Introduction
Since the 90s, there are many factors which show that the sport of boxing has fallen suddenly and sharply from its heyday, when the likes of Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis were scrapping for heavyweight gold, bringing in millions of viewers on PPV. Even the normally exciting lower-weight divisions have fallen from the days of prime Pacquiao and Mayweather, whereas now only a small number of fighters can consistently attract major PPV audiences.
So why has this happened? For this investigation, I will be focusing mainly on the period from the 90s, which was one of boxing’s greatest ages after the 70s, up to the present day. However, I will mention scandals from even before the 90s at the beginning, showing that politics in boxing has always been there and remains a major issue. I will focus on politics as being the influence of promoters and other infamous figures, as well as the fighters themselves, along with scandals and governing bodies like the WBC and WBA, who are constantly trying to one-up each other to the detriment of the sport.
In this report, I aim to show that there is a historical link between similar things happening and that it isn’t a new thing, as well as giving a fair reflection of all the factors discussed. This is in the hope of finding why such things have happened and how they have caused the once-great sport to fall so drastically. Because it is both fascinating and demoralising, it is worthy of investigation.
What is “Second Tier”?
Describing something as second tier is subjective, but a clear threshold can be made when looking at other big sports’ viewing numbers. For the Premier League, Sports Business Journal reported an average US audience of 555,000 viewers at one stage of the 2023/24 season, an increase on the equivalent point of the previous season. Football, or soccer, is not the most popular sport in the United States by some distance, making this growth significant.
The Premier League has also had an enormous worldwide reach. A widely quoted figure of 4.7 billion relates to the league’s estimated global audience reach during the 2010/11 season rather than 4.7 billion regular viewers. Either way, its global reach shows that football is definitely not a second-tier sport.
Even Formula One has experienced major audience growth, particularly in the United States. In 2023, Formula One had an average worldwide television audience of roughly 70 million viewers per race. This shows there is some sort of threshold for a sport that is on the border of becoming mainstream worldwide.
The problem with boxing is that there is very little crossover because it’s likely UK fans will watch UK-based fights and US fans will watch US fights. Obviously, the time difference plays a part, but when the likes of Tyson were around, that never used to be that big of a problem. However, now, because of the lack of big fights, nobody wants to stay up until 4 a.m. in the UK, and some UK fights aren’t even broadcast in the UK, showing why viewing figures can suffer.
One of the biggest fights of 2023 was Gervonta Davis v Ryan Garcia, which reportedly sold more than 1.2 million PPV buys. The fight between Tommy Fury and YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul was also commercially successful, although the exact final number is disputed. The fact that crossover fights involving personalities such as Paul can compete commercially with established professional boxing events raises questions about where mainstream interest in boxing now lies.
Not A New Thing
Politics has always been around in boxing, causing scandals, with evidence from Bleacher Report showing that it has been a problem since at least the late 40s, when the mob had a grip over the sport. Legendary middleweight Jake LaMotta felt the force of this in 1947. The Raging Bull was denied a title shot, so was forced by the mob to take a dive against Billy Fox to get the title match. LaMotta later admitted that he deliberately lost the fight as part of an agreement that would eventually help him receive a world-title opportunity (Tate, 2011).
Robert Pottis from Fight City highlighted another controversial event involving alleged mob influence, this time in 1965 in the infamous second fight between Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali. Even before this fight, Liston was known to have ties to figures associated with the underworld. Liston went down from a short right hand from Ali in the first round in what became known as the “phantom punch”.
However, it cannot be stated as fact that Liston deliberately took a dive. The unusual ending, combined with Liston’s background, created allegations that the fight had been fixed, but this has never been conclusively proven. The fight therefore remains one of boxing’s most disputed moments rather than a proven example of corruption (Pottis, 2017).
Bleacher Report also shows that, although eventually the mob moved away and notorious mobster Frankie Carbo was arrested, allegations of fixed fights and corruption didn’t disappear. Don King’s United States Boxing Championships in the 1970s became surrounded by controversy after records belonging to fighters involved in the tournament were found to have been falsified or exaggerated. Eventually, the tournament was scrapped and King’s reputation was damaged by the controversy (Tate, 2011).
