Jan 15, 2004 By Orlando Rios, JR.

What boxing needs is what they have overlooked for many years, a lack of boxing cards in the sports card market. Boxing cards have been released sporadically in the past, 1991, 1996, and the last known year, 1998. But a lot has happened since 1998. All the other major sports, Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, NASCAR, Soccer, and Golf all have major sport card deals. They involve special inserts such autographs, game used equipment such as bats, balls, and jerseys. Each has contributed in some way to the popularity of their sport.

And this is where trading cards and boxing should meet. Ponder this for a moment. How would you like to rip open a pack of boxing trading cards and pull a Bernard Hopkins piece of a boxing glove that was used in a boxing match? How about nailing an autographed card of Roy Jones, JR. or pulling out an Erik Morales/Marco Barrera piece of the floor ring used in their first bout? Sound good? At least to me it does.

Now, in no way am I saying that buying a pack of Boxing cards and pulling out a piece of Don King’s hair on a card, will contribute to an increase in boxing’s popularity, but what it will do is give boxing a bigger market. Go to your local corner store, and check the magazine rack, and see how many boxing magazines they have: one, maybe two magazines at the most. I’m willing to bet you that they have more wrestling magazines than they do boxing.

And that’s the problem. You go to your local Wal-Mart and you’ll find all the major sport cards with zero for the sport of boxing. Boxing needs sport cards the way the Madden Franchise needs EA Sports. It goes hand in hand. Sports and trading cards make a beautiful relationship, and the thought of possibly pulling a dual autographed card of Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis or Julio Cesar Chavez and Robert Duran is pretty amazing. Or what about nailing a piece of the actual scorecard used in DLH-Mosley II, the most controversial fight of 2003. Okay, that’s a little overboard, but fact of the matter is, sport cards sell, and in no way does it hurt the boxing world.

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