At that time Maloney didn’t have social media to help him. There was no IFL or YouTube promotion for his fighters. On what planet was Maloney “not a great promoter”?
No, the thread isn't about Fury. Fury still has a lot to prove, yes. As for Joshua, he still has a lot to prove but he's a commercial phenomenon in Britain. The point is, should "numbers" (sales) matter to us boxing fans ? If so, why ?
Gee, as if by magic the sock puppets appear almost exactly the same time asking lame rhetorical questions.
Odd situation with Lewis back in the day re: TV- he boxed mainly on Sky but had a couple of fights on Wire TV (a very obscure cable channel) including the loss to McCall and fought Rahman on the BBC when they were involved in boxing. He did do relatively decent numbers but nothing spectacular outside the Holyfield and Tyson fights.
At the time I seem to recall most people felt he was pretty much a canadian trying to milk a few extra quid by lending himself to Britain. I'm not sure he was ever really taken to the hearts of Brits while active. Like most things in the UK, people actually get warmer when you stop.
he was seen as of the 'plastic' brits perhaps unfairly that we had in various sports around that time.
He was a Canadian trying to milk the British market. Or at least he was a British-Canadian-Jamaican-American trying to cash in where they were crying out for a heavyweight champion. But, by 2000, he was recognized and accepted as "a great British sporting hero". He won the 1999 BBC sports personality of the year award, and had an ITV show "An audience with Lennox Lewis". He was regarded as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. And he hadn't fought in the UK since 1994. Still, he struggled to sell 10,000 tickets for the indoor London Arena, Millwall.
No disagreement from me. I'm prepared to accept his numbers were pretty low. I'm not sure he really was taken to the "national heart", despite the usual media attempts to push him forward. It's one of them where you're told someone is a big star, but there's a sort of forced feeling about it all. I do think Lennox is a big star, but a big British one? Well...not really. He's a big boxing star though.
I don't think they do to any right thinking person. What they do do however is explain why certain fights are more difficult to make with one fighter bringing a disproportionate amount to the table money wise and thus wanting this reflected in the split. Now does this make a difference to us personally? No. We won't see a penny but to the fighters? It makes a huge difference and can be the difference between a fight being made or not.