Compared to Ward he is like Prince Naseem! And anyway Mayweather is not a boring fighter, definitely not hard to watch. Ward on the other hand, he is torturous to watch. He is a one man bore machine. All his fights are up there with Wlad vs Ibragamov
Ward's problem is that he is not a puncher and his personality is relatively bland. That said, for my money he offers more entertainment value than Floyd in the ring pretty easily, and shows a willingness to fight the best fighters he can which has sadly been lacking from Floyd since Floyd became a mega-star. However, due to the first two factors, he's not likely to ever be a huge PPV attraction, more likely to carve out a nice long career similar to Hopkins.
Compared to Ward, yeah. One guy is one of the most skilled fighters ever, the other is currently the best SMW and pretty "crafty" for his time.
Ward won't sell 1.5 mill ppv but I can see him doing 600-800 k consistently in the future. With PAC and Floyd only have 2-3 years left max. It would make ward the ppv star of boxing. Canelo is a possibility too. Ward will get into the ppv scene because he will fight anyone.
Get it through your heads - boxing doesn't need a PPV star. It doesn't need any stars, period. They're all well and nice, but not really necessary. Boxing isn't going anywhere if there isn't a marquee name that people outside of hardcore fandom recognize. Those of you who think so, live in a weird fantasy world. You're probably the same type who succumb to irrational celebrity worship and follow the tabloids religiously. Think for a minute about how much ****ing boxing there is. Go to Boxrec, and tab through day-by-day and see how many ****ing cards there are around the world on a given week, in a given month, in a given year. A handful involve big stars. A tiny, minuscule sliver of all the boxing that exists is contested between household names. Promoters will continue to promote the sport and make a profit from it on various levels (from local scrubs with 5-3 records duking it out without any cameras present in pubs, to regional-grade prospects in showcases on limited-availability networks such as SNY and the like, to ESPN2 FNF, up to ShoBox and HBO BAD & WCB...) no matter who the top "pound for pound" talents are, or how much PPV $ they generate, or whether there even is any PPV... The entire financial infrastructure of boxing as a business - of staging events where pugilists go head to head for prize money in front of an audience under the Queensbury rules - isn't going to vanish or collapse just because of the absence of big flashy PPV events or the stars to push them. Only a tiny minority of all the promoters, managers, trainers, and boxers in the business ever get a taste of all that money anyway. Combined they represent a negligible fraction of the sport. Do people really not understand this? :-(
I beg to differ, every sport needs stars, they are the ambassadors and drivers of the dreams of young men and women. They set the standards fpr excellence and they draw attention to the sport in ways no average fighter can.I understand what you'er saying in that boxing won't die,but it won't flourish either.:bbb
Exactly...every sport needs their stars. I'd expect the next big boxing star to show himself around 2014 or 2015
Maybe, don't completely agree.Think a ppv fighter can start from scratch just fight top competition on hbo showtime likes oscar.You have to have exciting style though to be fan appealing as well can't have one without the either.I don't see anybody doing it anytime soon though :yep considering mostly everybody cherry picks & Real fighters who fight the best consistently never get an opportunity or fair shake.Mathysse,Golovkin ect.
I agree, all sports have stars that reach beyond the fans of the specific sport. Also agree with Ward, as long as a good foil(s) can be built around SMW/LHW. Broner and Rios could be up there too. They can lose and still remain very relevant. Btw boxing is garnering more mainstream coverage so itll be more feasible to have another star or three come up quick.
Lol Canelo is the smart pick for next cross over star but so far hes being microwaved, these mismatches havent really stunted his growth but they could if the trend continues