Without wishing to be a killjoy, it could be argued that more damage is done in the name of fun than anything else. Even if the intentions are good, and often they are, think about all the misadventures: deaths by drunk driving, tragic climbing expeditions, asphyxiation due to bedroom shenanigans going awry. It may have seemed a nice idea at the time, but fun can sometimes be dangerous. Deadly, even.
In boxing, most of the fun is had outside the ring rather than inside it. Inside it, there is perhaps too much danger for fun to ever really become a factor. However, outside the ring, whether at ringside or in the cheap seats, there is plenty of fun to be had watching other human beings hit each other in the head. If, for instance, you happen to hear the phrase “fun fight”, you can be sure it has been said by someone about to watch a fight rather than from one of the two people about to participate in one. There might be fun to be had, at least for the victor, but the fight itself is rarely described that way by those involved.
That said, there are some fights, especially of late, that have come with a fun-for-all guarantee. Fun for the fans, fun for the financiers, and fun for the two individuals meeting in the ring. These fights, usually found on Netflix, the home of fun, pit famous name against famous name and care little for the merit or safety of the matchmaking. All they are interested in is whether it is fun or not. If it is, chances are it makes money. Job done.
Along similar lines, ever notice how the word “fun” is now used in boxing the way “convenient” was used to usher in the dawn of online shopping and “content” was used to usher in the new age of reporting? “Fun” also serves the same purpose as the word “speed” when we discuss Artificial Intelligence murdering creativity and making a dumb population even dumber by appealing to its worst impulses.
“Fun”, in boxing, has the same effect. It is a safe word; a word to hide behind. Call a fight “fun” and you can pretty much get away with it, particularly now that we have a designated space/channel for fun fights, plus an annual expectation of them. The May 23 fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Rico Verhoeven, for example, has been greeted rather differently in the year 2026 than it would have been in 2016. In fact, Usyk vs. Verhoeven, for the WBC heavyweight title, would have been viewed through different eyes had it had happened only five years ago, let alone 10. That, unfortunately, is just a reflection of how quickly things have changed in the sport of boxing. That is how quickly an ideology can become warped and how a word like “fun” can be both repurposed and weaponised.
In the case of Usyk vs. Verhoeven, one need only look at its defenders to see how important the word “fun” has now become in boxing. You have Mike Coppinger, working for Turki Alalshikh’s Ring magazine, reaching desperately for that word in order to please his boss: “Usyk has fought practically everyone at heavyweight, from four fights total with Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury to another two with Daniel Dubois, Derek Chisora, etc,” wrote Coppinger on X/Twitter last month. “Yes, Wardley and Kabayel are deserving. But if Usyk wants to have some fun with a big spectacle, so be it.”
Yet, to Coppinger’s horror, no sooner had he bravely jumped to defend the fight than his boss, Alalshikh, jumped on Coppinger for his irresponsible use of the word “fun”. “It is not fun,” he reminded Coppinger publicly, having presumably first done so privately. “It is a dangerous fight.”
The peculiar thing is, in a sport like boxing both can be true. A fight can be fun and it can also be dangerous. That’s just the nature of the game. In fact, when all is said and done, it’s the marriage of the two – the fun and the danger – that makes it such an alluring spectacle for so many. It is for that reason we ultimately decide to watch – yes, even those fights we claim are beneath us.
With Usyk and Verhoeven, the fun is in the imagining, nothing else. It is fun, for some, to imagine a great boxer like Usyk, 24-0 (15 KOs), sharing a ring with a great kickboxer like Verhoeven, 1-0 (1 KO) as a boxer, and trying to predict what will unfold when the first bell rings. It is fun, too, for Usyk, as Coppinger was at pains to stress in his post. It is fun for Usyk because most fights, for him, tend to be serious fights against heavyweight boxers who are often taller than him and heavier than him. This, in contrast to those, is a nice fight; a fun fight. It is a fight in which Usyk will not only feel comfortable physically but will know that his experience in the boxing ring is likely to mean everything. (Bring that, plus a degree of fitness, and Usyk should have no difficulty dealing with Verhoeven on May 23, regardless of the 6'5" Dutchman’s prowess in a different combat sport.) It is also, bizarrely, a fight some will say Usyk has “earned” or “deserves”. If anyone is to have a gimme, or a bit of fun in the ring, it is Oleksandr Usyk, they will say. Look at his career to date. Look how many tough fights he has had as both a cruiserweight and heavyweight. Look at how he has approached these challenges and how he has never ducked anybody.
