There seems to be a trend lately. Very successful athletes in strength sports decide to re-invent themselves as boxers. Halfthor Bjornson has been practicing and competing, Eddie hall was supposedly getting ready to fight him before his injury. Stefi Cohen is taking a break from powerlifting to focus on boxing for a spell. Retired CrossFit athlete Josh Bridges has a fight coming up. Heck, even some of those YouTube guys are starting to get big into the boxing game.
When the heck did this all start? There is some big press going to a lot of these fights, but I can’t imagine that these athletes are good fighters. Don’t get me wrong, phenomenal athletes all around, and I am sure that they become quite competent rather quickly with some training, but is it truly so easy to become a high level boxer? If so, what does that say about everyone who has spent YEARS dedicating themselves to the sport, rather than picking it up in a few months after other endeavors.
Also curious as to why all the athletes have started doing this. My own opinion, probably for the money. The boxing world has always been very generous with funds compared with some other sports, particularly when compared to strength sports. I can see people trying to cash in on a big payday by moving outside their field. In which case, no judgement, I 100% acknowledge I would do the same in their shoes, but it is very interesting to see the uptick in boxing popularity as a result of this.
People love boxing, but professional boxing with long periods between fights is ill suited for modern audiences with shorter and shorter attention spans. This has been a problem for over two decades now, and UFC masterfully exploited it by selling a regularly scheduled uniformed product not dependent on the fighters themselves.
Viewers are simply not willing to wait a month, let alone for a year or more for a big boxing fight. And hype and trash talking can only last for a short time.
So freakshow and novelty fights, not to mention sad “legend” fights are filling in the void between legitimate title fights.
I get that there is money in boxing. But why and how? I know of no one that follows boxing, even casually. Obviously my circle of connections is not representative of the world at large, but are there really huge swaths of people not only interested in boxing but paying out lots of money to see it (or advertisers paying lots of money to sponsor it because of the eyeballs it attracts)? It takes a huge amount of money to put on a fight and get the boxers to show up for a single television event that probably doesn’t get more viewership that an average weeknight sitcom. Tickets for the live event might account for some of the discrepancy. But it just doesn’t seem to add up.
It’s one of the easiest sports in the world to understand and has a millennia long heritage behind it. Humans are always going to love to watch violence, and PPVs are easy to sell.
Not one of those people are anywhere near being a high level boxer. They’re not even close to being low level boxers. They’re boxing other people who can’t box. That’s not an attempt to discredit their toughness, discipline and passion for the sport, it’s just a blatant fact.
Have you ever watched a good fight? They’re great!
It definitely adds up, and there’s still plenty left over for mobsters, corrupt politicians in the way of sanctioning the event and Don King.
WNBA players asking for equal pay to NBA players is an example of sports economics not adding up. Can’t blame them for trying, though. They should try boxing each other instead of playing basketball. Fighting always pays.
I could go down to the bar and dig up a dozen guys who wouldn’t bat an eye at paying $20 each to watch me box a dairy cow in the parking lot. I would never do something like that, of course. I’d need a good venue, for starters. I’d also demand a good veterinarian, for the dairy cow’s sake. That cow is going to get hurt if she steps into the ring with me.
I’ve got the fighting spirit. My friend has the dairy cow. We just need a suitable venue and a PPV promoter. Let’s make this happen. I can smell money.
People had made the change to boxing before, but the first and biggest freak show boxing spectacle was the Brawl for All:
Which led to Bart Gunn winning the “boxing” tournament, and as a result of being the “toughest guy in wrestling”, he had the pleasure of facing Butterbean, and receiving one of the most brutal KO’s in a boxing ring in history (not the one 10 seconds in, the one 15 seconds in):
Search for any Tyson knockout compilation and you’ll see Iron Mike put some people through the ropes like that, but the Butterbean-Gunn one is top five, for sure. Part of what sucks about this whole charade is how badass people think they are for beating unskilled fighters and how dead they’d be if they fought skilled ones.
Even Butterbean himself didn’t fight many legitimate names and couldn’t last more than a few rounds, but he had the type of power and skill that you’d need to be more than just a big strong “tough guy” to survive a round with him.
Oh, and that punch literally ended Gunn’s career. Supposedly he wasn’t meant to win the “Brawl for All”, and many believe his punishment was that fight with Butterbean, because shortly afterwards he was fired.
That’s right. He was supposed to lose to the guy who was loved by all the big wigs and winning the Brawl for All was going to be that guys big push to the top.
Not a smart move and Butterbean was the exclamation point
