I'd bet anyone on this forum $100 they couldn't walk down their city's main street and get more than 1 of every 50 people to name even four divisions (that's half of them) below lightweight.
Reality is, no one really paid attention to anything south of 160 until the greats like Sugar Ray Robinson, Leonard, Duran, Hearns, ODLH, Mayweather made them pay attention to it. Same problem exists for anything south of 147 now. No one really gives a ****.
How the fuk can Mayweather hold a 48-0 record, when I know for a fact that he holds 2 losses. Just like Finito's record, May's zero is a lie.
Problem is that these are just numbers, not what's really behind it. What if the Alvarez I draw had been a technical split decision in his favor, even if undeserved? Then he had retired with 52-0. Would people have taken that as a serious record if that had happened? I'd say YES! Because people take other undefeated records seriously too, even if the fighters in question don't deserve to be undefeated at all. Just take a look at every modern day undefeated guy with 20+ wins on his record, and then look if he actually should be if boxing had been officianated in a fair way. In that case very few of these so called 'undefeated' records remain intact, and from the ones left the opposition had probably been so-so. Thing is, if someone retires say 62-0 while having had 1 or 2 clear robberies going his way during their careers, he would hold the record. If someone retires say 75-0-1 or 75-1 with the draw or loss being a clear robbery in his disadvantage he wouldn't hold it.
I saw during some build up on Sportscenter, the text read for one of the graphics "Rocky Marciano holds boxing record for undefeated, undrawn champion (49-0)"
He wasn't and isn't very ignored. He's generally considered a top ten fighter of the 90s. But he did fight in a weight class that historically has been ignored, and he didn't meet the biggest competitors around his weight: Michael Carbajal, Mark "too sharp" Johnson, and so he doesn't have any significant victories on his ledger. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Roman Gonzalez, Ivan Calderon, and Juan Francisco Estrada probably deserve more props too, but they are all really little and rarely fight on American tv. They probably get their props in South America and Japan.
He holds zero losses you ****ing minion, what was your JLC scorecard, round by round? Don't come in here if you didn't watch that fight.
Try getting them just to name any divisions, or a fighter other than Pacquiao and Mayweather. I've tried talking to people about Kovalev, Donaire, and Golovkin. They stare at me blankly.
I think pretty much everybody on the planet knows at least three divisions, in this order: Heavyweight (obviously, the perennial glamor division) Lightweight (considered the other end of the spectrum from Heavy even though it really is more like halfway down the scale; has entered the common parlance, they've even named a phenomenon of "someone who can't handle their liquor" after it) Middleweight (lots of very famous ones, including consensus p4p #1 Robinson, the Raging titular bull of a very successful Martin Scorcese picture, many of the 4 Kings meetings were at the weight, plus Hopkins, Jones, etc - not to mention, in most people's minds it just follows logically, heavy, light - and smack in between, more or less - middle). Those are going to be the automatic three I think everybody gets. Even people who've never watched boxing and never would care to. All the lights & supers? Cruiser? Everything below 135? Nah. Hit or miss.
Because it's true. Not in the heavyweights, but lower down. If RJJ was undefeated and then beat Ruiz, we would never know his true abilities unless, he fought other fighters in the division. If Mayweather does retire at 50-0 some people (not me) would always wonder whether or not he could have beaten GGG or gained a middleweight title. It more or less is the nature of the beast, until someone beats you, you don't really know how good you are.
So what, people should take dives to get street cred? What if you just happen to be good enough to fight & beat the best? (which, for the record, Mayweather did for years, paying his dues long before he even debuted @ welterweight)