If the existing structure of boxing is destroyed and a new one is built, we will not have far to look to find those to blame.

Boxing has been slaloming through red flags for years, not looking after damaged fighters, not taking the use of performance-enhancing drugs seriously, filing horrendous scorecards on loop, working with alleged narco-terrorists, and, of course, the best has all-too sparingly fought the best.

But speaking on the topic of damage to fighters in my book of that title, Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing, I wrote in 2021 that boxing needed to change before someone changed it for us.

The sentiment was this: “We keep saying boxing needs to get its house in order but it remains a dishevelled wreck unfit for purpose, with no logical structure, haphazard governance and the majority choosing to water their own gardens rather than work for the greater good.”

I warned that if boxing doesn’t get in front of its own problems, or at least get out of its own way, something or someone else will. 

For years it was a pipedream that those in positions of power would work together, creating a synergy that strengthened every fibre of the sport, from the grassroots up. The best would fight the best, there’d be comprehensive drugs testing across the board, shared medical data around the world, suspensions, bans and fines respected and upheld universally. 

No, ‘You’re damaged and can’t box in one state, get a license here.’ ‘You’ve been banned for flunking [another] PED test? Get licensed over here.’ ‘That commission has suspended you? We’ll license you?’

Of course, there is no cancel culture in this sport. Do something wrong, and rather than be vilified – or worse in the context of social media today and the desperation to be seen – ignored, you’re invited onto every podcast and YouTube channel and your stock swells. 

In other sports, cyclists and sprinters never shake the tag “disgraced” before their names. In boxing, they’re hardly suspended long enough for such tags to stick.

You can’t help but shake your head.

We’ve all been part of the problem.

Boxing has been marginalized to the point that no major newspapers have specific boxing writers willing to tackle the hardest topics with the same piss and vinegar as they would have 20 years ago.

There are no journalists courageous enough to take on the current growing construct and those who might have done so are either on the payroll or covet a position on the payroll.

Viewing figures are not what they were. The art of boxing is becoming frowned upon with bloodlust now seemingly the order of the day, PBC have not kick-started their operations since moving from Showtime, Top Rank are – for the time being – homeless without ESPN. Sky Sports and Boxxer have parted ways, and Sky’s relationship with Top Rank has ended.

Sure, Boxxer has aligned with the BBC, but much about that deal remains unknown for now.

There are a lot of fighters without a guaranteed home, destination or fight date on both sides of the Atlantic.

And, of course, that’s only part of it; a mere patch on the tapestry.

In recent weeks, the sport has ably demonstrated it is not fit to govern itself.

Look at the Illinois doctor at the Regis Prograis-Jojo Diaz fight who asked Diaz if he would count his fingers to make sure he could continue.

“How many fingers?” asked the doctor, holding up two.

“One,” said Diaz.

Wrong answer. 

Doctor changes and holds up one.

“How many now?” he asks.

“Two.”

Wrong answer. 

The doctor then moves the finger to the other side and now Diaz gets it right – out of the uninjured eye.

So, for good measure, the doctor reverted back to the damaged eye and held one finger up.

“How about now?”

“Two.”

Wrong answer.

Box on.

I mean, what are we doing here?

If that is the best boxing can do, it deserves everything that will come its way.

One insider told me recently that it is the sport’s curse, to live in a negative purgatory, because it is – ultimately – about the fighters inflicting brain damage on one another and this is our punishment for taking pleasure in that. 

I’d never heard it put like that before, nor do I necessarily subscribe to it. But it made me think.

Do we even bother to talk about PEDs anymore? Those who are caught come back in megafights, based on their infamy, red carpets rolled out, career-high paydays waiting.

As trainer Don Charles recently said, they’re like bank robbers. 

Rob the bank, do the time, but keep the money and the rankings, and in many cases the victory.

Look at the recent case of Francisco Rodriguez.

He failed his fight night test having battered Olympic gold medalist Galal Yafai for 12 rounds. 

The WBC, within two weeks, had all-but cleared him and urged Yafai to face him again.

Then it came to light that Rodriguez had actually tested positive in his last fight in Texas, only no one knew why his previous contest had been changed to a no decision. 

