The first fight on the main map between Hasim Rahman Jr. and Rashad Coulter was canceled because Rahman tested positive for the coronavirus.
Rahman apologized to his fans on Twitter and said he was looking forward to showing his talents on a big stage.
“It’s devastating news that I can’t keep up, but my health is first and foremost,” he said.
Coulter, a former U.F.C. Fighter said he hoped to fight Rahman down the line.
“I’m sorry about your positive test, my friend,” said Coulter before adding that he wanted to prove to Rahman that he believed mixed martial arts had trouble boxing.
I’m sorry about your positive test, my friend, BUT I will hold on to these words for you. I will show “UFC FIGHTERS” every boxer how to box. Let’s go.. https://t.co/ve82QyO0DJ
– Rashad Coulter UFC (@rashad_coulter) November 28, 2020
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The organizers recently announced that Tyson-Jones had broken advance booking records at FITE.tv., the event’s online pay-per-view partner. Without numbers or benchmarks, it’s impossible to know what it means to break FITE.tv’s pay-per-view pre-sale record.
But we do know that Tyson, a big draw in its heyday in the late 1980s, is still popular as an all-purpose celebrity in 2020.
Such novelties appear regularly and often attract a large audience. And they almost always raise questions what it means for the boxing industry when a farcical fight leaves legitimate, high-level matchups behind, like Terence Crawford’s dominant knockout from Kell Brook on ESPN earlier this month.
The answer to this question is that it means nothing.
Boxing is a niche sport with a reliable television audience of one million to 1.3 million viewers for championships on cable. That number hasn’t changed in years.
Novelty fights appeal to a wider audience by bringing together people who are famous for something other than boxing. Full-time fighters on the undercard could get some new fans among the drive-by viewers who watch Tyson, Jones, Paul or Robinson, and those fights are not going to stop fans Teofimo Lopez, Tyson’s anger or anyone else who is high on the pound-for-pound list of boxing.
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They are all real in that two people hit each other.
Whether any of these fights are in the context of serious competition and sport as a whole is another question.
This card is approved by the California State Athletic Commission. Every fight other than the main Tyson Jones event is recorded on the fighters’ records. And every fight – with the exception of the co-function between Jake Paul and Nate Robinson – involves full-time boxers.
The biggest name not featured in the two events featured is Badou Jack, a former world champion at £ 168 and £ 175 who headlines Las Vegas, New York and Toronto. He will face a 33 year old prospect named Blake McKernan. Lightweights Jamaine Ortiz (13-0) and Sulaiman Segawa (13-2-1) and featherweights Irvin Gonzalez Jr. (14-2) and Edward Vazquez (8-0) are fighting for a regional title.
They are the kind of fights you would see on the undercard of a midweek show on cable – significant to the competitors but not big enough to cause a ripple in the broader sports world.
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The website for this battle map is TysonOnTriller.comand it’s no accident that Triller, a TikTok-style app where users post quick-hit videos, is fingerprinted during this event.
Before trills hit a Buying frenzy to bring Internet-known content creators to the platform or According to reports, download and usage statistics have been inflatedIt had Tyson under contract and a plan to promote and broadcast this exhibition.
Will Saturday’s fights help Trill challenge TikTok as an it app for posting short, edited videos?
It’s hard to tell, but the tactic isn’t new. Before Triller took over TikTok, Shots tried to compete with Instagram. Shots you probably don’t remember were A photo posting app endorsed by Floyd Mayweather and Justin Bieber. It was similar to Instagram, except that it didn’t allow comments on posts – just likes. Mayweather would use it to spread news of upcoming fights and encourage its followers on other platforms to download shots for important announcements.
Mayweather and Bieber failed to make shots a social media fixture, and it’s hard to see how Tyson, who has 1.3 million followers on Triller, can make this app mainstream. But he may expand Triller’s pool of potential users by introducing him to people old enough to remember him as the best heavyweight in the world.
