Bernard Hopkins just took a portion of Antonio Tarver’s light heavyweight belt in a one-sided beating in Atlantic City. Hopkins proves once again that he is one of the best boxers in boxing history.

That same night, Miguel Cotto defeated Paul Malignaggi to keep his share of the belt in the junior welterweight division in a tough fight at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Ask. How many people know that these tips were carried out? How many people saw this live? In general, not many.

Boxing is a sport that usually costs a lot of money to watch live. Tickets often range from $30 or $40 to over $2,500. Therefore, most people get kicked out and watch it on TV.

To make matters worse, most “non-pay” TV networks like ABC or CBS have basically stopped showing boxing. Cable channels like ESPN, HBO or Showtime have intervened and have become the great boxing providers of the moment. HBO in particular is legendary in the boxing community. The network has shown and continues to show the biggest fights year after year. This has helped the sport, as HBO is the largest pay-per-view network. Nothing beats “free” TV, though.

Unfortunately, another creature has gotten into this. It is known as “Pay Per View”.

Of course, “Pay-Per-View” was a concept that would promote the best of everything. That was how it started. People would give their hard earned dollars for “premium” events. As usual, time is always on the side of the vultures and the quality of these events today is mediocre to disastrous. The Hopkins-Tarver fight was $50. The Cotto-Malinaggi fight was $40. Too much.

Worse, several promoters have labeled people “suckers” for buying events that didn’t do too well. Guys like promoters Bob Arum and Don King just shrug it off when people complain they’ve been taken away.

PPV events are very clever in that they build up the main event and put less and less on the card, which for any true boxing fan is a big deal. Therefore, less money is paid to the fighters on the card and more goes into the pockets of the promoter. fans? Yes, they screw you again. The undercard will often have down-and-out fighters or a sideshow like “Butterbean” who is (was) “King of the Four Rounds.” Women’s fights sometimes get caught up in the PPV craze due to the fact that female fighters, with rare exceptions, make less money than their male counterparts. In some cases, a title fight will be between guys in a very low weight class, since they are paid less. Such fighters could “beat” you in the street and you would have no idea who they are.

Obviously money is being made. But at what price? Fewer and fewer people are exposed to boxing because of PPVs. Basically, the hardcore fan is spending more and more. And only a few are earning dollars from this concept. Tons of fighters don’t even know each other because a lot of the big fights go to PPV. Again, no exposure from CBS, ABC, or FOX. How many boxers get to fight on pay-per-view anyway? Not many.

HBO is now heavily involved in the PPV concept. Basically, they show the main event of the PPV broadcast on their channel the following week, but without an undercard. So it seems like a lot of people are just waiting for the following week to see the event.

Boxing was once among the elite of all sports. It is now without a doubt a “niche” sport. Bad promotions, limited access to major networks, high costs and now, Pay-Per-View, you are limiting your exposure to the masses of people. Too bad because on a good night it can compete with any other sport in the world in terms of development, emotion, drama and ferocity. Hopefully, PPV will slowly return to its original intentions: big main events with a solid card at a reasonable cost. $50? See you.