British Boxing is at a Crossroads

By: Shane Willoughby

British boxing by many was seen as the home of Boxing for the last few years. The large Pay-per-view numbers, the huge crowds attending the fights, and the atmosphere is what separates British boxing from anywhere else.

However since the start of 2019, Boxing in the UK has been on the rocks as most British fighters have decided to venture in the American market. Fighters like Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury have both decided to jump ship and fight in the states.

This has lead to abysmal fight cards in England. Their has only been one Pay-per-view fight in the UK this year. Whilst AJ vs Ruiz was PPV, the fight was in the states which meant the British public had to stay awake until the early hours.

The only PPV fight in the UK this year was Chris Eubank JR vs James Degale and it wasn’t even on Sky or BT sports. Oh Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Whilst many fans will argue, at least we get free boxing. It also means you get fight cards which aren’t very good; fights that are extremely one sided. So the 90,000 fans that Anthony Joshua abandoned to fight in the states have been left to watch undercard fighters try and headline.

It was only a year ago the British fans were seeing Bellew vs Haye 2, Joshua vs Parker, Whyte vs Parker and Groves vs Eubank Jr. Now they get the privilege to watch Ted Cheeseman vs Sergio Garcia and Anthony Yards vs Travis Reeves, how fantastic!

It is extremely clear to see that Eddie Hearn is much more concerned about his billion dollar deal with DAZN than Sky Sports, which to be fair is a great amount of money. So to the thousands of fans that helped Matchroom reach the pinacle of british boxing; Mr Hearn has bigger fish to fry.

British boxing has definitely reached a cross roads; either one of these young and upcoming prospects have to fill the void that the big names have left or British boxing will be heading back to the days of Cleverly vs Bellew 2 and Haye vs Audrey Harrison.

In actual fact, it can be argued that boxing in the UK has already fallen to that level already, because Tyson Fury vs Tom Schwarz is by far the worst PPV in British boxing history.

Well at least there is a semi decent fight card on the 20th July when Dillian Whyte takes on the unbeaten Oscar Rivas and Dave Allen fights David Price. But no offence to Price and Allen but for them to be a co-main event on a PPV is an indicator of how far boxing in England has fallen.