ESPN and Bob are a perfect match, in both the good and bad aspects of it. The overhyping of the house fighter is standard operating procedure for any promotor/network tie in...no different than the Golden Boy/HBO days, PBC, & DAZN. Personally, as long as we get better cross promotional collaboration between networks than we did in the HBO/Showtime cold war days (and it looks like we are so far), I'm alright with it. It's never going to be optimal, but that's probably the best we can hope for
What's the matter, didn't HBO for years use same method to sell their fighters. At one point, declaring Roman Gonzalez pfp the number one fighter in the world.
Whilst it may have been cringey, what is even cringier is the amount of people, who probably posted those threads like "Schwarz for the upset" and "Can Fury handle this young hungry dog?" And those same people are probably in this thread slating the coverage, acting as though they never bought into it
People with no appreciation for boxing history have no appreciation for the lineal championship. They're the same people who embrace flavour of the month sports like MMA. For those who do have an appreciation of boxing history, the lineal h/w championship of the world is the only one that matters. I think "lineal" has lost its relevance in all weight divisions other than h/w. At h/w, it's more important than its ever been. Recent results bear that out. The fighter who ought to be recognised as the legitimate #1 in the h/w division also happens to be the lineal champion. The divide between lineal & non-lineal only ever becomes an issue when the lineal champ isn't universally recognised as the legitimate h/w champ over a sustained period of time. The last time it became a significant issue was when Mike Tyson unified the alphabet belts & Michael Spinks remained the lineal champ. If you haven't been a boxing fan dating back to at least that time you probably wouldn't have any appreciation for the concept & what it invokes.
God you guys sound like a senior citizens group complaining about young people these days.. ESPN doesn't care about this message board cause they know you all will watch whatever they dish up but they need to sell Tyson Fury to the casual market which earn them the dollars that they want.. Was a brilliant bit of marketing and it seems the casuals lapped it up... Success!!!
Fury beat Klitchko and the majority believe he beat Wilder. You can argue about whether he is a "linear champion" because of his inactivity after the Klitchko fight. Maybe by rights he forfeited that title. It was smart for him to have a couple of comeback fights before getting in the ring with Wilder. I don't think you can criticize him for doing that. After a life and death fight with Wilder I thinks its fine for him to fight a fighter like Schwartz. Whether he is a linear champion is debatable, but I believe at this moment he is the number 1 heavyweight on the planet and he is good for boxing. The Schwartz fight was good for boxing...as long as there is no repeat anytime soon.
That’s why my last sentence was getting more involved, because they haven’t really been overly involved in pushing the sport other then Friday night fights.