Another famous scandal which Bleacher Report highlights was the infamous second fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, which became known as the bite fight. Tyson twice bit Holyfield during the contest and was disqualified in round three, leading to chaos in the ring. Tyson was subsequently fined $3 million and had his boxing licence revoked.
This signalled a major decline in Tyson’s career at the highest level. It was clear to everyone that this wasn’t the same Tyson from his prime. He would collect further wins but also suffer several more defeats before his final professional fight in 2005. And so went one of the biggest sources of entertainment in the sport’s history, probably signalling the start of a decline in excitement surrounding one of heavyweight boxing’s biggest stars (Tate, 2011).
They also show that Ali had another infamous controversy in the late 60s, when his boxing licence was taken away after his refusal to be drafted into the US military during the Vietnam War. This was seen by many as very harsh because it was mixing politics with sport. Ali was convicted of draft evasion in 1967 and effectively lost several years of his boxing prime before returning to the ring in 1970. His conviction was eventually overturned unanimously by the US Supreme Court in 1971.
By the time Ali returned, several of his best years as a professional were gone. It meant Ali lost part of his prime before his famous fights with Joe Frazier and his victory over the then-undefeated George Foreman in 1974, leaving boxing fans wondering what those missing years could have produced (Tate, 2011).
Another scandal Bleacher Report highlights is the work of former IBF president Robert Lee and allegations that money was being used to manipulate the organisation’s rankings. Federal prosecutors alleged that IBF officials received $338,000 in bribes from promoters and managers.
However, Lee was acquitted of the charges alleging that he personally accepted bribes. He was convicted on other charges, including tax evasion, money laundering and interstate travel in aid of racketeering. The case nevertheless badly damaged the credibility of the IBF and showed the potential for corruption within boxing’s governing organisations (Tate, 2011).
Decline in PPV
As reported by Business Insider, there were some huge PPV buys in the 1990s and 2000s. In the lower divisions, many of the biggest numbers were down to Mayweather and Pacquiao. When they eventually fought each other in 2015, years after fans had first demanded the fight, it generated approximately 4.6 million US PPV buys.
There was also massive interest in heavyweight PPVs during the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly involving fighters such as Tyson, Holyfield and Lewis.
For example:
Holyfield v Douglas (1990) – approximately 1 million buys
Tyson v Seldon (1996) – approximately 1.1 million buys
Tyson v Bruno II (1996) – approximately 1.4 million buys
Tyson v Holyfield I (1996) – approximately 1.6 million buys
Lewis v Tyson (2002) – approximately 2 million buys
Holyfield v Tyson II (1997) – approximately 2 million buys
Modern heavyweight boxing has still produced major PPV events. Anthony Joshua’s fights against Wladimir Klitschko, Joseph Parker and Oleksandr Usyk all attracted significant PPV audiences. Joshua v Parker in 2018, for example, recorded around 1.8 million UK PPV buys, while Joshua v Klitschko recorded around 1.5 million.
This means it would be inaccurate to say that no modern heavyweight fight has approached the major numbers of the 90s. However, there is still evidence that boxing’s audience has become more fragmented across different countries, broadcasters, streaming services and promoters (Dawson, 2022).
Politics plays a definitive role in this because one of the biggest complaints from boxing fans is that the best do not fight the best regularly enough. Whereas legacy was traditionally one of the main measurements of greatness, both fighters and promoters now have enormous financial incentives to protect valuable records and negotiate the most profitable possible fights.
This can delay the biggest fights until after the ideal moment or prevent them from happening altogether.
The Reasons
Promoters’ Influence / Ignorance of Fighters
Unsurprisingly, what many people think is the main reason for the decline of the sport is the unwillingness to compromise between promoters and even fighters themselves, as especially the big promoters refuse to work with each other. They want to protect their fighter by not giving them a challenge because, if they lose, it’ll hurt the amount of money that can be made.
