Do we focus on undefeated records too much?

Probably, yes. boxers are generally closer in ability than people (and fanboys) would believe, and the '0' is a way to protect the idea of their darling being unbeatable.

 

Show me an undefeated fighter ...and I’ll show you a fighter who is well managed

 

Yes. Said it for years.

 

Certainly in the modern day.
Back in the day a fighter lost or got knocked out and he simply dusted himself down and moved on.

 

Of course, it is just more of Modern boxing Hype and B.S...

sure if you've had 35 fights without defeat, thats great and you shoud be proud, but IF only 1-3 of those opponents had any substances, well in brings reality back into focus.

where as if a fighter has had 67 fights with 9 Defeats and 4 Draws, but 25 - 30 of his opponentts were men of substance, well I know who I'm betting on.

Boxing Media and Owneship is a LIE, and especially in the last 40 plus years.

 

This
And learned more in that one defeat than he would beating a dozen overmatched opponents

 

Casuals do.

I.e - 99.99% of Mayweather’s fan base. Funny thing is; if you believe the “0” is the ultimate it really opens a can of worms. I imagine the vast majority cleaning “Floyd p4p T.B.E” would never acknowledge Marciano as HOAT heavyweight or Calzaghe > Jones, Hopkins etc;

 

Yes we do, and ultimately Floyd is to blame. His favorite TBE argument is that he was undefeated, and since he was the face of the Boxing world, the world listened. The casuals now think that you are not an elite if you have a loss in your record, and since the fighters want to be seen as actual elites they avoid the big names to keep their 0. Which leads to the fans still considering them as worthless since they haven't fought anybody. And if they do actually take risks, one of them comes out the loser, and even though the real fans might not care and still consider him an elite that just lost to the best, the casuals will eat him alive and call him an overrated hype job. Not to mention the other guy might be too afraid of a rematch, since if he loses his win will be considered "lucky", meaning the guy who lost cannot redeem himself in most cases. So it's just a lose-lose situation, just because they want to be seen as the next Mayweather and the future GOAT.

 

No, I actually LOVE this......
Can't be made much
clearer ....

 

The need to keep the record unblemished has deprived us of a lot of potentially great match ups. Sad. Some of my favorite fights of all time were when a fighter stepped up in weight and took the risk to try and obtain glory, most often resulting in a loss on their record. Napoles stepping up to fight Monzon, Conn going after Louis, Archie Moore stepping up several times to try for that Heavyweight crown, Dick Tiger going after Bob Foster, Bob Foster going after Frazier, etc, etc. etc.

Losses matter less than great fights, and the cajones to go after the best. I think the modern mindset detracts from that somewhat. Understandable, but a shame, in my opinion.

 

I blame you guys ( the fans) someone loses or has an off night you guys start calling them bums like tough keyboard warrior. So i don't blame then for wanting to protect that 0

 

Right. I’ve seen plenty of serious posters in this forum treat a fighter’s first loss as “exposing” him and proving that he obviously never would have been able to hang with various old-school champions.

 

I do think that we are all guilty of the assumption that undefeated fighters are the best, including myself. Those fighters that are undefeated fought and beat the fighters that were put in front of them. Sometimes fighters do not have a choice what is put in front of them, that is the responsibility of the management and promoters. The fighters cannot fight opponents of the past or even the present sometimes. Hypothetical matches are up to us.

 

Floyd’s smart self-marketing scheme likely played a major role, but he was only able to pull that off because of the overall conditions in the sport. Fewer fights on free tv, declining mainstream media coverage, a proliferation of titles, top fighters fighting fewer fights each year, etc. all set the stage for it.