Boxing is being marginalised and is starving itself of oxygen because, put simply, the best are no longer fighting the best.
Yet every so often the noble art is thrown a lifeline when two daddys of the division do collide. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Nonito Donaire v Guillermo Rigondeaux.
These two super-bantamweight powerhouses go at it at the Radio City Music Hall in New York on Saturday to find out just who the best man who weighs 122lbs in this world really is.
You pays your money you takes your choice. In Rigondeaux you have one of the best amateur boxers ever to have laced on a glove. A double Olympic champion, the Cuban defected from his homeland to the bright lights of Miami and won a world title within seven pro fights.
Slick, smooth and speedy Rigondeaux has barely lost a round since turning pro in May 2009. This southpaw knows all the tricks and has a killer instinct that has seen him stop eight of the 11 men he has faced so far.
The Cuban is a spiteful hitter, be it with those long raking right hooks or the double left jabs that distort a man’s features.
Yet in Donaire he is facing a master craftsman at the very peak of his powers. The ‘Filipino Flash’ is 31-1 (20) and has not tasted defeat since a contentious points loss in 2001 (his second pro fight).
More importantly Donaire, the younger man by two years, has been involved in 12 world title fights. He’s beaten top men in Fernando Montiel (destroyed in two rounds), Omar Navarez (outclassed over 12 sessions) and another dangerous southpaw in Toshiaki Nishikora (humbled and stopped in nine).
Last time out he wiped out quality Mexican Jorge Arce with a highlight-reel left hook that sent the gnarled Mexican warmonger into retirement.
So this really is Grade A fisticuffs and opinion is divided in the trade as to who will prevail. Irish traveller Willie Casey, who has tasted the quality of Rigondeaux first hand having been demolished inside a round in Dublin back in 2011, stated in trade paper Boxing News that he fancies the Cuban to get the job done.
A Rigondeaux win would not surprise. This is a man who makes it all look so effortless. Long-limbed and sturdy, Rigondeaux is a heavy-hitter who rarely wastes a shot. Guillermo had been working with former Amir Khan trainer Jorge Rubio, but tellingly has gone back to his former amateur coach Pedro Luis Diaz.
I just feel however, as good as Rigondeaux is, Donaire is a truly special fighter who is proven as a professional. He can box and he can bang, and I feel his punching power is going to prove decisive in this one.
Rigondeaux has been faultless as a pro but Ricardo Cordoba ran him close in 2010, hitting the floor in the sixth of an absorbing contest he eventually won on points.
In a potential barn-burner where no result can be realistically ruled out, give me Donaire to hit his Cuban foe often enough and hard enough to get the job done in 10 sessions.
