Being a boxing fan, it can sometimes be hard to get your fill. We are often left disappointed, because boxing fails to deliver on so many occasions. It seems that we boxing fans merely hold out for the handful of credible matches that happen each year… and sigh at the ones we miss.
Sergio Martinez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather are two of the potential big matches that we’re missing out on right now, but what about historical boxing fantasy fights like Vitali Klitschko vs. George Foreman or Muhammad Ali vs. Rocky Maricano?
Well it will only be fans of EA Sports’ Knockout Kings / Fight Night boxing video games that would have experienced entertaining match-ups like these. Now all you older fans, before you decide you don’t want to read on because I’m talking “video games”, remember that boxing needs all the following it can get, and these games have been very successful.
They have made 9 in total, with the latest being ‘Fight Night-Champion’. Although there are adults out there like myself (I’m 42) who play or have played this series, the game has been most popular with the younger generation… perhaps our next generation of boxing fans? I bloody well hope so!
What a mainstream video game series like this says is that boxing is alive and well. A video game offers the best and most entertaining aspects of boxing, which ‘real’ boxing, as I said, often fails to deliver.
Fans should expect to see quality matches regularly! Yet, instead, what we get too regularly is trash like Vitali Klitschko vs. Albert Sosnowski, Amir Khan vs. Paul McCloskey, and Saul Alvarez vs. Matthew Hatton and Alfonso Gomez! Yet in “Fight Night” you could take on Manny Pacquiao, Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Floyd Mayweather consecutively, with no problems.
You can say that I’m taking the video game thing too far, but I can sincerely say that ‘Fight Night’ can often entertain me more than the real thing can. In addition, these games also provide an interesting basis on which to take a different perspective on the problems in the sport.
Consider that EA Sports has never included any sanctioning body world titles in the series, though they do in all their other sporting games, and I’m sure it probably has an integral part of the marketing of those games as well. Most of the titles of their games include the governing body, such as FIFA Soccer, NFL Football and so forth, but not with ‘Fight Night’.
Surely this is because fans, and especially casual fans, understand the concept of “World Champion”, but don’t understand or don’t care about the WBC, WBA or WBO. Therefore, EA Sports has never had to bother with this otherwise necessary component of all their other sports games. I guess their market researchers came to the conclusion that having these title belts was meaningless, not to mention they’d save a lot of coin by not having to pay for those rights.
Perhaps I’m stating obvious problems in boxing, that there are too many ‘world champions’, and no structure. How can we fans support them when there is no true coordination of the sport? I’m talking about the coordination that comes with structure and continuity that all other sports offer. So after a fight card, who will the winners fight next? Where will that win take them? When will the best competitors meet for a championship? Sport fans (not boxing fans) have come to expect structure and continuity from sports.
But there is an underlying message I do want you, the fan, to see. The basic concepts of boxing are not lost to the general public, in fact, evidence says that they are embraced. Consider the massive slew of boxing movies like The Fighter, Cinderella Man, Million Dollar Baby and the Rocky franchise. Even the simple fact that boxing terminology and imagery can be seen in everyday media.
People seem to be entertained in a variety of ways by boxing, but not by the actual sport. This poses a very good question, why can’t boxing ‘as a sport’ generate as much interest as it seems to be generating everywhere else?
Knocking Out Holyfiled
Back to video games, in January 2006 I was at the WBC Night of Champions in Cancun, Mexico, and shared the elevator with Evander Holyfield, and had to ask, “I wouldn’t be the only one to tell you that I’ve knocked you out before?”
With a resigning smile he replied, “No, I’ve been told that a few times.”
“Fight Night right?” I asked.
“Yeah, I wish they hadn’t made me so easy,” he sighed.
So when you’re not getting that full boxing fix, like we boxing junkies need, I fully recommend trying any of the ‘Fight Night’ games.
And if you’ve knocked out Evander Holyfield too, I’m open to the challenge. My name’s at the top of the page.