As Greg Noble from NationalWorld highlights, rival promoters compete against one another financially, meaning agreements can be difficult to reach. Historically, deals between Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn were relatively rare because they were major promotional rivals (Noble, 2022).
The promoters also mean that fighters can be on different broadcasters, making it even harder to find a deal, such as Frank Warren’s relationship with TNT Sports and Eddie Hearn’s with DAZN. Fighters becoming aligned with rival broadcasters and promoters can therefore create another barrier to making the biggest fights.
A frequently discussed example was former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, whose 40-0 record at the time of his first fight with Tyson Fury was criticised because of the quality of some of his previous opponents. His biggest victories before Fury included wins against Luis Ortiz, who caused Wilder real trouble during their first meeting.
He also picked up a knockout over Eric Molina, who managed to trouble the Bronze Bomber before being stopped. Anthony Joshua later destroyed Molina and put him away in three rounds. Wilder also recorded a first-round KO over another former Joshua opponent, Dominic Breazeale.
Fury proved to be Wilder’s defining opponent. Their first fight ended in a draw, although many observers believed Fury had won. Fury then stopped Wilder in both their second and third fights.
Wilder’s later defeat against Joseph Parker further damaged his position among the leading heavyweights. This demonstrates the danger of building a fighter’s reputation around an unbeaten record rather than consistently matching them against the strongest available opponents.
Just some big fights that were delayed or looked unlikely at different points because of promotional and broadcasting complications include Joshua Buatsi v Anthony Yarde, Mairis Briedis v Lawrence Okolie and the mega fight between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury (Van Der Berg, 2019).
The fighters themselves also have to take some of the blame, as many fighters are accused of wanting the most money for the easiest fights. Tyson Fury became an example of this criticism during his WBC heavyweight title reign, particularly when he made a third defence against Derek Chisora in 2022 despite having already beaten Chisora twice.
Fury’s 2023 non-title fight with former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou attracted enormous attention and money but was criticised beforehand because Ngannou had never competed in a professional boxing match. Ngannou then performed far better than expected and knocked Fury down before losing a close split decision.
When looking at the great eras of the sport, it is clear that the willingness of elite fighters to face each other is crucial. Even the great fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather happened years after fans first began demanding it, robbing fans of the chance to see them meet while both were at their absolute peaks.
These actions by promoters and fighters play a massive role in how politics can damage the sport because, much of the time, fighters are scared of losing their unbeaten record, so they take easier fights while waiting for the largest possible payday.
Governing Bodies Making Pointless Fights
It isn’t just the greedy promoters that can ruin the sport for their own gain; it can sometimes go beyond them and onto the doorstep of the governing bodies who sanction the fights.
The amount of governing bodies itself is a problem. Boxing now recognises four major sanctioning organisations: the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO. However, these four organisations did not suddenly appear in 2007. They developed separately over many decades, with the WBO eventually becoming widely recognised alongside the other three as a major sanctioning body.
The want of every boxing fan is to have one true undisputed champion who defends against all the top competition, but the existence of four organisations makes that difficult. Becoming an undisputed champion is hard enough, but holding all the belts can be even harder when each governing body has its own mandatory challengers.
It’s got to the point where fighters sometimes vacate a title rather than fight a mandatory challenger if a bigger fight or payday is available elsewhere. Title fights should be the pinnacle of a fighter’s career, but the politics between the different governing bodies can complicate this.
An example of this, as Greg Noble highlights, was former undisputed light-welterweight champion Josh Taylor relinquishing titles as different mandatory obligations emerged. Mandatory challengers can delay or even prevent bigger fights from happening (Noble, 2022).
There have also been numerous fights criticised beforehand as unnecessary or one-sided. Anthony Joshua’s first meeting with Andy Ruiz Jr seemed pointless at the time, as Joshua was expected to walk through Ruiz on his way to bigger fights. Ruiz instead produced one of the biggest heavyweight upsets of recent years, showing that supposedly pointless fights can sometimes produce unexpected results.
