Eddie Hearn confirm New Ring Size for Billy Joe

Discussion in 'World Boxing Forum' started by shadow111, May 5, 2021.



  1. shadow111

    shadow111 Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Sounds good, take a look, I know it's tough to determine whether it's an 18 foot or a 20 foot inner ring. But I'm trying to figure this out to understand how big of an adjustment a 22 foot inner ring is for Canelo. Particularly if he's been used to fighting in a 20 foot inner ring vs a 18 foot inner ring. If I had to guess, I suspect that most of Canelo's fights like vs GGG have actually had a 20 foot inner ring, in which case this won't be as big of an adjustment for him. He was able to outbox GGG quite well in the first match and use the ring, and I don't think he would have been able to do that in an 18 foot inner ring. So now I'm thinking it's Canelo who has been fighting in bigger rings (20 foot inner ring) than Saunders has been, as Saunders has been stuck fighting in 18 foot inner rings in his last 2 fights. But Saunders has experience fighting in 20 foot inner rings just not recently. And unless Lemieux was a 22 foot inner ring, which I'm not sure if it was, it may have just been 20 foot, then neither fighter would have ever fought in a ring as big as there will be on Saturday.

    Further, looking back to Pacquiao Clottey and Pacquiao Margarito, both which were at AT&T stadium, those rings do look a little smaller, and appears to be only an 18 foot inner ring. And also Liam Smith vs Canelo also appeared to have a smaller ring than some of Canelo's more recent matches outside of Texas. So perhaps this 18 feet inner ring was the standard for AT&T stadium, whereas in Nevada and California the standard inner ring might actually be 20 feet?
     
  2. RealDeal

    RealDeal Pugilist Specialist Full Member

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    Another thing that can really affect your perception of the ring is the size of the fighters themselves. For example, a ring that is 22 feet inside the ropes would look huge if Estrada and Chocolatito were fighting in it. However, if it was Wilder and Fury fighting in it, the ring size will look pretty much normal. People need to keep in mind that this ring isn’t just for the Canelo vs Saunders fight, but for every fight on the undercard too.
     
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  3. Brixton Bomber

    Brixton Bomber Obsessed with Boxing banned Full Member

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    But nobody on the undercard threatened to fly home over it, did they?
     
  4. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven VIP Member banned Full Member

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    Marquess of Queensberry rules 1867 :
    (First rule ) : To be a fair stand-up boxing match in a 24-foot ring, or as near that size as practicable.
     
  5. shadow111

    shadow111 Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Very true, Saunders demand for a bigger ring affects not only him and Canelo, but every fighter on the card.

    This is why I'm asking for your help here, it's hard to determine how big the inner ring was in many of these matches. Not only do you have to consider the size of the fighters themselves, but also the camera angles, the zoom on the camera, etc all kinds of factors make it hard to determine. I find it best to take the view from the standard hard camera when they zoom in from far away to the ring right before round one starts, then compare that to other fights. Like for Saunders Murray, they never did that normal zoom out, zoom in moment from the hard camera before round 1 since there were no fans. But you can stilll tell how much smaller it was just because Billy didn't have much room to box, you can tell he was worried that he was about to hit the ropes constantly. So you can also tell how big the inner ring is by how much room the fighter have to move around the ring. But we can narrow the inner ring sizes down by what Hearn said about the 18 foot inner ring Matchroom standard. (that means Saunders last fight vs Murray, we can use that as a baseline for an 18 foot inner ring, you know what I mean, and try to determine if these other matches had bigger inner rings, in which case we know they had to be 20 feet) We should be able to figure this out now with that as a baseline.

    I'm pretty sure that this means that Saunders vs Isufi had to be a 20 foot inner ring, since it's clearly bigger than the ring for Saunders Murray, and a 20 feet inner ring is the maximum size in Britain, so we know it couldn't be larger than that. Saunders vs David Lemieux was in Canada, and Canada is known for having bigger rings, there we know that was bigger than 18 feet, so it's just a question of whether that was a 20 foot inner ring or 22 foot inner ring, but Hearn said Saunders has never fought in a bigger than 20 foot inner ring. So if what Hearn was saying is true, that would mean Saunders Lemieux was only a 20 foot inner ring. Unless he forgot about Saunders Lemieux being bigger than he remembered.
     
  6. RealDeal

    RealDeal Pugilist Specialist Full Member

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    I’m really surprised this whole issue wasn’t sorted out months ago. That way, both fighters could have been sparring in a ring with the same dimensions as will be used for the fight. Not trying to compare myself to Canelo, but from my experience, sparring in the larger ring definitely took some getting used to. It became much more difficult and tiresome to try to cut off the ring.
     
  7. RealDeal

    RealDeal Pugilist Specialist Full Member

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    I’m not really sure what you are getting at here. Obviously no one fighting on the undercard is going to have the leverage to try to force a last minute change in ring size.
     
