'What Boxing Needs'

How many times have we, as fans, been promised 'the fight to save boxing?' How many times have self-appointed regulators whose real business is collecting protection money tinkered with new ideas that have only served to further marginalize the sport?

Dan Wetzel, of Yahoo! Sports, writes that Mayweather-Pacquiao as 'the blockbuster fight (or fights) boxing needs.'

Kevin Iole, also of Yahoo! Sports, is equally sure of that same fact.

Boxing doesn't 'need' Mayweather-Pacquiao anymore than it 'needs' a super-heavyweight division or 'needs' the Klitschko brothers to retire.*

What boxing needs is presence in the mainstream American sports media, including the sports pages and the evening news. This includes more and better fights on ESPN and Fox Sports. It includes a serious return to network television. It means that some of these guys headlining PPV cards no one is buying might be better served by exposure through the media I just mentioned. It needs fighters to be promoted in their hometowns to gather the kind of solid fanbase sought in other sports. It needs the strong presence of an organization of boxers with a strong say in (or outright control of) the future of their sport on the model of the AVP, ATP, or PGA. It needs a regulatory stucture and organizing body capable of serious professional standards and sanctions that cross international boundaries and making matches based on serious rankings rather than not-so-funny listings of bad jokes.

Boxing needs a licensing system for promoters and for real penalties to be handed down to the Don Kings of the business. Ideally, promoters and managers should have no part of the matchmaking process. That should be determined by as objective a ranking system as possible. Licensed promoters should bid to sell the fights made according to the rankings. Promoters should never be allowed to sign exclusive contracts with fighters or managers.

I can go on a lot longer and throw a bunch of other things boxing needs into the pot. If boxing could meet the proper combination of enough of these needs, then a fight like Mayweather-Pacquiao would be very nearly guaranteed of happening.

Without any of these needs being met there is no single fight or gimmick that will 'save boxing.' It will be a choice between a profitable-but-precarious existence as a niche sport and further marginalization.

There is no fight that boxing needs, except perhaps the fight to meet its needs.