There used to be a phrase and a belief that, ‘as the heavyweight division goes, so goes the business of boxing.’ I’m not sure that has really been true since the heyday of Mike Tyson in the mid-to-late 80’s when he was one of the five most famous people in the world. My view is that the health of boxing is tied into how many true stars exist, or how active the elite fighters in the world are.
For the past several years I have kept track of how busy the games blue-chippers are, and quite frankly, the results are bleak. Long gone are the days when you’d see active world champions making three or four title defenses in a year.
I use the current Ring Magazine pound-for-pound list at the end of the calendar year as my group of boxers. My view is that if you’re on this, you are among the games most talented and best known. I didn’t do one for 2025 as my time writing for SNAC.com came to an end, and I hadn’t begun this Substack. A few weeks ago it dawned on me that in 2026 the games elite hadn’t fought all that much. Well, lets see how true that is.
We are now well into the third-quarter of 26, which has given everyone in the sport an opportunity to perform at least once, and then a chance to schedule another fight. So how (in)active have the marquee boxers been since the beginning of the year? Once again, I will be going with the current Ring Magazine pound-for-pound list...
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