By Niall Doran
This is part three. You can catch part one here and part two here.
AUSTRALIA has also massively contributed to boxing’s position in the pantheon of sports with the quality champions and star power of fighters like George Kambosos, Tim Tszyu, Ebanie Bridges, and Skye Nicolson in recent times.
Fox Sports Australia, to their credit, also have stuck with boxing and done great things for the sport on the continent in recent years.
Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol of Russia have recently battered their way through professional boxing, like Usyk of Ukraine. They are the archetypal road warriors.
If Beterbiev and Bivol fight later this year, it won’t only be a match of two of the current best pound-for-pound boxers of these times and possibly all-time future greats, it will be the biggest all-Russian world championship boxing match ever.
Not only that, it will maybe be the biggest coming together of two of the hardest punchers, other than Gervonta Davis and Deontay Wilder, of these times, in all of boxing, pound for pound. Carnage is guaranteed in the ring.
Terence Crawford’s card in LA on August 3rd rightly gives the man regarded as the pound-for-pound best the big platform he deserves.
The Saudis are bringing talents together with superstar Eminem also performing on the night.
This is boxing done bigger and better than ever. What’s more, this is just the early stages, too, it’s only going to get bigger and bigger in the years ahead.
All driven by great fights between the best fighting the best (mostly). Some still escape fans for now like Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez vs David Benavidez.
Alas, times are changing, and while boxing has always survived, it is doing much more than that now—flourishing and then some.
Hitting and not getting hit. Being exciting while doing it. That’s professional boxing at the highest level.
Then you have the titan of Amazon Prime, headed by Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, streaming boxing in America in 2024. Amazon Prime and Netflix are the two biggest streaming platforms in the world, and both are in professional boxing now. Think about that.
Peacock, which has approximately 34 million subscribers (much bigger than DAZN and ESPN Plus), is showing boxing. NBC, too, is showing the Olympics next week in America for amateur boxing fans—and Olympics fans—keen on seeing fights at the 2024 Paris Games. It’s not a bad comeback for amateur boxing on a huge level, either, given some shoddy games years ago.
Of course, Peacock and NBC Sports are also in professional boxing now, showing fights with Boxxer of the UK, which has many international TV partners and many countries outside of the UK and US (not just English-speaking places).
All in all, in 2024, boxing is bigger than ever.
Changing more than ever too. Overall, these are exciting times for the sport known as the sweet science and noble art.
