When Anthony Joshua said “If I can kill him, I’ll kill him” about his upcoming opponent, the former YouTuber turned pro-boxer Jake Paul, a lot of people took umbrage, including the permanently online and constantly “Retired From Boxing” Tyson Fury. But this weekend, when I and many other boxing fans press the big Netflix button on our remote controls (that all seem to have a big Netflix button on them for some reason), isn’t that what we’re hoping to see? Not kill exactly, but at least a knockout? We’re not watching it for the sweet science, or for its competitive nature, or for the skill and athleticism. We just want to see an annoying influencer get flattened by a big name “proper boxer”.
Similarly, like nearly all British boxing fans, I tuned in to Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn 2. I felt bad for Conor’s dad Nigel – literally and figuratively the only reason Conor was there – having to awkwardly dance on stage during his son’s extremely prolonged entrance. Although I did welp in disbelief at Eubank Jr managing to secure 50 Cent for his respective five minute journey to the ring. Conor Benn cruised to a points victory over an absolutely knackered looking Eubank Jr, with more right crosses to the body than the ending of Spartacus.
The realisation was that despite the bright lights, the flashy entrances, the raspy excitement of the pundits and ultimately “The Narrative”, there wasn’t much to be happy with in the state of modern British boxing. In a lot of ways it mirrors what modern Britain is offering itself. A sense of history, sure, but rapidly declining in terms of future prospects and what it has to offer the world except a nostalgia that is beginning to diminish. That feeling congealed when AJ vs Paul was announced. Yes, Joshua, a two-time unified world heavyweight champion and, if not the best, then certainly the most bankable draw British boxing has had for the last 15 years, had signed up to fight Paul, whose past opponents include fellow YouTubers Deji and AnEsonGib… and a basketball player.
In one sense, who cares? It’s just harmless boxing slop, recognisable faces and names doing silly things for extortionate amounts of Saudi or American money. Jake Paul is an absolute master of marketing, and his PR know-how, combined with the infinite financial reserves and sportswashing thirst of the Saudi state, have completely transformed boxing globally. Future hall-of-famers fight future-hall-of-famers. Current and ex-YouTubers headline sell out shows. Elite MMA fighters seem desperate to get in on this easy and outrageous cash flow.
Yet there is a darker side to this story, that once again the UK is dancing to the tune of American money. From the Palantir deal with the NHS, which could portent greater access to British health data for Silicon Valley, to the recent pharmaceutical deal with the US that increased the amount our health service pays for American drugs, the UK has a long history of selling itself to the States for very little in return bar a “special relationship”.
The sad thing is AJ and Eddie Hearn (the latter of whom, for all his faults, is one of the best boxing promoters of all time) have basically carried British boxing for over a decade between them, selling out Wembley, Cardiff, and the new Spurs stadium. As AJ’s star wanes, and other than the potential of Moses Itauma and Adam Azim there is no one with any real star power in British boxing to fill the sizable gap he will leave.
Yet the simple fact is, in 2016 the UK had 14 world champions, a booming small hall scene, and a metronomic amateur boxing production line. Now we have just three world champions and only two bronze medallists at last year’s Paris Olympics, while UK boxing shows have been absolutely gutted. Every middling to big domestic fight is now little more than a footnote to the Saudis’ mega-ventures in the Middle-East.
It’s impossible to not look at the explosion in popularity of other combat sports like jujitsu, Muay Thai and MMA too. UFC London shows sell out in minutes, and more regional MMA promotions like Cage Warriors regularly hold amateur and pro events that only 25 years ago just didn’t exist. The amount of great British fighting talent coming through the ranks at Cage Warriors and into the UFC, like Tom Aspinall, Paddy Pimblett, Luke Riley and Michael Bisping: all might have been boxers if MMA didn’t exist.
The purse for Eubank vs Benn 2 was £18m, shared between them. That’s on top of roughly 600k PPV buys (at least £15m) and a packed Tottenham stadium (roughly £4.8m, according to how much Spurs make per matchday). So great money for a fight that without the family names and history would be European level.
AJ versus Paul, for all of the ridicule and condemnation it’s getting from the boxing community, is reportedly the British boxer’s biggest purse, with £70m each rumoured to be on the table for the two fighters, and sponsorships only adding to that figure. The reality is that it’s a simply eye-watering number even by the standards of modern boxing, even if it’s a complete lose-lose situation for AJ, as anything other than a brutal knock out within half a minute would make him a laughing stock.
You could argue it’s hard to turn down, and £70m to (hopefully) knockout a YouTuber is “easy money” as they say. And more money certainly for Netflix, who have exclusive access to the fight. The same Netflix that is doing a merger to take over Warner Brothers and effectively own one quarter of all entertainment studios in the US, and by extension, the Western world. Will that kind of multibillion dollar trade ever filter down into the grassroots of British boxing? It’s highly doubtful.
Yet as a boxing fan it’s hard to resist the lure of these cards. They’re packed with exciting match ups and big names, and often produce great fights. Turki Al-Sheikh has completely eradicated fighters “ducking” each other almost overnight. But the long-term concentration of money and talent into the handful of a few promoters ultimately means the gyms, promoters and fight-going fans that are needed to keep the domestic ecosystem thriving are suffering. Sure the big shows are better than ever, but what about the wider communities needed to feed the top?
It’s not too far an analogy for the UK in general either, where the immediate short-term benefit of private foreign money taking over our public services seems hard to resist for successive governments, but in the long term amounts to a huge degradation in quality, investment and healthy local competition. We’ve seen a marked decline in housing, healthcare, transport, energy and water since they’ve been sold to foreign investors for the quickest quid. And as we all complain about taxes rising and public services declining, we are now desperate for foreigners to take the blame – just not the right ones unfortunately.
Despite the current political ideology centring on how much we can make our country unattractive to people wanting to come here, Britain is still one of the most attractive propositions in the world. We have untold wealth, great culture, and the people here are by and large decent. Similarly British boxing has great foundations, a lot of talent and a rich history of punching above its weight. But when we sell ourselves out for easy money, and trade off past glories without investing in the future, we’re fighting a losing battle, both within and without the ring.
[Further reading: The glory and grime of boxing]
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