How much more does it mean, to win a title in the other guys back yard ?

With Bellew it was a vacant title he won.

Anyway it generally means they didn't have bull**** helping them, and may have had to overcome some, so it does kinda matter.

 

This. It takes a lot of confidence in your abilities to go into enemy territory and beat your opponent. More often than not you have to either completely school or destroy the home town favorite to leave with the belt. Some examples I can think of immediately are Oliver McCall beating Lewis, Byrd beating Vitali, Ingemar beating Floyd Patterson, Fury beating Wlad, Corrie Sanders beating Wlad, and Indongo beating both Troyanovsky and Burns.

 

Depending on your mindset, fighting on your opponent's home turf can also have a liberating effect; no endless requests for tickets, no hometown press to hound you, no "gotta look good in front of all my people" stuff to worry about......seems far easier to me to travel and just meet the guy at his house. Probably pays better too.

 

Depends WHICH backyard.

Some places you only have the crowd energising the other guy to worry about, other places you have the crowd, the judges and the ref to deal with. But in general I'd say that the "road warrior" types are a cut above the "Ottke and Clenelo Show" types who have every possible advantage and you virtually have to beat them with a bat to win.

 

A boxer needs to take matters into his own hands and not leave anything to chance. A lot of people think Mamby should have gotten the decision over Muangsurin in Thailand, but it didn't happen. When he got his second chance against Kim in Seoul, he had to fight more aggressively late in the fight to prevent a similar decision.

 

Agree. Generally speaking I see it as a virtue. It takes a serious degree of self-belief to continually fight in other fighters' hometowns in front of a partisan crowds who are cheering every time the other guy even throws a punch, let alone lands one.