  8. shadow111

    shadow111 Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Do you take that to be referring to the inner ring, so 24 feet inside the ropes? If so, don't you find that mind blowing that Britain doesn't even allow a ring to be more than 20 feet, when the Marquess of Queensberry says it should be 24 feet. According to Hearn, the Matchroom standard is only 18 feet inside the ropes, that's 6 feet on each side below the Marquess of Queensberry guidelines.

    Anotherwords the Marquess of Queensberry rules call for a ring that should be 78% larger than the current Matchroom standard. And the Marquess of Queensberry rules call for a ring to be 44% larger than the MAXIMUM allowable ring in Britain lmao. Rings are clearly too small these days and not even close to the size specified in the Marquess of Queensberry rules.
     
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  9. shadow111

    shadow111 Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    But this is why it's so important for us to determine how large the inner rings have been that Canelo has been fighting in. Because Now I'm thinking that Canelo has been fighting in 20 foot inner rings, if that was the size of the inner ring when he fought GGG, Kovalev, etc and if he has been fighting in 20 foot inner rings, than he's probably been training in 20 foot inner rings, making this 22 foot inner ring less of an adjustment for him. I find it amazing that Billy claims he trains in a 24 foot inner ring but his last 2 fights have been in a 18 foot inner ring lmao. No wonder Billy struggled so much in his last 2 fights.
     
  10. Brixton Bomber

    Brixton Bomber Obsessed with Boxing banned Full Member

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    That nobody has a problem with it, bar Bill.
     
  11. RealDeal

    RealDeal Pugilist Specialist Full Member

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    Yep, it definitely appears so. To be honest, I’ve always found BJS to be annoying, and complaining about stuff like this just seems to be par for the course for him.
     
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  12. shadow111

    shadow111 Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    It should have been, but look at it this way. This was obviously a strategy for Saunders to prepare for a larger ring without telling anybody, to surprise Canelo with this during fight week. But here's the thing, if in Fact Canelo has been training and fighting for years in a 20 foot inner ring, and if Saunders has been training in a 24 foot ring, but fighting in an 18 foot ring, then Canelo may have the advantage. Because then Canelo has been fighting in a larger inner ring (20 foot vs 18 feet) than Billy has been fighting in his last 2 fights. So Billy doesn't have the recent experience of actually fighting in a 20 foot ring, which Canelo has, even though Billy trains in a much larger ring.

    I think Canelo will adjust fine to this as long as he's been fighting and sparring in a 20 foot inner ring, as opposed to 18 foot, which seems to be the case. Though I still would like some confirmation on this, take a look at Canelo GGG and try to determine how big that inner ring is 18 or 20, now after looking at the Matchroom rings, I'm thinking Canelo has been fighting in 20 foot inner rings.

    I think Billy's team was just surprised at how much smaller the ring was when he got to AT&T stadium, he was probably expecting at least 20 feet, especially since he was under the impression that Canelo himself have been fighting in 20 foot rings in his recent fights. If you look at all the other fights at AT&T stadium from the past, like Pac Clottey, Pac Margarito, Canelo Liam Smith, those AT&T stadium rings do appear to be smaller rings than most of the rings Canelo fought in since he fought Liam Smith. (vs GGG at least, that appeared to be a 20 foot inner ring, do you agree)

    It's just odd that Billy failed to mention that he had been fighting in this same size smaller ring in his last 2 fights that he now says is too small for a fight of this magnitude, but now I understand why he left that part out, he left that to us to figure out. His argument was maybe a ring of that size was OK for a small fight in front of no fans vs Murray, or even when he fought in LA vs Coceres. Go back and look at the ring Saunders fought in vs Coceres, that looks tiny compared to the ring for Canelo vs GGG. That had to be 18 feet, maybe even 16 feet, compared to Canelo GGG's ring which looked 20 feet. Do you agree?
     
  13. Gatekeeper

    Gatekeeper Well-Known Member Full Member

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    Saunders wasn't trying to get out of the fight. This is a career high payday for him, he's not throwing that away because of the size of the ring. It's all mind games.
     
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  14. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven VIP Member banned Full Member

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    Yes, I believe it means 24 feet inside the ropes. Old pictures of 19th century rings show they didn't have large corner posts or thick ropes, so the 24 foot would be the actual size, almost certainly.
    I agree, the rings these days are too small. People complain that larger rings allow fighters to "run around" but that's not quite true. It's the judges and referess who need to score and rule against excessive "runners" to discourage it, and it's the fighters who need to learn to cut off the larger rings.
     
  15. Badbot

    Badbot I Am An Actual Pro. Full Member

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    Wladimir Klitchko has a funny story where a woman told him no way could he be the heavyweight champ because he looks too small :lol: