Backed against a cage, boxing wakes up

The conversation about boxing when the year began centered mostly on the sport’s demise.

Mixed martial arts was stealing young fight fans by the thousands, major promoters weren’t negotiating with each other, big-time bouts were too few and far between, and rising stars were obscured on undercards.

Now, as the boxing year nears its close with a Dec. 8 Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Ricky Hatton welterweight title fight in Las Vegas that sold out in 30 minutes, the sport has been reinvigorated by a barrage of major events, unique promotions and dramatic action.

“As they’ve said about Broadway for many years: It’s a marvelous invalid,” veteran HBO Sports boxing commentator Larry Merchant said.

Southland boxing promoter Dan Goossen said the year’s success resulted from a significant change in thinking among promoters, who too often had cautiously attempted to protect their high-profile fighters from losses.

“We got very comfortable in maximizing profits with the least amount of risk,” Goossen said. “Those days are gone.

“I don’t know if it was all about the pressure we were under from mixed martial arts for the consumers’ dollars, but we realized from MMA that the fans are there for you if you give them the fights they want to see; if you give them their money’s worth.”

No fight underscored that point more than the May 5 welterweight title fight between Oscar De La Hoya, the sport’s most powerful pay-per-view draw, and unbeaten Mayweather, the man considered by most as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions brought back the concept of a national barnstorming publicity tour, visiting 13 U.S. cities, and HBO jumped on the popularity of reality television by introducing a four-part reality series hyping the fight called “24/7.” The series followed the final-season episodes of “The Sopranos” and became a ratings hit.

The show “lit a fuse, it scooped up average sports fans that had wandered from boxing and lured them back in,” HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg said. “A lot of women and young people wanted to see De La Hoya-Mayweather after we gave them a reason to come back to the sport. That series accomplished much more than ratings, and as it proved the lives of boxers preparing for a big fight is entertaining TV, it gave people a reason to get involved.”

When HBO released its final pay-per-view numbers last month, De La Hoya-Mayweather had produced a boxing record 2.4 million buys, generating more than $134 million from living-room fans and $165 million including the live-gate numbers.

As often happens, the frenzied hype exceeded the fight’s subdued reality, a split-decision win by Mayweather. De La Hoya himself has criticized the lack of action in the bout.

“But my fight did save boxing,” De La Hoya said. “The sport was in the doldrums. Now, every fighter and promoter want to save boxing and be involved in the biggest events.”

HBO pay-per-view President Mark Taffet and Merchant said that the “super Hollywood blockbuster” performance of that bout has driven promoters, programmers, pay-per-view executives, managers, trainers and boxers to focus on, “How can we get close to that again?”

As an executive in the boxing reality television series “The Contender,” boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard is among those aspiring to play a role in future super fights with his stable of “Contender” stars.

“It’s all about matchmaking . . . of making an event that people can’t afford to miss,” Leonard said.

One such fight this year was Kelly Pavlik’s victory over defending middleweight champion Jermain Taylor on Sept. 29.

That bout, in which Pavlik came back from a first-round knockdown to win by knockout in the seventh, marked part of a new philosophy in boxing’s backroom negotiations, Greenburg said.

“In many cases, we expressed disinterest in fights that would not have an impact on the industry,” Greenburg said. “Instead of having Jermain Taylor taking an easy touch, it was time for Kelly Pavlik.

“Instead of sitting on the sidelines watching the demise of boxing, it’s better to make huge fights where the risk of losing is not considered as strongly as the potential catapult to stardom that winning can have.”

Greenburg denied that minimizing losses was a lesson learned after watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s mixed martial arts fighters maintain popularity after defeats. One of UFC’s major fights is next month’s Chuck Liddell-Wanderlei Silva battle, and both fighters have lost their last two fights.

“Contender” executive Jeff Wald said UFC “is a fad; I’d see that [type of fighting] in my neighborhood in the Bronx. . . . They have no one on the level of Oscar or Ray.”

HBO’s Taffet said the sports have different, not competitive, audiences. He said an HBO survey of national cable companies found that only 3% to 5% of boxing’s pay-per-view customers had also purchased a pay-per-view UFC fight.

Yet, veteran promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank said: “One problem with the long-term contracts HBO signed with [boxers] is that they’ve never wanted to fight anybody, because a loss ended their contract. The result was crummy fights, and a general loss of interest. With the UFC on, the networks were aware boxing would erode.”

Roy Jones Jr. said his career was criticized for a dearth of quality opponents because “the problem was the networks’ contracts, and the fact they didn’t build you up, like they do now, or in MMA.

“If your contract ends if you lose, why go and take a chance?” Jones said. “It’d be dumb to do that. I gambled, I never ducked and dodged mega-fights. But I knew if I did lose, it’d be like, ‘Only one loss? Bye!’ ”

HBO has now abandoned the long-term deals in favor of “the big play, short term with maximum revenue,” Greenburg said. “Fighters can lose, and still remain charismatic, important parts of the game. The public likes guys who come back from adversity.”

UFC President Dana White said boxing’s revival was “great news.”

“I’m not out to kick boxing. I love the sport,” he said. “Somebody in that business needs to step up to the plate and try to help secure the future of the sport.”

After Top Rank’s Pavlik remained unbeaten with his victory, he landed a rematch with Taylor in February.

“The emergence of new stars [like Pavlik and lightweight Juan Diaz] has been key to boxing this year, and Kelly Pavlik, being a puncher with the appeal of a home run hitter, is one of the brightest,” boxing publicist Bill Caplan of Top Rank said. “No one’s seen him in a bad fight. He goes after guys, and has proven he can come from behind.”

Boxing, like soccer, also plays well globally, and proof was seen last month when more than 50,000 fans in Wales attended Joe Calzaghe’s super-middleweight title unification victory over Denmark’s Mikkel Kessler.

Top Rank also stimulated the sport by ending its feud with De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, a cold war that heightened when De La Hoya tried to lure talented super-featherweight Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines by offering the boxer a suitcase full of signing-bonus cash. The promoters sued each other this year and failed to allow their fighters to be matched against the other’s, but then a settlement allowing Pacquiao to remain with Top Rank was reached.

The reunion resulted in an entertaining Nov. 10 welterweight title fight between Top Rank’s unbeaten champion, Miguel Cotto, and Golden Boy’s former three-division champion, Shane Mosley. Cotto won by unanimous decision, setting up a possible battle against Mayweather or De La Hoya in 2008.

The welterweight division of Mayweather, Cotto, De La Hoya, Mosley, Hatton, Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams is clearly the sport’s best, but boxing still feels the void of a popular heavyweight champion.

“It’d be nice for someone to emerge from a seed bag in Iowa,” Greenburg joked.

One of the best hopes is Riverside’s Chris Arreola, the unbeaten, No. 7 heavyweight according to the World Boxing Council, who is attempting to become the first Mexican American heavyweight champion and will make his debut on HBO in February.

There are also lingering concerns that no promoter beyond Arum is properly developing young fighters.

Still, with the first half of 2008 set to feature a veteran fight of Jones versus Felix Trinidad, a Pavlik-Taylor rematch, Pacquiao in a likely rematch against champion Juan Manuel Marquez, De La Hoya and Mayweather in separate fights and Calzaghe contemplating a date with Bernard Hopkins, the sport finds itself healthier than a year ago.

“Boxing is strong again, but you can’t rest on your laurels,” Arum said. “We have to keep making good, competitive fights.”

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lance.pugmire@latimes.com