMF and whatever naff title they could think up just cos some bell ends wanted their little bit of power. Then the politics kicked in with fighters ranked in a different order and arguments ensuing as to who the champion had to fight next. Maybe just my age but I believe I saw the golden age with Ali, Tyson, Lewis, Hearns, Hagler Sugar Ray, Benn, Eubank etc.
Having followed the sport throughout the 80s, including reffing on some cards, the sport has never quite lived up to expectations since. Hagler, Hearns, Leonard, Duran, Holmes etc. were quality...
The whole thing has been corrupted by money more or less since the days of Ali and Frazier imo. The genuine honesty of the likes of Henry Cooper is long gone.
The money and control Hearn was looking for was crazy. I can’t see any massive value in it for Sky, everything that Sky have let go has hit problems, Sky are savvy about not paying for anything that doesn’t pay for itself. DAZN have had some big successes, but given the relatively low standard of boxing right now, declining PPV audiences and the fact they are a stream only service, I don’t see it working unless DAZN massively hike their prices. Hearn has his big cash cow AJ who is not tied to this deal and is free to negotiate outside of it. It’s head scratcher to be honest which likely sees it remain on Sky as a paid channel and fans get ****ed over again. Sky get the blame as per, Hearn bags the money and gives no ****s about the fans. I like Hearn, for the record, but he wants match room to do all the production etc so he doesn’t have fees for that. Can we see them doing better coverage than Sky? Naaa.
Personally don't mind it. I love DAZN. App is great, very smooth and plentiful in content. This will wipe out PPV too. Well once Joshua finishes his last fight with sky. The DAZN fee will go up from the into 1.99 to about 7.99 I think. Again, totally fine. Sky have took the biscuit for years for monthly fees then PPV on top. DAZN has so much more about it in production and interviews with analysis. Good move. Obviously it's financial but as a consumer , I see no drama either. Should mean for better cards with a bigger budget.
Sky's biased coverage towards match room might end now, hopefully. They've licked AJ's arse and ignored his indiscretions for years whilst constantly running any possible negative articles about Fury. Now that they're out of hearns pocket we might get some actual partizan sports journalism out of the shysters. Also boxing well dead, ufc pisses all owa it
I currently pay £1.99 for the DAZN app so I imagine that it will go up significantly very soon. I despise Matchroom with their paper champions and ppvs headlined by people that you'd shut the curtains if they were scrapping in your box yard. Hopefully something new will come along and fill the boxing void on Sky
Eddie Hearn is obsessed with Dana White, idolises him. I'm guessing that he's trying to bring a bit of the organisation from UFC into boxing. He's systematically signing the biggest boxers across the world, including joshua, cannello, golovkin, haney, usyk, and rade to name a few. He recently got Billy Jo Saunders so I wouldn't be at all surprised if he gets Fury at some point. He's also got the majority of the female world champs. The biggest problem with boxing is that its so hard to get the top guys to fight each other, which is the best thing about UFC, there's no hiding place. You fight who you're told to fight and there's no issues with fighters being on different TV deals. All the best MMA fighters are in the UFC (with a few notable exceptions) so it's a closed shop. I love MMA but I prefer boxing out of the two. The big fights are so few and far between, though, that I end up watching UFC more often. Boxing needs a shake up. I'm a big fan of sky's coverage, but this might be the shot in the arm that the sport needs. Time will tell.
It’s a ****ing disgrace, I would never pay for a Hearn promo again, might aswel make it the bwe now, the corruption is on another scale
I like watching boxing. Not “into” the sport as such, but I enjoy it. There was a British fighter on talksprt the other week talking about his world title fight and that it wasn’t being shown on TV anywhere. Not even on an undercard fir a big fight. He’s getting paid a pittance (relatively) and Mayweather (net worth circa $1.2 Bn) and Logan Paul ($19m) get on box office. I know the public pay for these things but surely there has to room to improve actual fighters rather than put on stupid **** shows
It's like anything in society nowadays. It's better to be famous than skilled. Purism is gone. It's about platform.
Ritson was absolutely smashed to bits. All night long. He just isnt very good. Surprised it got to that stage of the fight. Was spent earlier. Ponce had a ridiculous punch output.