The Beltline: 2022 is the year the boxing industry becomes as dependent as an influencer’s boyfriend
ANY quality produced by its frontline workers, 2022 was the year the boxing industry reeled from fast food and then recklessly sold it to its loyal customers who gourmet. In other words, it was the last year the sport caught up with the times and did its best to attract new audiences while insulting existing audiences by serving up tainted products at inflated prices. high (as well as providing menu additions that no one asked for).
It was a strangely old year, even by boxing standards. There are new faces popping up everywhere: in the ring, along the A row, in the comment and comment section, and also in the press area. Some were welcome. Others are less so. Some come with good intentions, their passion for sports evident, while others come to town only to loot and wreak havoc.
However, it has long been said that boxing is a sport stuck in the dark ages, at least now we know what movement over time looks like. It seems like an open invitation for anyone – ideally internet celebrities – to try their hand at the sport, no matter how this makes the sport appear in the process. this. Not only that, the move with the times seems to allow anyone to “cover” the sport, as well as allowing the promoters of the sport to sit still, raise their legs, and use social media as a guide. Their only promotional tool, blame the boxers entirely if and when. They started complaining about the lack of opportunities. They might say, “Be like YouTubers.” “You didn’t study whatever from KSI and Jake Paul?”
Perhaps the reason is that it will go this way. After all, boxing has always been a reflection of society and it has never been more true today that to get ahead in the world you have to let the world know who you are, who you are, where you are, what you do, you what to think and why people need to listen to you – all the time. Do that, it seems, and you’re on a winner. However, go the other way and you run the risk of becoming, like many small-hall boxers with only a handful of “followers,” something of an outcast; a desperate character whose voice isn’t loud enough and any investment in that person makes little sense.
Shakur Stevenson and Oscar Valdez got into a fight in April (Mikey Williams/Top Rank Inc via Getty Images)
At this time last year, when trying to refocus on “real” boxing, I found myself making a list of 10 fights I hoped would be done in 2022, culminating in a clash Welterweight between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence, followed by a heavyweight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk. Of course, sadly, those wars were never made in 2022, and more sadly, they are still as important today as 12 months ago and if I bother doing another , it should top any list I’ve compiled for next year as well.
However, in the end, after being bitten, you will learn your lesson. Indeed, a quick scan of my top 10 list from last year shows that only one of the 10 fights mentioned actually happens in 2022 (Shakur Stevenson vs. Oscar Valdez in April), with nine remaining. can only be argued that never happened or even never happened. considered in the first place. What is perhaps most frustrating, however, is that, despite the presence of rankings in boxing (hence some supposed structure and order), it is almost impossible to predict which match will be. will be implemented in a new year. That is, just because number one and number two in a division Candlestick competing against each other does not necessarily mean that they will compete – at least not in a sport like ours.
Furthermore, this problem may have been exacerbated by recently a lot of influencers, YouTubers, unscrupulous advisors and various streaming services happily fulfilling their promises. which they often can’t hold on to delusion-prone boxers when it comes to their own worth. As a result, we now have boxers waiting for their time to the point where boxing twice a year counts as 12 grueling months. Now we have boxers becoming pay-per-view “stars” faster than they should because that turns out to be the only way advertisers and TV networks can spend money. pay what the heads expect. Now, as we move into 2023, we have the prospect of any half-baked domestic match carrying a pay-per-view card because, in investment terms, boxing is no longer seen as a thing. quality for marriage but instead for a one-night stand. Now we have the big names at the top of the sport striding with an atmosphere of entitlement that is largely undeserved and illegitimate, but matched by the attitudes and ignorance of a the world is increasingly “online”. Now, having entered that world in search of both cash and power, next year’s boxing must do all it can to avoid becoming an Influencer’s Boyfriend; standing there, phone in hand, grinning with death eyes when asked by her girlfriend to take another picture of her pouting for a like.
