Home Boxing News Boxcino 2015 Ends An Era In Boxing

Boxcino 2015 Ends An Era In Boxing

The Boxcino Finals on ESPN2’s Friday Night fights produced great action and superior stories. As John “The Apollo Kid” Thompson IV obliterated Boxcino veteran Brandon Adams, one could not help but to fall in love with the storyline.  Thompson, a last minute replacement, and only claim to fame prior to the tournament was getting crushed in the second round against Frank Galarza, took his Wally Pip moment all the way to boxing’s cat bird seat. The sky is the limit for Thompson now, and bigger pay days soon await for this talented pugilist/artist.

The Heavyweight Final for Boxcino produced a solid scrap between Andrey Fedosov and Donovan Dennis. Both boxers had some moments in the early stages, however, Fedosov was the stronger, more accurate, and illusive fighter.  Fedosov’s eighth round KO now opens the doors for him in the heavyweight division.

It was a fitting end to a 17 year run on Friday Night Fights. A program that produced stars both in and out of the ring, yes Mr. Kellerman, I am referring to you.  Friday Night Fights was also a boxing program that showed the blue collar side of boxing. The lunch pail attitude of Pawel Wolak, the various fighters who had to sandwich their road work and gym time in between two, sometimes three, jobs; Friday Night Fights had all walks of life in the boxing world. Now it is all over.

Al Haymon’s PBC take over on ESPN means the end of boxing at its core. The pure honesty of boxing in its rawest form was at a high level during Friday Night Fights’ seventeen year run, even if the fights were not always on the highest level.

Not only did FNF showcase boxers from all walks of life, the program visited every square inch of the Grand Old U.S.A., from New York City, to the strip of Las Vegas, to the blue collar small towns of Pennsylvania and the Midwest, FNF showed that boxing could find a home anywhere.

Now that this gem of a boxing show has run its course, one wonders if we will ever see the likes of it again. One wonders how a Pawel Wolak, a Willie Monroe Jr., and a John Thompson could find their way on television and fight their way to better financial security. What would a gritty warrior like Raymundo Beltran have done without the exposure and success he had on FNF? Are stories like these gone for good?

With PBC and premium cable channels now dominating the exposure for the sweet science it is hard to imagine how a story like The Apollo Kid’s could come to fruition. SHOBOX still gives young fighters a chance to develop on TV, but they concentrate more on the high end prospects than the construction worker looking for a break, and a better way to feed his family; even if it was just for one night.

It saddens me that a lot of the boxing community’s attitude towards the end of FNF is ‘good riddance’, if you really think boxing is going to better without this program, and there was not much more good than bad boxing during this 17 year run; you are either high on the misery scale, or you just do not get the true meaning of this sport.

If anyone thinks we are in better shape now with this PBC takeover, I point to the debut main event of Keith Thurman vs. Luis Collazo to make a counter claim. While I think Thurman is a great talent, and one of the best boxers in the world today; this fight has no merit as a title fight. It certainly is not the once a month fix that is supposed to have us forget about the weekly diet of pugilism we have been getting for the last seventeen years.

We can only take the memories and great underdog stories, the last seventeen years has given us. We may never witness the likes of it again.