There’s nothing quite like someone forcibly shouting “IT”S NOT BROKEN” to convince you that whatever they’re talking about most certainly is broken.
This is exactly what sprung to my mind when I heard Eddie Hearn stress that boxing is, in his opinion, definitely, absolutely not broken.
Except the problem for Hearn is that boxing really is broken, and has been for quite some time.
And the Englishman, who has long been one of the sport’s most prominent and successful promoters, cannot be oblivious to this.
Hearn’s comments came off the back of the news that UFC president, Dana White, has signed a deal with Saudi Arabian investors to create a new boxing league.
White’s new venture, which was launched earlier this month, is potentially the most innovative development boxing has seen for some time.
As yet, it’s unclear quite how the league will work, or which fighters will actually appear given so many of the top names are currently contracted to promoters like Hearn’s Matchroom, Bob Arum’s Top Rank or Frank Warren’s Queensberry.
So yes, there are obstacles in the way of White’s new venture, but given how the American has transformed UFC into the behemoth we see today, it would be monumentally naive to presume his foray into boxing cannot succeed.
The reason White is even attempting to elbow his way into boxing is clear; it’s a sport that lost its way quite some time ago and seems to be struggling to rediscover the magic that, at one point in history, made it arguably the most compelling sport on the planet.
Whether it’s Floyd Mayweather v Manny Pacquiao, Tyson Fury v Anthony Joshua or any of the other countless fights which have been the most attractive matchups at any particular time, they either don’t happen, as is the case, so far at least, with Fury v Joshua, or they happen years after they should have, with both fighters well past their prime, as happened in the case of Mayweather v Pacquiao.
Somewhere within boxing, it’s been lost that the only thing that really matters is to ensure the best fighters fight each other.
It’s this that ensures that football will never, ever lose its appeal; year in, year out, without fail, the best teams play each other.
In boxing, however, no one can ever claim this to be the case on a consistent basis.
It’s why Hearn’s protestations in response to White’s entry into the sport sound so hollow.
“Boxing is in a great place, it always has been,” said Hearn this week.
“There's always ways we can improve it, but the fact those guys (White and his Saudi partners) want to come into boxing shows where it's at.”
Boxing is an outlier in that it’s long been as much about money as it is about glory.
In this sense, it’s unusual in the sporting world; so often we have heard Roger Federer or Usain Bolt or Sir Chris Hoy or so many of these other sporting greats say they do their sport purely for the love of it and the money is a nice but incidental by-product.
I believe them.
Kids dream of becoming sporting champions far more regularly than they dream of becoming sporting millionaires and while the fortunes they may earn as their success grows is, I’m sure, welcome, I’m convinced it’s the Olympic golds or grand slam titles that bring them far greater satisfaction.
Boxing, however, is the anomaly in the sporting world.
Money is king in boxing, and this relentless pursuit of cash has caused significant, and perhaps irreparable damage to the sport.
It’s exactly why Dana White has taken this opportunity to move in.
He, along with the million of dollars brought to the table by the Saudis with whom he’s partnering, clearly see an opening, and they’re not wrong that boxing is a sport in desperate need of someone taking the wheel and redirecting it onto the path whereby making the best fights is the priority and with which nothing else should interfere.
But a significant issue for boxing is that it’s turned into a sport in which losses, even one single defeat, is seen as not only career-defining, but potentially career-ending.
Boxing has lost sight of the fact that losing is all part of the game - yes it’s undesirable but it’s not nearly as damaging as so many of the world’s top boxers have come to view it.
Boxing has turned into a sport in which it’s now infinitely preferable to avoid another fighter than risk a loss.
How has it come to this point?
Point me to an athlete in any other sport who has never lost? Not a soul. Or even an athlete in any other sport who has considered losing so objectionable that they would prefer to avoid the contest entirely? There’s no one.
Boxing needs to change. Whether it’s Dana White’s new league that kick-starts this change, we’ll have to see.
But White has recognised that boxing is in decline, and he’s not wrong.
