Adam Abramowitz on DAZN, GGG & The Future Of Boxing

by Eliot Stott

Writing about boxing for over a decade, Philadelphian Adam Abramowitz can only be described as somebody who’s been ‘captivated’ by the sweet science.

In an interview where the need for me to ask Abramowitz to elaborate on anything he’d stated wasn’t there, despite the sport being in a fairly confusing place at the time of the conversation.

Writing for Saturday Night Boxing as well as Co-Hosting the ‘Punch to the Face’ podcast, Adam more than keeps up with all things boxing on both sides of the pond, making our conversation flow without any gaps in knowledge hindering the interview.

“I’ve been writing for nearly ten years now so it’s taken up a fair chunk of my life. Being a fairly hardcore boxing fan previously, I’ve never been one to do something casually so the opportunity to write about something that I had a lot to say about was there.”

Adam then went onto vent his frustration at what was being written about the sport that he was obsessed with which further motivated him to get involved with writing.

“Whenever there was a big fight, journalists were just writing what everybody already knew i.e. there was a knockout in the tenth round. There wasn’t much in the way of analysis. The type of questions that were being answered clearly in other sports I don’t feel we're being addressed that well in boxing from a strategy standpoint.”

Moving onto the current day and the more important yet draining topic of boxing & COVID-19, Adam discussed the differences that he expects to see in the sport over the pond.

“Obviously there’s not going to be any gate money for the foreseeable future so because of that you can expect purses to be affected.”

“In addition to the coronavirus, we know that there’s also going to be an economic downturn across the country which is likely to affect the pay per view market in the US, especially when you consider how expensive big fights can be to purchase over here. I’d imagine people are going to be more cautious/reluctant to buy a PPV compared to their buying behaviour pre-virus.”

“Also, one issue that I haven’t heard discussed too much is travel. Top Rank, for example, has deals in place with Naoya Inoue & Josh Taylor – how easy is it going to be for these guys to travel to the US or wherever they’re fighting? Will they have to go into quarantine on arrival? The logistics of fighters travelling abroad and fight week on a whole will be hugely effected I imagine.”

Feeling the need to move onto topics other than COVID-19, Adam who regularly discusses the latest goings-on within British boxing on social media, spoke about his current favourite active British fighters.

“One guy who I’ve liked for a while is John Ryder. I remember being laughed at when I told people how much of a tough fight Ryder was going to be for Callum Smith and it was!”

“My first experience of watching Ryder was against Billy Joe Saunders who he very narrowly lost against. One thing that stuck out to me was how well Ryder did against a guy who at the time was so much better than him technically as well as his work rate in his first twelve round fight.”

“Perhaps a more obvious pick would have to be Josh Taylor who I originally picked to win the WBSS Super-Lightweight tournament a couple of years ago. Despite a lot of Americans picking Prograis to win the tournament I always felt that Taylor was being developed at the right pace”.

Swaying from Brits inside the ring to Brits outside the ring, the topic of Eddie Hearn aiming to ‘crack’ America as well as DAZN was next on the agenda.

“So I think that the big question here is the financial backing from DAZN. Despite the billion-dollar injection, there are opt-out clauses available for DAZN throughout the eight-year period. As a company, they’ve been haemorrhaging money for whatever reason and as we’ve been told they’ve had some problems paying some bills recently and are clearly struggling furthermore due to the coronavirus.”

“To elaborate, I think that Eddie will do well as long as he continues to receive the financial backing that he expects to receive from DAZN. Although so far he has made some good signings in the US (most notably Devin Haney), I believe that his plan was to take some fighters who are currently signed to Al Haymon and for whatever reason that hasn’t worked out.”

“He’s obviously a top promoter, very charismatic and sells the sport very well but I believe that he’s going to have to continue to cultivate relationships with gyms, amateur fighters etc to be successful long term.”

A fighter that is signed to DAZN and regularly appears on Adam’s Twitter page is two-time middleweight champion & P4P star Gennady Golovkin. At the age of 38 and 42 professional fights into his career – Adam was asked on his opinion on the current status of Triple G’s career as well as the Kazakh’s future in the sport.

“So from what I can see, his contract with DAZN is being kept fairly secret in terms of how many fights are in that contract. I imagine it’s down to how many more fights he truly wants to have, he’s made a lot of money with the two Canelo fights as well as the fights that he had on HBO.”

“As a fan, I hope that he has a couple of big fights left in him. I’ve been following him since he was fighting in Germany which must be over ten years ago now and I remember fellow hardcore fans whispering about him then.”

“A lot of people are now asking the ‘all-time great’ question which an interesting debate. First of all, there’s a definitional issue here so the answer to that question perhaps depends on the person being asked. If I was asked whether he was in the top ten middleweights of all time, I’d have to say no – his resume isn’t strong enough.”

“For whatever reason, he didn’t get a lot of the fights that he should have done. Fights against the likes of Miguel Cotto, Felix Sturm & Sergio Martinez should have happened – if he faces all of those guys and wins all of them then all of a sudden his resume looks very different. He’s one heck of a fighter but when you compare his middleweight career to that of Marvin Hagler & Roy Jones Jr, the level of accomplishments are very different.

Asked about the potential trilogy fight against Canelo Alvarez, Adam gave an honest prediction which went against how he saw the results of both controversial fights.

“I think the tide is turning in favour of Canelo if I’m honest. The 1st fight was a clear win for Golovkin in my book whilst the 2nd was closer but still a win for Golovkin in my opinion. I think that Canelo’s in his prime right now and in his mind, he’s beaten Golovkin so I’d expect him to win if there is a 3rd fight to look forward to.”

Clearly having a lot to say about GGG, I couldn’t resist but to ask Adam about a previously rumoured fight between Golovkin and one of Britain’s finest Carl Froch – a fight in which Boxing fans still debate over today despite Froch being long retired.

“It would have been a really fun fight. Golovkin was arguably close to his physical peak at that point but we all know how tough Froch is and at the time that the rumours first came about, Froch had just come off a career-high victory against George Groves.”

“I’m afraid that I’m not going to make a prediction on this one but it’s something that I sure would have loved to have seen considering that Froch was also one of my favourite fighters.”.

Check Out The Below Links To Follow Adam’s Work

Saturday Night Boxing - http://www.saturdaynightboxing.com/

Twitter - https://bit.ly/3dfMke5

Adam is Co-Host to the Punch To The Face Podcast - www.blogtalkradio.com/p2tfradio