To answer Mugwump's original question.

Boxing will be fine. Like every sport it seems like the fans have been predicting it's decline for years but still it remains one of the most lucrative sports in the world.

Now that May-Pac is done, and Al Haymon is building his empire and getting boxing back on terrestrial TV in America, along with the bypassing of the alphabet soup governing bodies I think the next 5 years could well see a revolution in boxing.

I'm sorry - I thought we were talking about boxing in the popular sense - i.e. a globalised sport primarily centred in the United States of America.

If funding is up in the UK - great. If gates are up in the UK - great. However, this doesn't alter the fact that there are serious structual and systemic problems within the global sport of boxing.

Precisely where do you think half-assed sports such as UFC have stolen much of their substantial fan-base from?

As for measuring the health of a sport PURELY IN TERMS OF MONEY - Jesus Wept! By that rationale - Mayweather vs Pacquiao was the greatest fight in the history of boxing rather than a dreary afterthought.

Surely you can't be happy about the fact that old gimmers such as Hopkins have managed to squeeze out ten years or more at the top purely because - until recently - THERE WAS NO ONE OF ANY QUALITY TO STOP HIM .

High profile fights such as Calzaghe vs Roy Jones or David Haye vs Dr. K etc. etc. have been nothing short of embarrassments.

Too many belts. Too many over-protected fighters. Too little actual fighting.

I've heard all this before. The last time it was Golden Boy Productions (which, initially, did seem like it was putting together decent fights with good undercards).

Look how THAT worked out.

It's already happened