By Norm Frauenheim-
Boxing loves comebacks and it looks as if a business always reported to be dying might be poised to make another one.
The perennial patient still has a pulse, thanks this time to Vasiliy Lomachenko-Guillermo Rigondeaux Saturday in a year-ender that follows some promising television numbers.
Last Saturday, Miguel Cotto said goodbye after getting upset by Sadam Ali in a so-called retirement fight. Retirement fights are a bad idea. Terrible advertising, too. But people watched anyway with a HBO audience that peaked at 1,012, 000, according to ratings released this week.
That is boxing’s second-highest rating for premium cable in 2017. It came a week after a peak audience of 900,000 watched the HBO telecast of Sergey Kovalev’s comeback from successive losses to Andre Ward with a stoppage of Vyacheslav Shabranskyy.
Both fights were thoroughly forgettable. But the solid numbers are significant for what they suggest. To wit: Maybe, there’s still a potential audience out there, perhaps re-energized by a move away from pay-per-view and maybe intrigued by a new generation of fighters.
A better look at whether the sport is poised to make another resurrection will play out Saturday in Lomachenko-Rigondeaux on ESPN (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT). The 130-pound bout in The Theater at Madison Square Garden sold out two months ago.
It’s been generating talk for weeks, although it’s been hard to know just who and how many are doing all the talking. The bout, the first ever between a couple of two-time Olympic gold medalists, looks as if it could be a gem. At least, it does for the sport’s usual crowd, said by some to be a shrinking demographic.
When the intriguing fight was announced, there was skepticism about whether a Ukrainian-versus-a-Cuban could ever be much of an attraction for an American audience.
Tactically, Lomachenko-Rigondeaux is loaded with all the elements of a potential classic. It’s old-school Sweet Science, imminent art on canvas. But lots of fans like their fights in a cage these days. Within those old ropes? Still, hard to say.
Lomachenko’s innovative approach to an old and scarred craft against a seemingly ageless Cuban schooled in fundamentals is a clash between new and old. It’s timeless. It also sets the stage for a New Year, meaning new names and fresh faces instead of just more retirement fights.
From this corner, it’s interesting, even fascinating on many levels. But the real question rests in how many are interested. How many are fascinated? How many boxing fans are there? The last couple of weeks add up to reasons to guess there might be more than believed.
The guess here is that the bigger and younger Lomachenko wins a unanimous decision over the 37-year-old Rigondeaux, who is jumping up two weight classes, from 122 to 130.
But the bigger decision will rest in ratings for a fight that will say a lot about the state of the game.
