The History of Unpredictable Boxing: Why We Call Fight Schedules ‘Cards’

In today’s mass media environment, boxing thrives off of launching its big egos into the stratosphere using a lot of online promotion. Other combat sports are the same, and it has turned both boxing and MMA into world-leading sports industries.

When those big matches get announced to the world, we call them ‘cards’… but where does this phrase come from? It turns out, the answer has a lot to say about how boxing promotion has changed with the times.

Your Average Fight Card

For as long as we have used fight cards, they split the matches into categories. There’s the main event, of course, but then there’s the undercard fights, sometimes split between mid-card and lower card.

This kind of card is different from the others you’d find, like sports penalty cards or playing cards. Those things have changed with the times too – if you’re interested in boxing (and betting on boxing) then you probably know that playing cards have also made their way online. Just like how watching and speculating on boxing has taken to the internet, there are games like online blackjack where playing cards get livestreamed to thousands of players at once, who bet on the action. Needless to say, the cards you’d find in live rooms like Premium Blackjack are different from the ones boxing fans look forward to.

Today, those boxing cards typically get announced weeks to months before the event. They’re used as a way to market the event and, more importantly, generate hype for those who are fans of the combatants. This feeds into a wider fighting economy – it sells seats but also sells pay-per-view (PPV) tickets. More recently, we have seen a new model emerge as streaming services buy into boxing. Fans also have fun by predicting future fight cards, and some promotions use fan sentiment to create cards that will blow the fans’ minds.

How Fight Cards Used to Work

But why do we call them fight cards? That comes from the days before the social media, the internet or even the first telephone. In the mid-1800s, fight promoters would often publicise their events but keep most, if not all, of the combatants secret. Then, when you showed up at the door, you got your card.

That card validated you as a paying member, but as you can probably guess, it also revealed the full list of fights and who is fighting in them. That’s how the ‘card’ became a new way of saying the fight schedule, and it stuck for the next 150+ years. This approach to fight cards also made historical boxing quite the gamble if you weren’t a fan of the fights going ahead!

If you didn’t already know, boxing itself was a lot different back then. Some used gloves, some didn’t and there was very little restriction on how many rounds they can go. Every boxing fan has heard of the legendary ye olde boxing matches that went on for hours.

News travelled a lot slower back then, so boxing matches were more localised affairs. It also meant everybody’s attention spans were longer and they were willing to pay to see anyone – anyone at all – duke it out after a long day at work. Since then, our ability to communicate and market well, everything, has grown tremendously. Boxing was no different – we started flashing the schedule up on signs, then the TV and then the internet. Throughout all that time, we kept calling them fight cards (and there’s no reason to stop now!)