Asian Boxing- Thank You Scott

[WSMFC64]

In his own words

Created back on July 14th 2013 (well technically a few days earlier but that's when the domain was registered so I'm going with that date!), AsianBoxing.info has been a massive part of my life for close to a decade, and has, for the most part, been an absolute joy. Sadly though as many will have noticed the content has slipped a lot this past 18 months or so. That's been due to a mix of issues.
 
Firstly and (probably) most obviously to everyone who has followed the site, my own motivation to continue the site in the way it was has vanished. It's been on the slide since the middle of 2021. I originally assumed it was just burn out, but after around 18 months on the desire hasn't returned. I'm going with it now not being burn out, but just a fire that no longer burns. I've tried to battle through the year, but as we've come into the Autumn months I've pretty much given up the struggle. Even the huge cards in November and December haven't done much to excite me in the way a Japanese title fight or a big name prospect turning professional did just a year or two earlier.
 
My motivation hasn't been helped by other things. Notably the down turn in the money we've made from Adsense, lets be honest it was never a lot but with it turning even lower it's not got to the point where I'm barely making a few quid a month. Meaning it feels even less worth doing.
 
Also the move to more and more paid services needed to follow the sport. What was once a sport where most Japanese fights were on one or two services and Thai fights were available for free, has become a case of needing to subscribe to a variety of services, or fights have been completely hidden away behind geo-locking. When we started Fuji TV, TBS, TV Tokyo and NTV all aired free boxing in Japan. Sky A+ and NTV G+ were the only paid cards. Now it appears Fuji have essentially left the live side of the sport, along with NTV and Tokyo TV have completely left the sport. It's become a case of now spending more money to watch less whilst making less.
 
We've also never really felt comfortable with sharing fight videos since TBS took down a huge number of our YouTube channels, costing us a huge collection of fights, many of which weren't (and still aren't) widely available - if available at all. This has been a massive loss, and with Abema threatening legal action for sharing content it simply feels like the sport has decided to tell the fan base that it doesn't need us, and that it doesn't want a wider, more vibrant, caring and interesting fan base.
 
On the basis of "legal" problems, a lot of Japanese news sites are now awkward to get on to, including anything that uses Yahoo.jp, one of the most amazing resources out there for Japanese news coverage, due to the GDPR rules that affect the EEA and the UK. With that resource being unavailable (or awkward to access should I say), it's made even reporting news an annoying battle that's simply too time consuming with life being the way it is now. GDPR wasn't supposed to be enacted to lock people out of news, but to protect their date from being miss used, and seeing more and more websites (specifically news sites) locking out Europeans and hiding behind GDPR is simply ridiculous.
 
I want to get back to my views as a fan shortly, but before then I do also want to complain about something else. Boxrec. For years Boxrec was the most incredible and amazing tool. I think sometimes we, as fans, took it for granted. Sadly however their latest changes have made the site nearly unusable, and the site has gone from being a site I visit daily to barely looking at now. What once saved me hours every week, it now wasting my time needing to visit more pages for the info that used to be kept on one screen, such as the records of all the fighters on a single card.
 
So as a fan 2022 has been my least favourite year as a boxing fan. It's been a year where my faith in the sport, those related to it and those involved in it has completely gone. Things like DAZN's whole marketing approach of "PPV is Dead" changing to "We're going to have YouTubers on PPV, and domestic clashes, and any of our big names" left a bad taste, and I was one of those that walked away from being a paying a customer when the news broke of them moving in that direction. We've also seen Showtime put non-PPV quality bouts on PPV as well and PPV has creeped more and more into Japanese boxing.
 
We've also seen the recent issue with Conor Benn, and the reports that 30% of Eddie Hearns cards have featured at least one fighter who has at some point tested positive for a banned substance. The Benn situation has left me wondering just how many of these types of incidents have been swept under the carpet, like they clearly tried with the Benn situation. As a fan of fairness I tend to hope fighters are both on a level playing field, but I can no longer even try to pretend that's the case. As someone who likes a flutter, I also wonder how many bets I've lost due to a drug's cheat, and with that in mind I'm going to limit, if not stop completely, betting on the sport.
 
The fact UKAD have only got a handful of fighters banned shows that UKAD aren't fit for purpose in the sport in the UK, and I suspect other anti-doping bodies have failed even worse than UKAD.
 
We have dodgy cards, that seem ever more blatant, judges not being held to account, the same officials messing up week after week. Whilst genuinely excellent officials don't seem to get any recognition, which makes things even more frustrating to watch.
 
On a more personal issue, getting up early, and staying up all night is getting harder and harder, especially for something I've found myself caring less and less about. Even the shows on at a good time for now are getting skipped more often, whilst a few years ago they'd be getting watched. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this game but I think the reality is I've lost interest in much of it and the lack of big fights being made, the same recycled B sides picking up losses, and the ability for a fighter to go large swathes of their career without face decent opponents... and if they do there's a good chance the cards are cooked anyway.
 
Thankfully there are things that still make me have more than just a passing interest in the sport. Every few weeks we do have a fight that excites me on paper, or a fighter that over-delivers in the ring. The recent Kosuke Saka vs Tsubasa Narai is one of the best I've seen in years and Joseph Parker Vs Joe Joyce was simply incredible fun, and they are both really recent examples. I'm done with the sport, but I'm no longer in love with it.
 
With that said decision will be made as to whether the site continues in the future, however from November 1st the new content on the site will be paused. That's for all new content. The plan is to move simply to sharing news and results on Twitter, both the Asianboxing account and my personal account will be used for this (depending on the time of day and the such as my personal account is used during my typical work day).
 
For those wanting to keep up to date on boxing from Asia I would also strong advise following not just myself (of course), but also the likes of @PeleadoresSN and @ajoaquinarieta for news and of course @Timboxeo and @GifsBoxing.
 
Thank you all, and see you around, maybe here in the future, maybe on social media and maybe on forums.

[WelshDevilRob]

That's hugely bad news. Scott's done an incredible job of covering the whole Asian boxing scene. Was relentless in putting out original content. He's done a huge amount for the awareness of asian boxing. His website has been the number one source for many years, he did an amazing job building it from scratch.

He's a top bloke and I'm glad he is still going to be following the sport. It's understandable that he needs a break and has slowed down on writing content. I agree, and understand, that boxing is a hard sport to love and keep following.

Sad times.