That may all be true, but still we should try to remember that there are degrees of so-called “fun fights” and that fun doesn’t have to lean too far to the right to suddenly become absurd. It could even be argued that Usyk’s rematch with Daniel Dubois in July was a bit of fun for the Ukrainian. It was certainly a step down from some of his previous fights, in terms of competition, and was a fight in which Usyk would have felt at ease on account of having already stopped Dubois in 2023. That doesn’t mean the fight was without danger, of course. It just means that in old money a rematch with Daniel Dubois when you are the best heavyweight on the planet must be considered one of the softer touches you can hope to get. It is, to put it simply, the kind of fight you usually see sandwiched between two big, defining ones.
As it happens, Usyk, 39, now intends to follow that Dubois win with a fight against a kickboxer; a kickboxer whose only previous dalliance with boxing occurred in 2014. Worst of all, nobody is even that surprised. This fight, lest we forget, comes hot on the heels of other “fun fights” like Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou, Anthony Joshus vs. Francis Ngannou, and Anthony Joshua vs. Jake Paul. It is, in many ways, a continuation of a new tradition; one more reminder that the sport is now a lawless land governed by greed, not principles.
“Ah-ha, but what about Ali-Inoki?” you then see some 21-year-old geek post on social media. To which you might reply: “The difference is, 21-year-old geek, Muhammad Ali’s bout with the wrestler Antonio Inoki in 1976 was not a sanctioned WBC heavyweight title fight, was it? Usyk vs. Verhoeven, on the other hand, will be.”
And why not? Even if we wanted to get serious again, it is now too late, the horse has bolted. We know that if human beings, boxers or otherwise, are given free rein in anything, they will take advantage, seek the path of least resistance, and opt for whatever is convenient or fun. That’s why, in daily life, all of us need rules, parameters, a basic sense of what is right and wrong. In some instances, we need gatekeepers, disciplinarians, people to remind us the difference between right and wrong.
Without such parameters, and people, it’s every man for himself. Suddenly any old shit is deemed permissible if it makes money and there is a precedent for it. This is true of fights, just as it is true of how fights are these days covered and reported. With no standards, or gatekeepers, anybody can – and will – do it. Do it long and badly enough and they soon have not only the ego for it but the platform and tools to spread the disease.
A tool like AI, for example, won’t necessarily replace writers due to the writing being better or more interesting. It will end up doing the work of a writer because the standards of the reader will have plummeted so dramatically they will not know, or even care, about the difference between what is real and what is not. Of this you see evidence all the time. You see it in the way news is reported, fights are covered, and chaos is encouraged. Scarier still, you start to see human beings become so fixated on speed, clicks and money that they adapt their approach to suit the demands of a brave new world rather than rally against it. It is easier that way. Easier to fit in, get noticed, be understood. Never, in fact, has there been a greater concentration of stupid people with a greater assortment of ways to transmit their stupidity to other stupid people than there is today. If you can’t beat them, join them, I suppose.
That’s all Oleksandr Usyk has done in the end. He has seen an opportunity, exploited it, and justified his actions with the knowledge that (a) he is making lots of money, and (b) he isn’t the first heavyweight to undermine the idea of competitive sport. Indeed, perhaps the only surprise with Usyk vs. Verhoeven is that Usyk didn’t aim for something a bit dumber. Because he could have, quite easily. By the standards of today they didn’t even go full stupid with this one: Verhoeven isn’t a big enough celebrity or big enough patsy to occupy that role. For total fun, they would have been better off sticking Usyk in with Jake Paul, Mike Tyson, John Fury, or Andrew Tate. Those kinds of opponents would surely draw more eyeballs to Usyk’s fun day out than someone like Verhoeven, a man only familiar to hardcore combat sports fans.
Then again, fun is and will always be a subjective term. Some experience it when half-cut at the wheel, some when scaling mountains, and some when tied up in the bedroom deciding on a safe word. Relative to all those, watching Usyk box a kickboxer on Netflix in a couple of months might be advisable. Some might even enjoy it.
