Barry Jones is a very good analyst. Don’t see him too often these days but I always thought Steve Lillis was quite useful as well. Andy Lee I always rated but over the last year he’s had some horrific takes.
Simply because it generates views. That's all it is. Look at this thread for example, 2 pages on a boxer's father appearing on a BT sport show. Whether you like him or not, it's generating discussion which is what BT want.
Why not? I don't see it as any worse than the usual Sky stuff. Sky and Matchroom are ridiculously biased, everything teed up to subconsciously manipulate the consumer's perception of events. They do it in a sly, smarmy and premeditated way. Big John Fury is as biased as it comes, but he just blurts it all out in any way he so wishes at the time. I'll take the latter over the former, but can't stand Steve Bunce's white knighting of Big John. These images say it all. That's the way a man looks at another man when he wants to get on his good side. I've seen it a thousand times. [url]https://ibb.co/GCDNXqQ[/url] [url]https://ibb.co/ftw01Zf[/url] [url]https://ibb.co/588VXMP[/url] [url]https://ibb.co/6r99LzV[/url]
Lowers the quality of the show IMO. Sticking someone like John Fury on there just because he might say something outrageous. As a boxing fan I would rather his place were taken by someone with more credibility that's all.
Just the way the media is going, all about things going 'viral' and getting attention. Whilst Ben Davison explaining the intricacies of Fury vs Joshua with Andy Lee is good from a knowledge POV, to the average punter it's not nearly as interesting as that 'character' John Fury raging at David Haye and giving him a 7 figure wager.
Totally agree about Sky. It's extra annoying because all it does is breed generations of casuals who parrot phrases they hear from Hearn, Adam Smith, Bellew and Johnny Nelson as if it actually means something. "Chisora is ALL WRONG for Usyk" for example, you seldom hear anyone who gives sound analysis say "ALL WRONG". There's no nuance when saying something like that, in layman's terms it means "every aspect of Chisora is a bad matchup for Usyk". Just absurd. It doesn't help to develop the boxing knowledge of these fans, just gives them skin deep analysis to make them feel knowledgeable. Dreadful stuff.
Fair enough. I'm not big on sensationalism, either. I prefer proper analysis. I'm not a boxing expert, so I like to learn about the sport. I find that the older generation of pundit is better than the just retired, or younger generation. I used to like Jim Watt, despite disagreeing with a fair bit of what he had to say. The main thing I look for is that they keep it toward the analysis, they give their true opinion on matters. It seems that Sky just serve to hype everything up these days. Yes, I agree. It's all about drumming up sales. Sky definitely feel that any objectivity risks negativity and they clearly think that there is a causal relationship between negativity and lower sales. In other words, unwarranted hype = more sales. Business ethics is a bit of an oxymoron. Matchroom have such a close relationship with Sky these days in terms of depth that your average consumer could quite easily perceive the two to be the same organisation. There was a lot more objectivity toward David Haye and Lennox Lewis. Watching the Sky analysis of Lennox Lewis is an entirely different world from what we have today. Lewis was getting criticised heavily after the Klitschko fight and was always being referred to as too negative. You'd never hear that today, if he were with Matchroom. They are just a bunch of spin doctors and let's be honest, sports fans are generally a fickle bunch.
Agreed. Sky know their customer base and know exactly how to market to them. They've done the analysis and clearly found that having a biased Bellew/Macklin/Nelson type show is better for them commercially. I think you can see it bleeding through in the accepted narrative about Boxing amongst their audience. They did exceptionally well to make out AJ was 'invincible' and even make Dillian Whyte appear far better than he is. Their primary audience are football fans who might watch a bit of IFL, follow 'no context Hearn' on Twitter and buy a couple of PPVs a year. They must know what they're doing. Their audience aren't people who post on a fairly niche boxing forum!
Well, Haye did say Wilder would knock Fury out last time. He changed his tune when Fury beat the hell out of Wilder (bit like yourself, if I remember rightly ). That was the point of contention last time. I think this time it was all a bit manufactured as a sequel to last time. Bunce even "promised" that at the beginning. John Fury is just one of those guys who always thinks someone must be contradicting him anyway. But yeah, you're right. Haye's fair enough and admits where he was wrong. Back in 2013, Haye really made a big deal about Fury being "a nobody", I remember that being a strongly made point, he was very disparaging about Fury's rise to some degree of prominence. Which is fair enough, all part of pre-fight (though the fight never happened) "war of words". But Haye could be really b!tchy, where Fury was always more tongue-in-cheek. That's probably all done and forgotten now though. Apart from that, Haye's "toe incident" always lurks in the mind of true fighting men as a source of national shame. Funny though, I remember when John Fury had a problem with Lennox Lewis because Lewis picked Wlad to defeat Tyson Fury. Now he's saying Lewis "warms his heart" with his praise towards his son.
It was all geared towards Haye and John Fury to have a bit of banter..... they were plugging it from the start of the programme.