Defenders of Defensive Fighters, The Lovers Of The Sweet Science... Are They Posers And Snobs?

My only gripe about the OP is this. Yes we're humans. We like violence. It's in our nature. I'm going to use Arturo Gatti (god rest his soul) as an example. Gatti at the end of the day was a bum. Every time he stepped in with an elite fighter, it wasn't even a match. He easily gets demolished. He had to sacrifice his health night in and night out by getting beat the **** up to be relevant. No way in a perfect world should a fighter like him have a better career than Rigondeaux who's intentionally put on a shelf because he's too good. People don't want their fighters to get exposed by him.

The Donaire fight was a prime example of this. It was Donaire who wasn't throwing punches and making it a lackluster bout (same with Floyd/Manny) because he was getting schooled at every attempt. When he finally rushed Rigo and went all out he was able to a score a KD. Then Rigo was able to check him again and cruise his way to an easy, dominating victory.

Back to Gatti now. And this is the case for a lot of "entertaining" fighters. Gatti was intentionally matched with specific fighters he could handle to prolong his career. Gatti like a lot of guys provided cheap thrill entertainment. That's it. Gatti had more pull over Floyd at one point which is ******ed. It's politics.

Too many entertaining fighters are given agenda and the benefit of the doubt and it dumbs and waters down the sport of quality just so a group of people can maximize their money.

This very weekend we have a fight that's going to expose what I'm talking about. Lomachenko is the boxer. Remember HBO hates the boxer right. They like guys who go out and fight and tuff it out. But this weekend, I have this odd feeling that bias is going to change lmao. He ran and hardly threw punches during the Salido fight but that doesn't matter now right. He's the next Ali lol. But when a Floyd, Ward and Rigondeaux do this it's boring. OP fails to mention the politics, demographics and agenda that's pushed for certain fighters in the sport of boxing which is a business at the end of the day.

Boxing is slowly adapting its format to this Rocky bull**** because of the success of UFC that provides joe scho 1 and joe scmho 2 who go out and beat the **** out of each other on a nightly basis. To me boxing should always maintain quality and not fall victim of trying to win a popularity contest by attempting to over hype certain fighters and push agenda for these guys who are not what they're being made out to be.

In conclusion, I'm not a boxing purist because I want to feel like I'm above everyone else as OP suggests. I just like and admire better all around fighters because simply they're better. But in saying that, I'm not totally biased in that regard. My second favorite fighter is indeed Carl Froch. I love his persona, his grit, determination, will to win and heart of a champion. He also is very disciplined when he was active by keeping in shape year round and he isn't considered as a great boxer and gets hate from a lot of people. He's a man who wasn't given anything and went out and earned it all. Just saying.

 

I wouldn't so so far as to call them snobs, but they're definitely Satan's little helpers.

 

Malik Scott last weekend, defensive genius

 

Winning a fight by fighting as little as possible makes sense if the objective is solely to win n not be hurt. However, ain't gonna make no money. Rigo isn't shelved because he's so good, he's shelved cuz he's boring as hell to watch. No one watches his fights. N the ones who do end up booing the guy. It's prize fighting. If you know nothing exciting is about to happen why watch? All the talk about "these guys never been in a ring before" n crap like that is irrelevant. Most fans haven't. The sport can't survive off fans who fought before nor can it survive off the snobs who op is talking about. Instead of bashing guys who come to fight you all should be thanking them. If everyone fought like rigo or Lara or ward...there would not be televised fights. If you want to support boxing as a viable sport you should stop using what happened to mago as support for the defensive hit n not get hit techniques or to bash guys who fight more as opposed to dancing or wrestling. You might as well support banning boxing. I think op is right in that they just want to feel like "better" fans. Elitists. You're a pathetic ungrateful bunch. I think most of us live in the grey area anyone who is to far to one side is either a very casual fan of boxing or a very enthusiastic fan of being a fan. Honestly, I'd rather talk to the very casual fan rather than a guy who is more obsessed with proving how much of a fan he is.

 

This, is an informed and well written post. Glad you took the time to write it.

 

Sometimes this is the case definitely. I mean why would anyone wanna see defence overcome offence?

That being said there's a lot to admire about fighters trying to leave a legacy. Crawford, Ward and Hopkins have all took very difficult fights to prove they're the best in the world. style wise boring but you have to respect their drive.

My favourite style is defensive wizardry in the pocket. like Mike Gibbons. I detest clinching though. If they made clinching a more serious offence the sport would be a lot better. clinching should be a last resort when trying to survive, so maybe two clinches guarantees a lost round make people fight up close.

Imagine how different the last ten years would be with no clinching.

 

This whole thread has some really good responses. daprofessor and TheyDontKnow have issued some great responses in here. This is my first thread here and its a good one. Boxing would be alot different without clinching. But it would almost always favor the larger man with a larger reach.

For instance. Cotto was a much better boxer than Margarito. Way more skilled. But you throw them in a ring 50 times without clinching and Margarito probably wins 50 times. I think clinching is a neccessary evil in boxing. But I do feel that it needs to be kept in check and excessiveness needs to be penalized.

Good Stuff

 

It might favour the bigger man to some degree but it also encourages in fighting at an elite level.

If Cotto slips inside and reduces range, if he can win the exchange up close he wins the fight. If Margo can control range and get him on the way in he wins.

Wladimir would have nowhere near as much dominance if the clinch is taken away from him.

 

Well Wlad is a special case. Hes a case of excessiveness which i feel should be penalized. I just think its a neccessary evil for some smaller guys to get inside. I think we saw some of that last saturday night. Ward did some clinging to get inside the larger man with a longer reach. So he could fight inside.

 

But what if instead of clinching he had to rely on beating the man to the punch, parrying, footwork, head movement and anticipation. What if he had to use skill to get inside

 

The difference between Lomachenko and the likes of Floyd and Rigondeaux is that Loma likes to come forward. Rigondeaux literally makes viewers switch off and Floyd is Duck Runhugger Jr. The greatest forms of defense is that which you are capable of within punching range, ultimately.
Boxing should re-assert rules that make boxers actually fight, rather than take the fight element completely away from the match. Boxing ultimately originated as an off-shoot form of fighting.

 

You made some good points but Rigo is not boring. Some guys are also students of the game and master their craft so they don't have to sacrifice their health and bodies unlike others who just go into a fight and go out on their shield trying to out tough the other. I will always give more credit to those guys who do their homework over the dime a dozen majority who just resort to putting on a show. True heart is in preparation but the masses equate heart by going into a ring and going out on your shield which is asinine and lazy IMO. Boxing is a science. Not rockem sockem. We have UFC for that cheap thrill bs. If we want entertainment with 2 guys exchanging blows, why even go through the motions of it being a boxing match. We can just flip a coin to see which boxer takes first crack and then let them take turns till one can't go on. Without skill what merit is there for even having a ranking system to determine the true best. Thank god there are skill fighters in the game because they are the true measuring sticks of the sport. They expose "entertaining" fighters like Donaire, like Manny and the Gattis of the world of just how truly limited they are and they're just as important although outnumbered as the rest of fighters that make up boxing as a whole.

 

Well I think essentially thats what you need to use to get inside and cling on in the first place. But a little grabbing or clinching once you get inside helps keep the fight inside for a period of time. Otherwise we'd just have a guy trying to get inside Paul Williams punches the whole time. A guy like Williams or other gangly fighters for their division would be almost impossible to beat.

 

I agree. You need a variety of styles and skill levels. Or else things would be very boring.

 

Not impossible, just difficult. But it should be harder to beat a bigger man.