Where Does Boxing Go From Here?
The Fact of the Matter is… The punch heard around the world, a swift and powerful right hand ended an era in boxing.
It's unusual to see a fight being touted as a rivalry when one fighter is winless in three previous bouts against another but that is exactly what Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiaio shared going into the MGM in Las Vegas last saturday. Most saw the bout as one between two evenly matched foes, with the elephant in the room being the controversial judging of the draw, and two wins in favor of Pacquiaio in their previous three bouts. Many experts predicted the bout going to the hands of the judges once again.
Although the fight was close going into the epic 6th round, I gave Pacquiaio a slight one round edge on the scorecards. The 6th round was something else. Back and forth action brought the MGM crowd to it's feet following an equally exciting 5th round where Pacman rocked Marquez. Then suddenly at 2:59 of round 6... it was all over. Marquez timed a perfect overhand right that knocked Manny out cold, and I mean cold. An eerily motionless Pacquaio was face down on the canvas and smelling salts had to be used to bring him back to life.
So after we witnessed a seemingly invincible legend's reign come crashing down to the canvas one has to wonder where does boxing goes from here?
To predict that we have to understand the analytical model of Boxing. Boxing is more or less like a hurricane, a hurricane starts with nothing more than warm moist air entering a high pressure system, then slowly gaining momentum until it becomes a tropical storm, until finally transitioning into a full fledged hurricane only to quickly die out. Boxing goes through phases as well, albeit in a much longer timeframe. Global stars like Mayweather and Pacquiaio were nothing more than unknown up and comers to everyone but hardcore fans until long winning streaks and tactical promotions made them superstars. However it took nearly a decade since the beginning of their perspective careers until they garnered the popularity they have in the present day, a time where their careers are arguably on the backend.
Stars like Mayweather and Pacquiaio are few and far between in boxing, even in the golden age of boxing when you had stars like Ali, Frazier, Tyson and Foreman. These figures took years and years of promotion and ring seasoning to bring to let their talents be known to the public.
And essentially this is why Boxing will never be a mainstream sport, especially in this modern landscape.
The problem is boxing builds around only one or two stars for every big card they put on PPV (pay per view). These one or two stars essentially have to carry the card, not only with their performances but the way they promote themselves to drive PPV buys. This established hierarchy leads to boxing's pay scale inequality. It's not uncommon to see Mayweather or Pacquiaio pull in ~$70 million per fight only to see the fighters in the co-main event pull in ~$10,000. You just don't have the depth of stars in boxing as you would in other mainstream sports like Football, Basketball or Baseball that you can market and promote around.
Notice something? The same handful of names have been headlining PPV's in the last 20 years.
And with the KO of Pacquiaio this weekend, It shouldn't be surprising if Manny steps away from the ring completely and take on his political career full-time. With Manny presumably out of the picture for the time being, Boxing has one legit star left in 35 year old Floyd Mayweather. It's times like these you come to really appreciate the unrivaled talents and personalities that Mayweather and Manny have.
Boxing's top up and comers in Andre Ward, Dinoto Donaire and Adrien Broner are names that few casual fans have heard of and will never be able to sell very many PPV's as headliners.
The future of boxing looks cloudy at best right now, but Marquez's overhand right may be remembered as a knockout that ended an era or at most one that further weakened the already declining popularity of the sweet science.
