Game Changed!

I don't think "lack of talent" is a problem if promoters are willing to put on 50/50 fights.
That's how fighters get better, with experience.

 

No bigger accolade out there

 

With Talent scattered around various promotors and networks, its very rare we get the opportunity to see it

 

Too right.

‘Lack of talent’ isn’t causing British promoters to match their fighters against complete tomato cans over and over again.

If anything is killing the sport it’s the complete lack of 60/40 and 50/50 fights these days in a British ring.

When an actual fight happens it’s a really big thing these days.

How the **** did they manage it in the 1990s and 2000s? I remember the sky cards from back then…and the statistics support this. That back then we had far more 50/50 and 60/40 fights and your average card was far more exciting than what is put on today.

 

One example sums up how Earn has fooked boxing

Frank Warren - Big Fraudley v Danny Williams British Title Fight on ITV
Earn - Tony Dosh PPV v Pudding Dullian Whyte British Title Fight on Sky Box Office

Pockets cleaned

 

You got a live Stormzy performance as part of your 20 quid you ungrateful fooker.

 

I agree with a lot of the comments which I am interpreting as the UK boxing talent pool cannot adequately support the number of promotional/broadcasters.All the respective promotors each have some of the best talent but in the main farm in sub standard opponents to keep them winning. Being someone who lived through the Duff/Barret/Levine/Astaire boxing cartel, who had the pick of the talent pool and were exclusive to BBC ,there were numerous 70/30 fights in favour of the left side of the bill but they were able to mask that a bit better than the current promoters.

 

Maybe it's just me but I thought Fightzone was dire. So many , I assume, ticket sellers v journeymen fights and low level main events. I really wanted it to succeed but I let it go as I genuinely couldn't be bothered to watch it on a Friday night. It was more of a hardship than a pleasure and you get better fights on MTK/IFL TV for free. Still they've got an IBO title fight coming soon.

 

Chris Eubank Snr praises Barry Hearn, and drops more boxing knowledge
August 30, 2020



The Chris Eubank Snr Story!

Dubai’s greatest fighting resident gives us a look back through his boxing history, as Chris Eubank Snr, ‘just call me Sargent!’ he says, seems to hint that Eddie Hearn might be to blame for the mess that is Dillian Whyte’s boxing career with some cryptic messages.

Sargent on Eddie Hearn’s fathers’ influence:

My story is I spent 85% of the 80s in New York learning my trade. The best teachers of the art are in America. Then made my way over the Atlantic to London – the home of boxing – and turned down the whole Cartel, both Franks, Mr Eastwood and a few others before employing Barry Hearn to work on my behalf. Finding the right promoter is a key to a keyhole.



If your promoter isn’t capable of landing you one world title fight, then your promoter is exposed as a talker; a fly-by-night. And as they said in the East End – the loud ones never last; the Essex Boys, the pretty boys, the fly-by-nights.

Barry Hearn got me the Benn fight in less than 18 months total, and I wasn’t even mandatory contender. That’s a man you can’t fault. I was making £8,000 a fight under Barry Hearn before the world championship fight, which was dream money to me. They say old school is the best school, don’t they? But you never stop practicing your craft right through your career, so you’re never out of fighting shape.

Benn is on the front cover of ‘The Bible of Boxing’ as ‘Boxing’s Baddest Bad Boy’ and I take him out as it’s hitting the shelves on either side of the Atlantic. American TV turn the fight down because they assume it is just another 90-second blow-out for Benn back in England.



So I do my own thing in the rest of the world for 85% of the 90s – 24 world championship contests; live up in Canada, live in Africa, live in Asia, live across Europe and live in front of around 15 to 20 million in the United Kingdom about five times a year. That’s the Chris Eubank story.



The Barry Hearn story? I mean this is the man. Did Herbie Hide win an Olympic gold medal? No, Herbie came from nowhere, Barry had the eye for him and we got him to the pinnacle against Bowe. That’s the crack. That’s proper.


“The Sargent” Chris Eubank Snr
Sargent Eubank on the infamous first Nigel Benn fight:

In the Benn-Eubank 1990 contest we are using 8oz gloves that are made from horse hair mixed with foam cell. Benn’s long run of knockouts and his one-round wins were the most barbaric the sport had seen. And I was the one man he despised.



My hands were swelled up for days after the fight, my jaw and ribs were tender and bruised for a few weeks, my tongue was ripped apart and my internal organs had been badly damaged. My lip was hanging for a week or so, there is like a dent in my skull for a bit.



