It stopped being exciting when Tyson came on the scene. That's when Don King and company realized there was still something to be gained with scamming people to purchase PPV to watch what amounted to 5 minutes of an all-out street fight.
Technique, style of boxing, etc... is a lost art to the sport that will never be recaptured at that level. Then throw in the controversial decisions on those rare fights that went more than 3-4 rounds.... all in an effort to create more money with rematches....
There's a reason why this fight was on ESPN last night. People have pretty much wised up to the sham and they can no longer consider PPV as a worthy investment. I don't know what the tv ratings were for last night's bout, but I would imagine they mirrored nothing compared to back when the sport wasn't overrun with corrupt promoters and the sport still enjoyed a fair degree of legitimacy.