With Mayweather vs. Pacquiao coming up in May, it struck me as rather sad that gamers have no real way to enjoy boxing in this next generation. To be sure, it’s been a painful sabbatical for fans of the Fight Night series, as EA has switched gears into the MMA world with EA Sports UFC. The business decision certainly made sense for the UFC at the time, as they got to partner up with a bigger brand in EA. For EA, they got to give the Fight Night license a rest while riding the rocket that was the UFC. With only just over a million units sold on Xbox One and PS4 for EA Sports UFC, according to VGChartz, one has to wonder if this was a bet worth taking.

When EA picked up the UFC license, there was still the spectre of Brock Lesnar drawing huge pay-per-view buy rates. On top of that, all-time greats like Anderson Silva had yet to be de-mythologized, and Jon Jones was continuing his meteoric rise up the ranks. Now Brock is nowhere to be seen (but rumors indicate he may consider returning to the UFC), Anderson Silva is a disgraced steroid cheat, and Jon Jones is reeling from his foibles with nose candy.

Even on the weekend, the always-dominant and explosive Anthony Pettis was dethroned in a five-round beatdown at the hands of Rafael dos Anjos. While boxing is certainly not immune to upsets and disgrace, the UFC has had a lot of it over the last few years. The tepid sales of the UFC product may indicate that MMA will always be a niche offering, as the difficult control scheme, limited historical context and brutality of the sport are just going to push some people away.

Boxing, for all of its faults, has more universal appeal. I’m a fan of both, but I can see why the sweet science resonates with more people, as it has a long history to draw from and a lot of spectacle to peddle. My instinct tells me that it’s also because boxing has just one discipline on display, and that’s seen at a very high level. That discipline is informed by head movement, foot speed, stamina and power, but it’s still one discipline. MMA, on the other hand, by its very name is a bag of various skills, and often fights are kind of a “jack of all trades and master of none,” where you have two excellent Olympic wrestlers who decide to have a sloppy boxing match for 15 minutes.

The accessibility of boxing as a sport led to a lot of people trying out Fight Night. A lot of casual, mid-level and hardcore users really got behind each of the entries in the series, as they were easy to play and great to look at. Mastery was possible for the higher levels, but the barrier to entry was relatively low. On top of that, Fight Night sported some impressive features, such as fluid online play, GameFace support, tons of equipment and sponsored gear, as well as unlockable legends and novelty fighters.

Fight Night’s modes were also fully developed by the last few releases on Xbox 360 and PS3, with a great career offering and some meaningful ways to play online, including the championship mode. Even Fight Night Champion’s story offering was something that edged closer to the likes of NBA 2K’s MyCareer, where you had a backstory and out-of-ring segments as well as real consequences in the match for having your hand damaged or whatever. It was an embryonic concept, but I’d really like to see more of that if and when Fight Night returns.

The reason we’re not seeing more Fight Night at present also speaks to the realities of game development in this new generation, as a company like EA can only make so many mid-sized and large-sized bets. The small indie games can be made a bit more easily, but boxing is at least a mid-tier concept — and probably a AAA game, to be honest. These big bets take lots of time and money and a capable team of developers who can actually create a satisfying end product. As we saw with NHL 15, Madden 25 and EA Sports UFC (and NBA Live 14, too), these were transitional titles into the next generation. Some of them did it better than others, but it was almost a reset of the development process. Modes were cut. Features were crippled. Bugs were plentiful. Prices remained the same. Almost a deposit on future games, right? Pretty annoying, in some ways.

Since EA only has one official “fight” team, they chose to ride the momentum of the UFC and develop that product. Fight Night always sold quite well, but it was never so much of a phenomenon that it was immune to being put on hold, which is not too dissimilar to what’s happened with PGA Tour. With EA Sports UFC achieving success on par with the NHL series (and only after substantial discounts and being made free in EA Access), I have to believe that EA is contemplating their next move in the fighting space very closely.

The frustrating part for boxing fans is that EA is kind of holding the license hostage, not doing anything with all of those official brands, belts, fighters and legends. Sure, there have been a few attempts on Steam or via Kickstarter, but nothing can really capture the groundswell of support that EA has with Fight Night, since these other products are usually unlicensed and made by several people.

I’m certainly not naïve that boxing has been flagging in cultural relevance over the last decade or so, but the sport remains very accessible as a gaming product. Let’s hope we get a chance to play a good game in this space sooner rather than later.