Tyson Fury also fought Tom Schwarz and Otto Wallin before his second fight with Wilder. Although Fury was heavily favoured in both, Wallin gave him a significantly tougher fight than expected.
This shows that governing bodies and promotional matchmaking can contribute to the fragmentation of the sport, although boxing’s unpredictability means supposedly pointless fights do not always turn out that way.
Scandals and PEDs
Scandals haven’t gone away, and Bleacher Report has highlighted that there have been many high-profile controversies involving performance-enhancing drugs and other forms of cheating since the 2000s.
One involved Shane Mosley after his second fight against Oscar De La Hoya. Mosley later acknowledged using banned performance-enhancing substances, including EPO, during the period surrounding the 2003 fight. EPO can increase an athlete’s endurance, making its use particularly serious in a sport where fatigue is such an important factor.
This damaged Mosley’s reputation and cast a shadow over what had been an impressive career (Tate, 2011).
Mosley then found himself on the other side of a major cheating scandal when he faced Antonio Margarito in 2009.
Mosley’s trainer, Naazim Richardson, objected to Margarito’s hand wraps before the fight. Officials discovered hardened pads in Margarito’s wraps. Laboratory testing later found calcium and sulfur, elements associated with plaster of Paris, in material taken from them.
The California State Athletic Commission revoked the licences of Margarito and his trainer Javier Capetillo for one year. Margarito’s other victories subsequently came under greater scrutiny, although it cannot be stated as fact that he had used illegal wraps in previous fights (Tate, 2011).
A more recent scandal involved Conor Benn and two positive tests for clomifene in 2022, which led to the cancellation of his planned fight with longtime family rival Chris Eubank Jr.
Benn consistently denied intentionally using a prohibited substance. In 2024, the National Anti-Doping Panel concluded that it was not comfortably satisfied that UK Anti-Doping had proved Benn committed an anti-doping rule violation. His provisional suspension was lifted and the charge was dismissed.
Therefore, it would be unfair to state that Benn was proven to have deliberately used PEDs. Nevertheless, the controversy caused the original Eubank fight to collapse and kept Benn out of British boxing for a significant period.
Another scandal came when Dillian Whyte returned an adverse analytical finding before his scheduled 2023 rematch with Anthony Joshua. The fight was cancelled just days beforehand and Joshua instead fought Robert Helenius.
However, Whyte was subsequently cleared after an investigation concluded that his result had been caused by a contaminated nutritional supplement and that he had not intentionally ingested the prohibited substance.
It still damaged the event because Joshua was forced to take on late replacement Robert Helenius, who had fought only a week earlier. Although AJ dispatched Helenius in seven rounds, it wasn’t as credible a win as it would’ve been had he done the same to Whyte.
The situation became even more remarkable when Helenius himself returned an adverse finding after the Joshua fight. Helenius was eventually found to have committed anti-doping rule violations after testing positive for clomifene and received a two-year ban.
Former longtime pound-for-pound king Canelo Alvarez also tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol in 2018. His planned rematch with Gennady Golovkin was postponed and Alvarez received a six-month suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Canelo and Golovkin eventually met for the second time later in 2018, with Canelo winning a majority decision. Their first fight in 2017 had ended in a controversial draw, particularly because judge Adalaide Byrd scored it 118-110 for Canelo. Their second meeting was also close and disputed by some observers (Portis et al., 2021).
Scandals about PEDs have definitely hurt the sport because they can ruin potentially great fights and significantly damage the reputation of the fighters involved. At the same time, individual cases need to be treated carefully because an adverse test does not always mean deliberate doping, as the Whyte case demonstrates.
Other Scandalous Figures
Jose and Mauricio Sulaiman
Jose Sulaiman served as president of the WBC for decades before his son Mauricio Sulaiman succeeded him, and controversy has followed the organisation over issues including sanctioning fees, rankings, mandatory challengers and the creation of additional titles.
