Does anybody else think that boxing protect its fighters too much? Why do Amateur stars who have been in with the best in the world for years, get put in with poor quality journeymen for 10-15 fights before they get any sort of title shot? Surely these fights are just wasting the fighters time and they should be pushed harder if they have this top level experience. If you look at UFC their current heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar fought for the title in his 4th Fight. Recently this has changed slightly with Shumenov fight for the WBA in his 9th fight and Groves and Degale seem to be getting pushed along a bit faster than normal. What does everybody else think?
theres a massive differance from ameture boxing to the pro ranks , whilst i agree some fighters stay at a poor level for a little to long i completly understand a promoter making sure his man has the best chance
nope. unlike ufc which relies more on luck from the various combinations of what you can do makes brock lesnar who was already at a advanced age just pile through dudes. also he was carried by the promotion same with kimbo. boxers can get into the rankings very early but usually burn out or are exposed too much of there tricks and become easy to beat. leon spinks, shumenov, muangsurin where quickly finished at a high level. you have to learn and you have to tough it out. becomes less about winning and more abut gaining experience. also there are so many fighters in a division, that you have to beat them to get to the top it's not all hype.
There's always been exceptions to the norm. But for the most part, boxers are held back for longer than they need to be IMO. If it's a well known prospect with a lot of hype, then I don't think they need to be fighting journeyman type early on in their career (at least not for too long), but other prospects that aren't that well known get a nice looking record built by fighting these types and more exposure due to it, and are taking less risks.
yeah def. some guys just stay fighting the same level of comp until they are past it. mendy is a good example. british boxing has some really sturdy journeyman and a tough sanctioning body, so it's hard to build a record easily. i.e. ghana and latvia fighters getting visas. and by 20 fights you have to be in domestic contention. which may have limited but good fighters which might beat the younger less experienced pro. a reason why we have had the heavyweight roundabout of late.
Yes, boxing does protect its boxers too much. It's embarassing. I love boxing but MMA embarasses it. In MMA, fighters are looking to step up after about 5 fights. In boxing it takes about 20 fights. It's a joke.
Yea i think many boxers stagnate because their fighting the same bum journeymen for too long. Look at kevin Mitchell he has had 32 fights and only about 4/5 of them have been relevant fights, Similarly Willie Limond had 35 fight and all bar about 6 max have been against journeymen. There are must be hundreds of other examples of fighters who have paded out their record with meaningless fights.
There are journeymen of all kinds of ability. A lot of our ''journeymen'' would be considered bums anywhere else, with ten times as many losses as wins, whereas our fringe contenders and gatekeepers (like Stefy Bull) would be journeymen. A journeyman should be capable of upsetting a prospect off his game or taking a couple of rounds of 6/8.... not just running away to gain a pathetic ''moral victory'' (whatever that means) and getting another payday the week after. More Bull's, Komjathy's and less Nesbitt's, Greaves's - that's what we need.
If boxers are protected it's because too many fans throw a fighter under the bus the instant they lose. The sensible among us realise that styles, circumstances and sometimes a bad night lead to these things. GBP seem to be making an effort to put their guys in 50-50 fights or fights where they don't have all the answers. That's great for us and it seems to be changing HBO's approach to who they hype.
your first point is true, your second point is also right their flesh and blood and that is overlooked,[sometimes by myself] , yes it was a good competative night of boxing, i enjoyed it. so youve made some good points.:good do you know what happened in the mendy bika fight.?
Lesner is an exception to the norm in MMA, also its a sport that is more about natural ability like strength, boxing is more about skill and technique. Someone like James DeGale or Frankie Gavin could probably beat a world champion if they performed at there best in a years time, but would they be able to hang onto the belt when there faced with a tough mandatory. Boxing more than any other sport has a building process, you build a fighters style, attributes, abilty and star power.
