British boxing badly needs to deliver during 2005 if it is to retain its legitimacy on the sports pages.
Irrespective of what some of its leading promoters may tell you, the sport is currently in serious decline.
Shunted into Friday night graveyard slots on satellite television by pay-per-view football, even its few remaining flagship fighters struggle to court nationwide interest.
The fans have grown weary of the weekly diet of over-protected champions, under-qualified opponents and politics which enable every other half-decent domestic banger to proclaim himself world champion.
The result is that recognised ticket sellers like Ricky Hatton and Scott Harrison have struggled to shift seats in their usual high numbers this year.
But the dawning of a new year brings with it plenty of opportunities for boxing to begin to brush aside its problems.
The reaction to Amir Khan's unlikely success in the Athens Olympics shows the British sports fan still retain a healthy appetite for the noble art.
They would undoubtedly turn out in force again if Hatton finally secured his long-awaited light-welterweight title unification fight.
The signs are that Hatton and his promoter Frank Warren may finally succeed in cutting through politics and getting the Manchester Hitman a shot at Kostya Tszyu.
Joe Calzaghe is also facing a make-or-break year as he seeks to move up to light-heavyweight and claim a second version of the world title.
For all his undefeated professional record, Calzaghe has failed to convince the whole boxing world of his undoubted talents.
His inability to find any viable super-middleweight challenges led to one of the finest fighters Britain has produced having to tick over with a defence against Egyptian spoiler Kabary Salem in Edinburgh in October.
Calzaghe is too good to be engaging in such contests at this stage in his career and he and Warren know it as they work towards a match-up with IBF light-heavy champion Glencoffe Johnson.
Harrison's one-round blow-out of Ethiopian Samuel Kebede will hardly have convinced punters to return for the tough Glaswegian featherweight's next title defence.
But a match against Manchester's Michael Brodie - or even better, Brodie's all-action conqueror Injin Chi - would present a mouth-watering prospect hard for Scottish fight fans to resist.
Danny Williams was never British boxing's biggest headline-grabber, but his amazing win over Mike Tyson changed all that.
Although he was well beaten in his WBC world heavyweight title challenge against Vitali Klitschko in Las Vegas, Williams' association with the Tyson knockout ought to present a number of high-profile contests in the new year.
It would be a crying shame if one of our most talented fighters, Howard Eastman, was forced to leave the game without another richly deserved world title shot.
Eastman controversially came up short in his previous challenge to William Joppy for the WBA title in 2001.
Now he has worked his way back into leading contender's position for a crack at Bernard Hopkins' undisputed crown. But the Battersea bomber will not be holding his breath.
For an example of how not to do it, the top prospects of tomorrow may be some of the few still keeping tabs on Audley Harrison.
The former Olympic champion, shorn of the BBC deal from which neither side emerged with much credit, appears to have resigned himself to a year in the American backwoods.
His tortuous climb up the heavyweight ladder must result in a title fight of some description this year if Harrison is to retain any credibility with the British public.
Domestically, super-middleweight Carl Froch will seek to continue his rise and politics permitting, ought to go some way towards fulfilling his enormous potential by claiming the European crown.
Youngsters like Commonwealth Games gold medallist Darren Barker, exciting Mancunian Andy Morris and Welshman Tony Doherty should move into British title contention.
But in 2005 it will be the top end of the sport which will determine whether the stars of tomorrow will one day have a big stage left to shine upon.
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