Boxing's future rests on grassroots gyms and hungry fighters

The sport that built Atlantic City's casino row and turned Mike Tyson into a cultural force now occupies a far smaller footprint — but boxing has not left the building.

ESPN's tour of American fight gyms found Terence Crawford's Omaha operation still grinding out contenders, Albuquerque still honoring Johnny Tapia's memory, and Las Vegas hosting the next wave of Mexican and American prospects who believe the ring remains the shortest distance between poverty and glory. Where Tyson's old Atlantic City stomping grounds have turned to vacant lots, the sport has migrated west and decentralized.

What keeps boxing alive in 2025

Crawford's gym in Nebraska proves the model: a welterweight champion who stayed home, built infrastructure, and now trains the neighborhood kids who watched him on pay-per-view. One fighter on the tour told ESPN the sport "can — and will — survive" as long as young fighters see a path from the amateurs to a six-figure purse, even if the path no longer runs through the Boardwalk.

The contrast between boxing's 1980s Atlantic City heyday and its current state is stark, but the fundamentals have not changed. Hungry fighters still show up to sweat-soaked gyms at 5 a.m. Trainers still wrap hands and call out combinations. The difference now is that the next Julio Cesar Chavez or Buster Douglas might emerge from Omaha or Albuquerque instead of a glitzy East Coast casino town.

Boxing's decentralization may be its survival strategy. Without a single geographic center, the sport spreads risk and opportunity across dozens of regional hubs, each feeding prospects to the same Las Vegas and Riyadh cards that once drew from Atlantic City alone.

Reported via:

• ESPN Boxing — Inside the knockdown, drag-out fight for boxing's future