Why would you assume this? Saunders has impressed at amateur level, domestic level, European level and world level. He has also been in fights at various stages which have been average, and on occasion has been downright poor. Therefore it's an odd thing to suggest that it's natural to assume that as his opponents get better, all the way to the very best, that he will continuously improve. Surely you'd accept that more often than not a fighter continuously facing better opponents loses at some stage? I know that plenty trot out the line that as opposition gets better they get better; I'd be asking the likes of Brook, Froch, Groves, Hamed, Cleverly, Bellew, Haye, DeGale and many more if that's the case. (I am fully aware that you'll probably respond by saying Saunders is light years beyond all of those. I'd politely disagree.) I'm not even sure Lemieux is the best opponent Saunders has faced. And whilst it's certainly his best performance I don't get the conclusion that beating him with ease confirms he'd beat Canelo or would even be likely to. Although I'm sure if he ever does fight him and gets handily beaten his 'army' of fans will have a ready-made excuse up the sleeve and a heartfelt soundbite for why the 'real' Saunders still destroys him.
Saunders will never be popular commercially because he's acted like an idiot too many times. Some of the things he's done, especially in the last year, were disgraceful. That doesn't take away that in my opinion, and seemingly the opinion of many others, he is incredibly skilled and would be a very tough matchup for any of the top guys in the world at MW/SMW.
There are two debates taking place at once here. How popular he is/can become, and how good he is. I know he's good. Do I think the Lemieux performance suggests he'd be likely to beat Canelo/Golovkin? Not really. I think he has too many off nights, he's not stopping either, and getting a decision would be an incredibly tough ask. I really struggle with the theory that consistently looking good to average to occasionally poor against lower level opposition means you'll raise your game when you face the elite. I think evidence shows more often than not you get beat. As for how popular he is, I know he's not. He's literally, demonstrably unpopular by however you want to try and measure such a thing.
I’ve already refuted that though by pointing out that Hearn made Saunders an 8-figure offer, rumoured to be $15,000,000 for three fights. You tried pathetically to argue that Hearn wanted to sign him as “cannon fodder” which is irreconcilable with the offer that was made. We are going round in circles because you are so adamant in trying to argue Saunders has no worth when your bum lord literally values him at over $10,000,000 for three fights.
Chuck him in with Canelo. If he loses the bum lord doesn't care as he's got himself a slice of Canelo pie which is worth more than just about anything else in boxing. If he wins, even better. A Canelo rematch earning the bum lord even more. That's why these offers take place. Promoters know certain fights can make money. He's not thinking 'this guy who fights at leisure centres and on fields in Stevenage and everyone thinks is a bit of idiot and doesn't knock anyone out is going to make me a packet in the Akavov rematch. Get your tickets now for the big one, live from Goals Northampton once the last five a side match has finished.'
I agree in most cases - but there's something about both Fury and Saunders where raising/lowering their game to extremes depending on opponent seems to be the norm. Ben Davison talked about this in an interview a while back; his belief (and obviously he'd be a bit biased) is that the pair of them are so supremely talented that they can easily get demotivated/complacent. I know that this idea defies sporting logic - but for some reason it seems to work for them (as both of their undefeated records will testify). I know you won't agree with this either, but both of them have a bit of flawed genius about them. I agree I think he'd have a tough time against Canelo for example - he'd have to put on a punch perfect performance to even get a sniff of a decision against him and I agree I can't see him knocking him out. You never know, he might be happy with the first scenario - lose on the cards whilst appearing to 'beat' Canelo and getting paid big for it. I think on a level playing field he has a very good shot at beating any of the top guys. Problem is I don't see a situation where he gets that level playing field, especially against Canelo, so we can find out. All I want to see really is Saunders to stop dicking around and give it a good go and get a shot at the top guys so we can actually see whether he is at that level. In my opinion he's incredibly talented and I don't want him to be someone we talk about in a few years in 'what might've been' conversations.
