WHILE boxing is, at its core, one of the most captivating and truly magical sports on the planet, there are undoubtedly several aspects that demand improvement in 2025.
Last year treated fans to an array of awe-inspiring spectacles, with undisputed showdowns involving Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol reminding us of why we fell in love with the sweet science.
But still, while the matchups we have long been clamouring for are now finally materialising, it is important to remove our rose-tinted glasses, just for one moment, with a view to consider how much better the sport could be.
Heading into a new year with even an ounce of optimism is often foolish, though, as while it is easy to envision a utopia, forging the building blocks for it to take shape is a vastly more impossible task.
That said, the boxing fraternity has nonetheless come forward with a plethora of suggestions, offering the powers that be a banquet of food for thought in the comments section of Boxing News’ recent social media post.
Former world cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew, in fact, was quick to voice his opinion on the subject of improving boxing.
On X, the Liverpudlian wrote: “Every organisation and governing body fights under [one] set of rules! So everyone gets the same treatment all around the world!”
This is particularly relevant to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, where a fighter who tests positive for a banned substance could be turned away by one commission, or governing body, before plying their trade elsewhere.
But even away from doping, boxing would certainly benefit from everyone singing off the same hymn sheet, bringing about more clarity and consistency in a deeply complex sport.
On the same post, one fan added: “Start the main-events earlier.”
Now this, crucially, cannot be overlooked in 2025.
Towards the end of last year, Eddie Hearn expressed an interest in introducing 9pm ring walks for main-event fights.
Not only would this save fans a few extra hours of sleep, but it would also remove any anxiety when it comes to catching the last train home.
Promoters, of course, may lose out on a small percentage of revenue at the bar, but surely there is no reasonable justification for extending any show past midnight.
Another fan said: “Judges [should attend] post-fight press conferences.”
Again, this would certainly be an interesting development, putting judges under an immense amount of media scrutiny.
Whenever they are responsible for producing a, well, let’s just say questionable scorecard, a judge, for the most part, will be forced to endure the full wrath of fans on social media.
This, however, does not help to solve the problem of incompetent scoring, nor does it present officials with a fair and appropriate right of reply.
And so, if judges were to appear in front of media members at a post-fight press conference, then at least that would give them the opportunity to defend whatever abomination of a scorecard they have been guilty of submitting.