We do now, but that the British Boxing Board of Control, Matchroom who promoted, and journalists didn’t get to the bottom of it before represents a failure on all of us. 

Even as Rodriguez meted out his beating, many were shocked by what he appeared capable of against Yafai and it is becoming increasingly difficult to watch the fights with a discerning and optimistic eye.

You can’t help but view elite performances with a degree of cynicism because you know the fighters are not being randomly tested year-round. It’s like an athlete smashing a record, and a baseball player’s stats climbing… You see an outstanding performance and it’s becoming a default mindset: “I bet they’re on gear.”

We did nothing to stop this.

In fact, by allowing fighters to keep victories and by not penalizing them harshly enough (and sometimes not at all), we’ve been complicit. 

Even us, interviewing then, writing about them, humoring them, we’ve failed.

It’s come to something where the biggest fight in boxing is between a fighter who is competing against someone two weights above him, when the better sporting fights could – arguably – be made against other fighters, with Terence Crawford fighting Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Canelo Alvarez fighting David Benavidez.

Forget it. Too logical.

Instead, fighters are hopping weights and we are treated to a bevy of fights before fights. Win this and you get this. Don’t worry, the big one’s next. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum. 

Meanwhile, the guys who earn their stripes, like heavyweight Joseph Parker – who has notched victories over Deontay Wilder, Zhilei Zhang, and Martin Bakole – are left floundering.

And the schedule on both sides of the Atlantic is thin. 

One journalist messaged me a couple of days ago to say: “[The] Sport [is] in a totally unhealthy position at the moment. The state of the schedules coming up in the UK.”

That sentiment was matched by Dan Rafael, who over the weekend wrote on X: “Other than #ItaumaWhyte, #CaneloCrawford, #InoueMJ, #EubankBenn2 & #BenavidezYarde cards & a few smaller fights sprinkled in, like #CrockerDonovan2, the rest of the year looks pretty bleak for #boxing.”

That said, that is six cards. And the November show with Benavidez-Yarde on top is particularly deep and appealing. Queensberry are also noticeably resurgent, with meaningful shows slated in Edinburgh and Manchester.

But is there any sense in being a small- or medium-sized promoter any longer if the end game – the marker for success – is for one of your fighters to appear on a show run by someone else?

There are plenty who agree with Rafael although so few are willing to talk on the record about the state of the sport. They want their piece of the pie until the dying embers of their businesses and careers flicker for the final time. The greater good be damned. 

And for years they’ve had the opportunity, to put negativity to one side and do something truly historic and legitimise this illegitimate sport; one that still has peculiar fantasies about proudly being sport’s ‘red-light district’ and being the ‘wild west of sport.’

It might all change sooner than you think.

If a monopoly is upon us, is that a bad thing? Is that not what we have needed?

Do fighters deserve the top dollar they have been getting for often taking tune ups, not fighting the best, not crossing the street, selecting option D when presented with a list of A-D?

It is hard to see anyone contesting The Ali Revival Act with any force, desire, or ambition other than a handful of administrators and the MMA fighters who wish they had been protected by it.

One former world champion messaged me this weekend about boxing and said: “Everything about it now is fucked.”

And he had been on the wrong end of boxing politics throughout his stellar career.

Another former analyst predicted a mass exodus from the sport.

“You just sense the winds of change,” he said. “Broadcasters, managers, fighters, they’re all feeling as though they want to plan an exit and some of them are already.”

Another added: “Once you have established a monopoly, you don’t have to pay the big bucks anymore.”

The fact that boxing’s construct has been so broken would have turned off so many people because it was going to take too much money to fix. Enter a person/group/state with limitless funds, turning heads with money unlike the sport has ever seen – and that’s saying something – and legs have opened left and right to the point that there are not many vacant lots on the monopoly board to claim and not many who are not on the payroll.

Those who are not, are classed merely as party-poopers and dissidents.

But is this not what has truly been needed?

As the family of fallen 1980s star Donald Curry launch a second Go Fund Me in the space of a few weeks, we are again reminded about our failure to protect those who need help in life after boxing.

There is way more than just Curry, too. That is the tip of an unsavoury iceberg but, no matter, the sport, as is its custom, has a big fight to look forward to.