Terrible patter, nauseating tbh. But no you still haven’t made a convincing argument. When Breazeale fought Joshua over here did Hearn make him a huge multi fight offer in case he beat Joshua? No there was probably just a standard rematch clause. For some reason the fact that Hearn made Saunders such a massive multi-fight offer irks you. Probably because he is a traveller and you have made it clear on here that you don’t like his kind. You’re a completely loathsome individual, bitter and unwilling to accept a basic fact that Hearn desperately wanted to sign Saunders by making him a massive offer.
Yes, because as I've just demonstrated, if there's one thing the bum lord appears to be massively interested in it's promoting deeply unpopular fighters who don't get near to selling out venues and sell about three PPV's on their back. The offer was a blatant push to bump up the potential takings from a middleweight superfight for his own pocket. That's it. I mean, how else is he going to make money from Saunders? Selling leisure centre tickets at ten grand a pop?
He’s fought in a leisure centre once in his professional career. Keep banging that little drum though.
It was for a world title fight for god's sake. Do you think any genuinely popular fighter would end up fighting in a leisure centre in a fight like that these days? Tickets sold dismally for the Murray fight which he pulled out of. Now he's fighting in a tiny football ground in Stevenage. But yeah, sorry mate, bags of untapped popularity, that's why the bum lord is absolutely desperate to sign him.
Nobody is saying he is a major ticket seller. The initial argument was whether or not he has any commercial value and it is an irrefutable fact that Hearn made a massive offer to promote him. If this is something that really offends you, you need to take it up with your bum lord. Tyson Fury also is not known as a major ticket seller but has just signed a massive deal with ESPN which will make him a very rich man. But yeah, little Tony Hayers, aka OpinionofaCasual in his mum’s basement using his dad’s laptop is adamant that Saunders has no commercial worth and Hearn only chucked him an offer of millions to act as “cannon fodder” for Canelo.
You keep referencing leisure centres in every single one of your posts though so I thought he must regularly fight in them the way you keep (yawn) putting it across.
What is slightly disappointing is that I did try to engage Mr. Hayers sensibly on this subject. I wrote quite a thoughtful post where there was plenty for him to respond to and I remained polite/reasonable throughout. What is a bit disappointing is that he's ignored this but responded argumentatively to others... makes me think Mr. Hayers only really enjoys this forum when arguing with people about fighters he dislikes. I've criticised his continual posting about fighters he clearly dislikes and/or defending Matchroom which seem to make up almost all of his content. However, at times he can be an interesting read - even if I don't agree. As I've said before - I'd be interested to see Tony give threads on traveller fighters/matchroom a miss for a while because he's getting a reputation on here.
Why do you think Hearn made him that offer? What is it that Hearn could do that Frank can't? I mean, Frank is promoting the Stevenage fight? Frank put on the leisure centre fight? Frank did the O2 fight which got pulled when they did about a tenth of the capacity?
I think to an extent he already is at the 'what might have been' stage. For a guy with very close points wins over Eubank and Lee, (albeit I thought both were clear), and a points win over Akavov (which I thought could very easily have been a draw) he does get spoken of in certain sections as being far better than the fighter he appeared to be on those nights. Certainly I find the Lemiuex reaction very strange; it's almost like watching a player score a hat trick for your team against a decent side and then assuming that's what he's really like, rather than the usual hit and miss, decent enough player you'd been watching for ages. He desperately needs to almost restart his career as an elite-level boxer again. He's been fighting at a rate of what, once a year for a good while now, bar those two odd fights at light heavy. The question has to remain as to whether that's likely though. You can change a coach or a promoter or even a location easy enough, but I think it's harder to suggest that a full transformation can take place mentally. As for the 'gets better as the opposition get better' line, I'm not sure I buy it. I don't have much more to add with regards to this, save for the aforementioned fighters who had great wins behind them, stepped up and were comprehensively beaten. I'm just not sure the Lemieux win, or even Lemieux himself, are good enough to say with any certainty that the guy's a genius.
