Boxing: a peculiar passion around the world
The channel I launched during covid to enable friends to discuss boxing online each week, while stuck in our houses, has moved beyond its third anniversary of streaming shows. Across that span of time, we’ve managed to produce thousands of episodes and reached boxing fans around the world to talk about men and women who enjoy the thrill of a fight.
Talkin’ Fight is streamed and promoted these days on numerous platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, X, Twitch and Rumble, to name a few, as well as heard on many podcasting stations, including Apple, Spotify and Google via Podbean. Our longest running show is called The Friday Night Panel, as it was the first (and only show) we created for fun.
Many other shows have followed since our launch in October 2020, and our various hosts have not only talked about boxers and their fights (and their struggles outside the ring), but also the history of boxing, discussing both the proud and the embarrassing moments that have occurred in the ring, and by the officials and administrators of the sport, over the years.
Boxing has seen its ebbs and flows over the past few decades. The industry in the 80s was eclipsed by the popularity of Vince McMahon’s entertaining WWE, which was then eclipsed by the emergence of the UFC and their brand of extreme violence witnessed in the Octogon. But, it is a circular phenomena, and boxing is beginning to experience a renaissance, as a new generation of boxers appeal to a new generation of fans.
Without digging deep and exploring the intricacies of other boxing offerings — from “influencer” boxing to bareknuckle boxing — fans, who appreciate either a puncher or a brawler, are beginning to emerge in great numbers around the world due to the growth of the Internet and the ability to stream fights each week, whereby fans get to know who the backstory of the fighter, once previsouly the domain of newspaper writers and broadcasters predominantly located in the USA and UK.
Based on the boxers who have been interviewed on Talkin’ Fight, it seems there all share a passion to display their talent and technique. Indeed, to box professionally, and succeed, requires style and tenacity, not to mention a team of trainers and managers, and promoters who rent the halls and arenas and match fighters that will sell tickets.
These days, they each enjoy the thought of huge pay-per-view numbers, based on the popularity of the sport on a global level, but realize it’s not easy to generate an audience online. Booking a venue, finding a sponsor and signing contracts to create a mouthwatering fight, one that will truly get fans to drop a bucket of cash on a streamed fight, is a longshot.
Branding and marketing is where it’s at.
Yes, there are passionate fans who appreciate the tradional rules of the sport, and there are legions of new fans who appreciate the same rules, but might now find more appeal on a nationalistic level for a fighter, given the aforementioned backstories are easy to find through a simple search online, rather than follow a known fighter making the headlines.
This is apparent in the growth of women’s boxing these days. Hopefully, sooner than later, the governing bodies will enable women who box the opportunity to fight 3-minute rounds. Nonetheless, in the meantime, there are a large number of women boxing professionally and among the amateur ranks, seeking fame and fortune, and frankly are getting the attention of boxing fans during the weigh-in prior to a fight.
Lingerie wins every time. Backstories are sought out. These women have followers and their numbers eclipse male boxers who simply don’t know how to exploit social media, excepting perhaps Ryan Garcia, and who rely on the tried and true methods of old-school managers.
In my opinion, based on our thousands of episodes, and given the fighting seen in the ring recently, female boxers are going to bring back the glory of the sport, globally, and online, while the men still continue to argue who is the best among them, taunting a potential opponent, and then outprice themselves out of a decent payday year after year.
Women fight. They train hard and box with passion whenever they are provided the chance to prove themselves in the squared circle, and don’t mind getting hit in the face, which, when it happens and it happens a lot, does not change their plan. Around the world, women fight to win, and they are winning the hearts and minds of boxing fans in the process.