PhillySportsline.com has a feature on boxing's renaissance under the leadership of Mark Taffet, Senior VP of Sports Operations and Pay-per-view at HBO. Key quotes from Taffet:
"Through the past 18 months there has been a very conscious effort by everyone in any position of responsibility in the sport to do everything possible to keep it on top and restore it to its rightful place in the sports world... TV executives, boxers, promoters, they all made the commitment. There was no specific incident that caused it. It was a confluence of factors that made us all realize, though we weren't taking for granted the position of our sport, things were out of equilibrium."
"The catalyst for the resurgence of 2007 and 2008 in the sport of boxing was the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight. It began a string of fights where the best fought the best month after month after month... Everyone felt so good about that fight, and it felt so good to be a part of the sport where an event that big was taking place, that it became the catalyst and the motivator for the string of fights that followed and continue throughout 2008."
"Whatever the reason, the prevailing mindset used to be that, in a big fight, the winner won big and the loser lost big, but that was an obstacle to promoters continuing to make big fights... The last few years, the guys who don't win in the big fights are still able to get right back in line because the quality of the fights have been so high... You can see an endless series over the next 12-18 months involving some of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world. The quality is there, and the desire to keep putting guys together to make the best fights is higher than it's been in years."