The wider problem is not limited to the WBC. Boxing’s sanctioning bodies have frequently been criticised for creating multiple versions of titles, which can make it difficult for casual fans to understand who the true champion of a division is (Santoliquito, 2012).
Under Mauricio Sulaiman, the WBC has continued creating special commemorative belts for major events. For Fury’s 2023 fight against Francis Ngannou, for example, the WBC produced a special commemorative belt.
Although these belts can help promote major events, critics argue that continually creating additional belts contributes to the confusion surrounding boxing championships.
Don King
Scandals may as well be the middle name of Don King, as controversy followed him throughout his long career as one of boxing’s most powerful promoters.
King developed close relationships with major sanctioning organisations and promoted many of the world’s leading fighters. In 1978, Leon Spinks was stripped of the WBC heavyweight title after choosing a rematch with Muhammad Ali rather than facing mandatory challenger Ken Norton. Norton was subsequently recognised as WBC champion before losing the title to Larry Holmes (Santoliquito, 2012).
King was also sued by a number of fighters over financial disputes. Terry Norris, for example, sued King alleging that he had been underpaid, with the case eventually ending in a multimillion-dollar settlement.
Mike Tyson also pursued legal action against King after their relationship broke down.
King’s career demonstrates how much influence a single promoter could have over fighters, championships and the business of boxing (Santoliquito, 2012).
Mike Tyson
Kid Dynamite himself hasn’t had a career clean of controversy, especially after his mentor and father figure Cus D’Amato passed away.
Instead of the expectation that Tyson was going to deliver a spectacular early knockout, like what he was known for in his early career, it gradually changed to the view that people were expecting crazy antics from Tyson.
Tyson was convicted of rape in 1992 and served three years in prison before returning to boxing. His behaviour continued to attract controversy after his return, reaching one of its most infamous moments with the Holyfield bite fight in 1997.
Before his 2002 clash with Lennox Lewis, Tyson was also involved in a chaotic press conference and made a series of notorious remarks.
The attention around Tyson increasingly became focused not only on what he could do inside the ring but also on what he might do outside it. This represented a sad decline for one of boxing’s most renowned and exciting fighters (Santoliquito, 2012).
The Final Verdict
So, it’s clear there is plenty of evidence that shows politics in this context has had a huge detrimental impact on the sport of boxing, and not just in today’s crop. It’s also been a problem almost as old as the sport itself, but the modern structure of boxing means these issues remain extremely visible.
Boxing has gone from a sport traditionally associated with the working class and a battle of the best to a sport where huge financial considerations can determine which fights happen and when. The battle has sometimes gone from finding out who is the best of the best and leaving the best legacy to who can earn the most millions while taking the least damage.
The promoters are ultimately running businesses and have financial incentives to protect valuable fighters. The top fighters and promoters can price themselves out of fights that might be particularly dangerous. The governing bodies have their own champions, rankings, mandatory challengers and sanctioning fees, creating conflicts that can prevent boxing from consistently producing one recognised champion in each division.
The evidence does not support the idea that PPV audiences have simply collapsed across the board. Modern boxing has still produced enormous PPV events. The bigger problem is inconsistency and fragmentation: huge fights can attract massive audiences, while many elite fighters remain divided between promoters, broadcasters and sanctioning organisations.
The continued problem of PED controversies hurts the sport further because adverse or positive tests can cause major fights to collapse and throw fighters’ achievements into question. However, cases such as Dillian Whyte’s also show why it is important not to assume that every adverse finding proves intentional cheating.
Politics has therefore played a major role in damaging boxing, but it would be too simple to blame every part of the sport’s decline on politics alone. Changes in broadcasting, competition from other sports and entertainment, fragmented audiences, PPV prices, fighter activity and the changing media landscape also have an influence.
Nevertheless, boxing’s biggest problem remains that it repeatedly makes things unnecessarily difficult for itself. The sport can still produce enormous global events when the best fighters actually meet. The political and financial structure surrounding boxing too often makes those fights harder to create than they should be, and that is one of the strongest arguments that boxing has allowed itself to fall behind other major sports.
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