THE renaissance of Olympic amateur boxing after a sustained period of uncertainty is thankfully now assured — this with the appointment of former amateur star and professional world champion, Gennady Golovkin, as president of the newly established Olympic boxing governing body, World Boxing.

Persistent governance issues had dogged the previous custodians of Olympic amateur boxing, the International Boxing Association (IBA), to the point where there was the real prospect of boxing not being included in the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Such an occurrence would have constituted a clear and grievous travesty, given that boxing has been a constant of the modern Summer Olympics since the 1904 Games, held that year in St Louis, USA.

The history of Olympic boxing since then has been long and profoundly rich, involving the platforming of many of the sport’s all time greats. In no particular order we are talking here the likes of Floyd Patterson, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Teofilo Stevenson, Oscar De La Hoya, Pernell Whitaker, Sugar Ray Leonard, and more. Further still, in a time when professional boxing has never been in such organisational disarray, wherein integrity has been superseded by greed, the importance of the amateur code has never been greater.

Golovkin’s own amateur record is simply astonishing to behold. The Kazakh fought a remarkable 350 times, winning 345 and losing just five times. It culminated in him winning the silver medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Thus there is really nobody better qualified to head up Olympic amateur boxing as the clock ticks down to 2028 and Los Angeles.

Returning to the disarray that has gripped the professional ranks, the fact that we are at the time of writing just over a week away from another former Olympic champion, Anthony Joshua (AJ), stepping into the ring to face YouTuber Jake Paul in a sanctioned heavyweight bout under Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) banner, tells us all we need to know when it comes to this decidedly grim trajectory.

Scheduled to be held at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida on 19 December — and set to be televised to worldwide audience via Netflix — this is a bout that drives the proverbial coach and horses through the credibility of the sport in the eyes of most. AJ, one of the richest fighters in the history of the sport, clearly doesn’t need the money. So why, the question begs, lower himself to sharing a ring with an opponent who hitherto has fought a succession of over-the-hill UFC fighters, and who lost his only fight against a genuine fighter in the shape of the less than stellar Tommy Fury back in 2023?

Has Joshua gone mad? Has greed consumed him? Or is he going in, as many hope that he is, with the intention of knocking this impertinent and persistently irritating YouTuber out to teach both him and his army of fans the salient lesson that you don’t play at boxing?

The smart money is on a quick AJ knockout. But then Jake Paul is that rare freak who appears impervious to logic or reason. Initially poised to face Gervonta Davis as his next opponent, who stands just 5’5” and is less than half his weight, his switch to the 6’6” and 245 lbs physical specimen that is Joshua has the air of the circus act about it. That millions will doubtless tune in to watch does not add any respectability to proceedings either. Millions would tune in to watch a train crash live on Netflix, such is the market for the obscene and rarely seen that exists in human affairs.

Further afield, the entry of UFC chief Dana White into professional boxing, in cahoots with Saudi Arabia’s Turki Al-Sheikh — this small thuggish courtier of Crown Prince Bin Salman — has added yet another layer of intrigue to a sport that has never lacked for same in its time. Turki — a man other grown men within the boxing firmament embarrassingly refer to as His Excellency — now has top flight boxing by the gonads. He it is who dictates whom should fight whom, where and when. And he it is who is rapidly turning the various sanctioning bodies, hitherto hegemonic in their grip on the sport, into relics of a bygone age.

Dana White is more gang boss than promoter. His UFC champions are paid a mere pittance in comparison to their boxing counterparts. It thus suggests that “His Excellency,” Turki al-Sheikh, intends to use his power over the sport to force boxing to accept less roses and more bread going forward in terms of purses.

Overall, elite professional boxing is currently standing at a crossroads. Money, specifically the ethos of fast money, now dominates. In other words, all that is solid has been been melted into air, and all that is holy has been profaned. Karl Marx, to extend the bearded German’s peerless wisdom, would have understood the sport as a capitalist’s dream in that it reinforces the myth that personal enrichment denotes the summit of meaning, validation, and purpose in the realm of human endeavour.

Everything is out of whack. In a world and a sport in which anything now goes, the lack of defined parameters is the devil’s work. With this in mind, Anthony Joshua vs Jake Paul belongs in a circus not a boxing ring. If the latter emerges victorious AJ will have succeeded in disgracing not only himself but the sport and its history entire.

No number of luxury houses, top of the range cars, and expensive watches can or could ever come close to compensating for the ignominy incurred. The result will be boxing reduced to a spectacle of the absurd.

Perhaps though, thinking about it further, elite professional boxing has reached this point already.