Are fighters avoiding each other more now than ever?.......

With so much money in the game, it's the best thing to do.

 

Someone said that today amateur boxing is the sport and pro boxing is a business which is an interesting and agreeable point of view

 

Boxers have always avoided each other. White boxers like Jeffries and Dempsey drawing the race line and not fighting blacks. Champions avoiding all the best contenders. Big money draws avoiding the best. It's always happened in every era. Even Sugar Ray Robinson avoided Charles Burley

 

With fighters being so inactive it makes financial sense to maximise profit while minimising risk.

More S6 tournaments in other divisions would be great but unlikely.

Today's scene is a joke, the 2 top p4p stars wont fight each other. In the HW division the top 2 guys wont fight each other & the #3 wont fight the top 2.

I miss the fab4 days where the best fought the best.

 

No it is the fan's fault not the fighters. If fan's weren't so quick to dismiss a fighter after a recent loss then the majority of fighters wouldn't care about facing the top opposition.

Look at what happened to mosley career, looked what happened to alexander and williams career, look what happened to haye after one loss. You suddenly become a bum in the fans eyes.

 

Us fans are partially to blame, in my opinion. We’re hard to satisfy.

 

the devide between the rich boxers and the poor is becoming wider and wider every year.

There are becoming less hardcore fans, with most people only interested in 1 or 2 high profile bouts each year.

So there's less money in the smaller fights and more in the super fights.

most boxers are been carefully navigated, and protected and marketed to try and become one of the superfighters.
Theres a massive emphasis on being undefeated.

So yes i think so.

 

Not really, this era has less depth though and more padded records before any semi-competitive fights happen. Every era has had avoidance, with some top fights happening but allot not happening. Everyone says 'oh it's not like the Fab 4 of Leonard, Duran, Hearns and Hagler who fought everyone'. Except ofcourse for Mike McCallum, Nunn, Bomber Graham, Kalambay amongst others

It's always been that way, see Dempsey who was making millions, while all the other top boxers were on chump change, Greb who was 1 of the best ever, no one even kept his video footage. See Robinson making shedloads while Burley beat Archie Moore after coming back on the bus from a full time job. Or Jersey Joe Walcott who couldn't afford to box full time.

Today is the best time financially to be a boxer

 

Vernon forrest was not an elite fighter, losing to mayorga twice proved that.

You say williams was mega hyped, but now he not? Why is that, is it because he got knocked out by martinez a man in the top p4p rankings. People seem to forget the 1st victory he held over martinez.

And people was running scared of williams, why did mayweather, mosley, cotto, pac not fight him when they could have?

You do exactly the same thing I'm saying the fans do.

 

you've hit the nail on the head here and reluctant roy must take his fair shame of blame for this.

i can remember hopkins ducking calzaghe in 2002 to fight hakkar and bernards delusional fanboys to this day still try to make excuses for his blatant duck.

 

I just read this about Jones, Jones decided to be self-managed and wouldn't work for Don King, he wanted to fight Benn, Eubank, McClellan but they were under other promoters. King wanted to have Benn-Jones but demanded Jones on a multi0fight deal, Jones asked for a 1fight deal. Eubank admitted to not wanting it when he was unbeaten. Darius was in Europe and fighting far inferior opposition. Hopkins turned down 40% on the rematch. Jones beat better opponents than all these men

Mayweather is also self managed and has the same problem with Bob Arum

Now allot of fighters weren't self-managed but still had promoters and managers keeping them away from the best. It's smart management not to lose your best asset without a very good return on your investment