The Slow Death of Heavyweight Boxing

Heavyweight boxing has stumbled and flopped its way to a deserved death. Watching the Klitschko vs Haye bout has confirmed that Heavyweight Boxing is dead or dying.

Anyone who’s watched boxing or anything in the realm of hand-to-hand combat will tell you the faults and missteps that boxing has taken over the years. Frankly, I’m bored of it. I’ll list a few so I can get them out of the way and move on:

1) Not having a single or “true” champion.
2) Too many PPV fights so that fans can’t grow to know any of the fighters.
3) The PPV fights are so expensive for boxers who we don’t even know, and there’s no track record that with recent unknowns that we’ll get a good fight. So why would someone was $50 on a PPV.
4) Not enough free TV fights, again so that we can know the fighters
5) Slowness. We’re in a world where people fast forward through commercials, an hour long match where in three minute rounds we watch 250+ pound fighters do the two stepping is just not fast enough.
6) More is made of pre-fight interviews and HBO 24/7’s, which have more action than the fights have, that we find the fights anticlimactic.


This fight was supposed to be everything that fans where hoping for. It was going to have everything that the boxing community was fighting to have. Two well know Heavyweights. I hate to come off racist but two English speaking, well mannered and well spoke boxers. Haye did everything that he could to show off his mouth but when the fight started he forgot to bring his fists to go with his mouth. Which by the way; during the fight, you could see Haye mock, talk to, joke with and play to Klitschko in attempts to throw him off. None of which worked. But the buildup was there. There was a championship belt up for grabs. AND FOR THE FIRST TIME, in what seemed FOREVER, THIS WAS GOING TO BE ON REGULAR HBO!!! We could see it for “free” and get a great show. If this only got 2 stars out of 5, it would have helped the boxing. We just needed a spark. What we got was a box office FLOP, literally and figuratively. Even Ice-T and CoCo get me locked in for 15 – 30 minutes. We’re talking about what was one time the USA’s #1 sport. More important that MLB, NBA and NFL or any college game. A sport that in numerous ways was a fight for equality, economic and racial. Even the venues where a statement. The Rumble in the Jungle was strife with political controversy. We didn’t have themes as big as other fights but at least this was in Germany and not some homogenized Vegas Strip casino (I love Vegas but we all know that its way more flash than substance).

This is supposed to be the “sweet science”. I can see that, because unlike other forms of sport, we can see where and what the boxer is doing and what they should be doing. “Stop dancing and go for body shots”, or “You’ve got to go for the knock-out!” I remember sitter that in high school watching the Tyson vs. Holyfield fight and was on the floor in disbelief that this man just ate another man’s ear off. Even at an age where you think you know everything, but really you know nothing, I could tell this was not only an unbelievable thing to watch but also the instant beginning of the fall into insanity for Tyson. Unfortunately I think it was that Tyson fight, and the subsequent other spectacles over the upcoming years that have now led to Boxing as becoming irrelevant.

Every time Haye landed a punch, he’d look over to the ref as if he was going to call the fight. I’ve never seen anything like it. Instead of following up with another punch, Haye literally looked at the ref. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know nor do I care. It’s as if he’s looking for approval from the ref. Yeah, asshole, you hit him now do something. It took him until the last round to finally hit him with a few shots. But by then I was so sick of the boring and flopping of the match that I just didn’t care. I wouldn’t have even been watching except that the announcers kept saying that Haye’s only chance, ever, was to go for the knock-out. I’d really kill myself if I change channels on the worst boxing match ever just to see on Sportscenter that there was an amazing KO in the last round.

Watching Haye parade around the ring after the last bell rang as if he’d done ANYTHING, other than flopping, was almost surreal. ABDC has less dancing in it than this fight. Frankly, I’d rather see the whole Jabowalkee dance crew take on either of the Klitschko brothers. At least that circus would entertain me. Haye had the talk. Haye had the walk. Haye had the smiles and the gestures. Haye had the flop. But Haye didn’t have a punch. You’d think that would be a prerequisite of anyone who gets into the ring; must know how to and want to fight. By the fifth or sixth round, I wish the ref would have gone up to this guy and asked, “Son, you know this is a boxing match? You have to throw a punch to win. We don’t grade on showmanship.”

Klitschko didn’t do anything that impressed me. He may have been able to make up for Haye’s performance by putting on a technical show and by the end, listen to his corner and give us a KO that we so desperately needed, even if it was just to put us out of our misery and end the fight. Even after the fight he was telling us that he was disappointed because he wanted to give the crowd a KO. Klitschko would have been fine without making that statement. Now he just put in our mind that he wanted to KO this jabronee but couldn’t!?!? We have to remember that even if the Klitschos are a pair of well speaking English, Russian brothers that play chess, that they are still just boxers. Their chosen profession is to pummel your opponent’s brain in. Also, that they both came in the game when the last of whatever Heavyweights were on their way out. They didn’t have easy times with L. Lewis and others of his elk. Let’s also face the fact that there probably hasn’t been a boxer as big and muscular as either of them since Drago in Rocky IV (I should be ashamed to use such an easy reference but c’mon, I’m not supposed to bring this up in my one time boxing article).

Did I mention the flopping by Haye? No, well he did it over and over and over again. To compare it to a soccer player would only insult the best soccer flops. This was on the level of Vlade Divac flops. To beat on is already I’m sure everyone will be touching on. It was just a joke and a joke to his sport. The ref was great to figure out a way to punish the flops by giving him a standing count.

Is this the end of Heavyweight boxing? I don’t know. It seems to be. Time will tell and time is running out for these Heavyweights.