If you’ve never been on the end of a long Lou DiBella rant, the only thing I can compare it to is being stuck in a lift with a man who knows everything that is wrong with boxing and who won’t press a button to one of the floors until he has run you through it.
All of it. A to Z.
The thing is with Lou, he talks about it in such a way, so forthrightly and with so much passion, that you can do little but pull up a chair and listen.
For someone who says he “is basically removed from the sport,” you can still tell the former network executive and promoter cares deeply. And you can tell he wishes he didn’t.
His love of the sport and the fighters, most of them, and the warmth of nostalgia for those he has loved and lost in the sport mean he will never be completely clear of it.
DiBella was recently inducted into the Atlantic City Boxing Hall of Fame, yet another award to add to his mantelpiece, having already been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in New York.
DiBella and I talk semi-regularly. He might say he talks and I listen, but I always enjoy it and I always learn. I know a bit about boxing, but Lou has forgotten more than I know. He has done the deals, signed the contracts, seen the contracts. He’s had the fights. He’s made the fights. He’s been to war. He’s won and lost. He’s been to court. He’s fought. And despite his resignation about the health of boxing, he’s never given up on it, even if it’s no good for his blood pressure.
“I am basically removed from the sport, I’m able to watch it with a critical eye, but also be amused by it to some degree,” he smiles.
“I think a lot of people are learning lessons by the day. And by the way, anyone who thought that Saudi Arabia was going to become a warm and fuzzy situation and that the Middle East was never going to be at war again and that the whole structure of Turki [Alalshikh] dominating the sport was an endless situation… You know, everything is fluid right now in boxing and nothing is established or settled. And it’s a time of great change. And unfortunately, it’s not bathing itself in glory, boxing, during these changes.”
Boxing has never been flawless. It has always been lawless. But there is no question that when DiBella was at HBO, he was involved in a period that will always be appreciated as a golden era, even if it wasn’t perfect.
“They were as good as we remember them,” he says of those halcyon days. “And I don’t view them with rose-tinted glasses because I want to make something very clear; the reasons I believe that in boxing – I am not only one of the better people and smarter people and people that have given more to the sport than they’ve taken, I don’t think I’m the only one – I think there are a number of people that fit that category, there are a number of people who are wrongly vilified, there are other people that are wrongly celebrated – but when I look at my history, I’m pretty proud of what I did in boxing, even though I’m not proud that I was part of an establishment that brought it to where it is right now. Like, I was part of a power structure that brought it to the point that it is right now, which is not a wonderful point. And we basically cannibalised ourselves, destroyed the old system. We continued to push the four-belt era. We continued to push the ratings organisations. We continued to accept bad decisions and bad refereeing that appeared too often to be biased and co-opted. I’m not using the word corrupt, but you could use corrupt, not illegal necessarily, but corrupt. The whole system was corrupt. We tolerated so much. We allowed our sport to weaken and weaken and weaken, even as it was having success. The things I testified before Congress about in the nineties, complaining about how boxing… the administration of boxing was inadequate, the health and safety measures of boxing were inadequate. The problems that existed in the nineties are worse now in 2026.
“But that’s sort of remarkable. And the fact that we didn’t make anything better from that moment in time until now is one of the reasons why the sport is every man for himself and completely uncertain and interesting. I don’t know where it’s headed, I don’t even know what it is anymore. What is boxing in 2026?”
