Boxing Under the Covid New Normal; Best Matches That Need to be Done
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 25 Apr 2020
It is not entirely impossible to still stage boxing inside arenas before a live paying audience even with the restrictions as crowd limitation and physical distancing as would surely be the new normal in the ongoing Wuhan Corona Virus pandemic.
But boxing authorities and stakeholders, primarily sanctioning organizations, promoters and managers, networks and sponsors and the boxers themselves have to unite and agree that this would only be possible if they will serve the best interest of the boxing fans, particularly the paying live spectators in arenas, cable TV and other commercial media platforms.
And that means endeavoring to give the fans the fights that they have been wanting and demanding to see for some time now.
It also means the organizers and most specifically have to moderate their greed so to say as far as profits and fight purses are concerned. And that means reconciling with the fact that for arena boxing fights to be held, it had to be in open air venues before a limited number of live audience deemed as safe level enough by the authorities.
It will inevitably be the new normal in the sport and industry that boxers whatever their status would have to adjust and get used to until the Covid threat is effectively addressed through appropriate scientific and medical breakthroughs and the people get over with its psychological effects.
The US and noted boxing hotbeds as the UK, South Africa, Russia, Germany, Mexico, Japan and China would surely have to make the biggest adjustments and adaptations for boxing to make a revival and continue to thrive in those places.
Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum is among the first major boxing personalities to have recognized these hence he has temporarily put plans regarding some of his prize wards in the backburner while putting his focus on what big fight he can come up for his main ace Terrence Crawford under the current circumstances.
But Arum is not limiting to the US his options in trying to stage a big fight featuring Crawford in his own bid to revive boxing the biggest possible way albeit the ongoing pandemic.
He has therefore reconsidered the possibility of a Crawford bout versus Manny Pacquiao in a welterweight unification which he said would be best held outside of the USA. He is looking at Middle East as suitable site for the fight and for sponsors to help bankroll the bout which would be beamed live to the US and other countries willing to pay for airing rights.
Arum could not have thought of a Crawford-Pacquiao in a more appropriate and opportune time.
Though US fans have been demanding a meeting between Crawford and fellow American world champion Errol Spence, numbers two and five in most the pound for pound lists, a Crawford vs Pacquiao has also been asked for by most fans at large since 2015.
Arum admitted that he himself killed that fight at that time because he would not want Pacquiao hurt and to lose in a potentially embarrassing manner to Crawford. But many fans suspected he just wanted to protect either his then current cash cow (Pacquiao) or his potential future superstar (Crawford).
With the current Covid crisis forcing Arum to make make that fight, the fans would be stoke to see if Arum was right to kill that earlier matchup or if indeed Crawford was not yet ready at that time to face Pacquiao. Many would also be extremely interested to see if Manny could continue with his championship form and run which an unbelieving Paulie Malignaggi termed as almost fairy tale-ish.
Let us hope Arum succeed in organizing the Pacquiao-Crawford blockbuster bout in the Middle East as apart from its potentials in help revive boxing in a major way under the new normal, it will also give the fans one of the biggest fights they have been clamoring for since years ago.
If Arum could pull it off, it will provide the template for the staging of the other big live arena fights that fans have been asking for in the other divisions, as Fury/Wilder vs Joshua; Canelo vs Golovkin 3; Canelo vs Beterbiev/Smith/Saunder; Spence vs Pacquiao/Crawford; Taylor vs Ramirez; Lomachenko vs Lopez/Haney; Santacruz vs. Berchelt/Russell; Vargas vs Navarette vs Inoue; Estrada vs Gonzales, Tanaka vs Kenshiro and Menayothin vs KO Cp Freshmart.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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