Ring Observer Boxing by Scoop Malinowski
By Scoop Malinowski
When boxing was king the big fights captivated the world. You could not wait those eight weeks to finally see the best vs the best.
Today, boxing is mostly all scripted hoax events which end up disappointing because they look like soft controlled sparring sessions and deep down inside, you know you got ripped off by a counterfeit WWF sham.
Floyd Mayweather and Al Haymon ruined the sport with all their fakery, ducking, dodging and BS. Their business model of avoiding high risks and only fighting low risk set ups has trickled down.
Tyson Fury is a good fighter but he’s better at pretending to want to fight Anthony Joshua or Oleksandr Usyk. Fury should have fought Joshua twice by now but both times he faked his way out of it to fight Deontay Wilder a third time and now Dereck Chisora a third time next month. Fury totally faked like he really wanted AJ but it was just a scam PR ploy to try to improve his value as an attraction.
Wilder does the same pretending, he also twice faked that he wanted to fight Joshua, first ducking out of $120m to fight another PBC set up Dominic Breazeale for a fraction of that amount. Also recently Wilder quacked some interest to maybe fight AJ but instead he set up the “fight” with his sparring partner and PBC associate Robert Helenius, who fell in the first round. Suddenly again this week team Wilder is quacking about wanting Joshua next, not the WBC eliminator vs Andy Ruiz (another PBC associate). But given Wilder’s track record, this is just another fake stunt to try to build Wilder’s value. He won’t sign to fight Joshua, expect him to blame AJ and Eddie Hearn and then go on and KO Ruiz to set up the fourth Fury fight.
All this ducking and dodging and faking at the top of boxing is wrecking the sport for the real fighters who really do want to fight the best and challenge themselves. Terence Crawford, Artur Beterbiev, Usyk, Janibek Alimkhanuly, Vasyl Lomachenko, David Benavidez, are all great fighters but they were/are all cheated out of getting the biggest fights vs the biggest names.
Canelo is another disappointment. He won’t fight Beterbiev or David Benavidez for silly reasons. Tank Davis is even worse. Davis may be the most protected fraud in boxing today. He’s so bad that his promoters should pay fans to watch his set ups. Al Haymon does not even bother to show up to watch any of Tank’s fights. Because he probably knows the outcome. In fact, Haymon stopped attending his own shows about a decade ago. There’s only one logical explanation why. Because he knows who will win every time.
I remember the days not very long ago when it was a THRILL to read the pre-fight hype interviews in the weeks leading up to a superfight, because every interview was real talk, with real tension and grudge. A good interview is part of the psychological warfare process. Now almost every interview today sounds scripted to sell a bogus set up business event. And most of the other interviews by the likes of Fury, Wilder, Spence are just total lies for PR purposes to create an illusion that they want the best fights. To increase their value. Their actions prove differently though. And not one other boxing reporter besides myself has the guts or sense to call out the lies and BS.
There is only one solution: Boycott fake fights to force REAL fights.
Just remember this: If Al Haymon would have controlled Sugar Ray Leonard, there is zero chance he would have ever fought Wilfred Benitez, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns or Marvin Hagler.