Ronnie had to wash me in the shower after, and carry me out of bed the next day to face the press – every word I spoke to the press, and there were many, was excruciatingly painful because my jaw was swollen and my tongue stitched.

And this wasn’t even my hardest fight! That tells you about the Watson II fight. Just that alone. I fought Watson at his very best in June 1991 and it was easy, and three months later he is somehow four times that and wipes the floor with me.


Sargent on the WBO and Lennox Lewis:

The fighter maketh the belt. It didn’t matter which one of the four governing bodies you held, if you were the longest reigning world champion then you were the man. If you had the longest unbeaten record in boxing, it doesn’t actually matter which of the four sanctioning bodies you represent; you’re making that belt. If you fight the mandatory challenger, you’re legit.

And if belt maketh the fighter, then WBC is the premiere belt, and I at least proved I was equal best in the best division if that’s the case. But it’s not. Fighters maketh belts, not the other way round.

Look at Lennox Lewis – the last great heavyweight we might ever see – nobody is saying he’s not undisputed heavyweight champion for not holding the WBO, because he’s Lennox Lewis.

He’s beating all the big names – Frank Brunos, Tommy Morrisons, Klitschkos, Tysons, Razor Ruddocks, Holyfields, Bowes, everyone. Not the very best pound-for-pound fighters, only because they’re at middle and super-middle, but anyone they put in front of Lennie he’s taking out – so he’s the man.

When I say we won’t see his ilk again, that’s across the board from middle to heavy and it’s because a lot of the NBA, NFL, MMA, rugby, Crossfit or wrestling participants you see today – or even PTs – would have been in the boxing gym in 1980 or 1990 or 2000; hungry, boxing.



PPV has taken boxing from mainstream, so the standard has dipped substantially over the past 20 years. They aren’t skillsters today – they are bodybuilders, weightlifters and decathletes. They are masters of calisthenics, not masters of counter-punching or combination-punching. I don’t see the skill sets that I saw in the 80s and 90s.


Sargent on his experience and knowledge:

Nobody knows boxing like me. I’ll tell you for why – I knew my craft, I knew my art. If you take a cross between Ali and Pernell Whitaker, I’m not beating that. Nobody is. That’s Michael Nunn, that’s Herol Graham. I couldn’t gamble that they’d be offensive against me, like when they lost. If they box defensive you can’t beat them. The mindless will think they can beat them.

If you asked Mike Tyson in his peak if he’d beat a cross between Ali and Pernell Whitaker, he’d laugh and tell you he wouldn’t stand a chance. Mike knows the game, one of very few.

I’m very good at math. Roy Jones could throw four left hooks in the time it took me to throw one. Do you understand? I fought to win when I was champion.

I learned from the very best – Mickey Duff, Don King and the like. They’ll lie to you, they’ll take advantage, they’ll tie you in, they’ll play dirty. But I always had the last laugh, because you can’t actually defeat integrity. And my knowledge of the past I try to pass on to any fighter since who cares to listen.

 

Have promoters ever really put 50/50 fights on regularly. Pretty much most fighters have been built up. The difference is eddies just bigging them up more now....which is kind of his job.

We,d be moaning if he wasnt.

I dont get how the same people that seem to watch the shows continually come on and moan about them. Just stop watching if your not happy with them.

Hearns offers his product...if your not happy with the product dont buy it or dont subscribe.

 

100% this.

I sure miss those British Title fights though, when you actually looked forward to it, and knew you were going to get a cracking fight, and the belt actually meant something to the fighters.

 

On the other side of the coin, British fighting legends like Shanny at the age of 26 go from working behind a bar to becoming a World Champion within 25 months after only 7 fights.

Talent cannot be held back and Shanny had to be fast tracked to keep her motivated as she did not want to feast on puddings although she does enjoy a Tesco Trifle.

She had no time to waste on the British Title and she also strongly feels that the European Titles are obsolete now Brexit has happened.

#TeamShanny

 

Do think all the ranking baubles are a big issue.

Sharp vs Caccace would he a superb British fight. Archie won't go near because of his WBO rating

 

Definitely

 

Its because the shows are getting worse and worse. That’s the reason people are moaning. Boxing fans want to watch boxing and they know what’s good and what’s not.

Saying don’t watch it, makes you sound like Hearn.