Is the boxing apprenticeship becoming a thing of the past ??

Not a bad thing in my opinion. This is the toughest sport anywhere and these guys deserve as much exposure and attention as they can get even if they're prospects. I suppose its natural because only Froch and Haye are world class fighters so people look to prospects.

Plus I think we have some of the best prospects we've had in a long, long time coming through at the moment.

 

It's about making as much money as quickly as possible and getting out injury free with no long term health issues...:yep

 

Hopefully we will se guys like Groves and Degale or CLeverly and Belllew fighting sooner rather than later as opposed to spending years building up padded records and avoiding each other .Khan is a bit of an exceptional case in terms of profile due to his winning an olympic medal at 17 but i dont think prospects having a high profile is a new thing . Look at the hype around Naz when he first started or to a lesser degree even Ryan Rhodes .
Putting prospects in competive fights is no bad things as it will help them to improve .
If either Degale or Groves gets blown away when they meet it probably means they wernt that good in the first place . If as I hope its a good competitive fight then win or lose hopefully they can both learn more from it than they would fighting bulgarian cab drivers or teak tough ghanians .

 

Unless you think that every one of our prospects can be protected to the point of winning an easy strap, then these fights are the BEST part of their apprenticeship.

Thewinfella, I assume your way of thinking is 'If Groves fights Degale, te loser might not progress'? If so, what's the problem?

We don't owe any of these guys anything, we must want only the best to get through, if they can't get through these fights why do they deserve our attention?

The fighters should be commended for risking their '0' (the manafacturing protecting of which is arguably one of the main things ruining this sport) and taking on fights which are not 'two young prospects' it's 'a good fight'.

That is what we should want. The winner then goes on and the other rebuilds. If the loss doesn't allow him to do so, then we shouldn't want him to progress. That's why fighters go into big fights unprepared, and then you're just risking someones health.

Degale and Groves will both learn masses if they fight each other soon. Experience, dealing with a seriously hungry and confident fighter, coping with a different skillset and keeping your nerve when there's needle involved. If anything it would give them a much better grounding then going through the motions until 'they're both holding useless trinkets' or 'it's commercially viable'.

Matthew Saad Muhammad Vs Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. Need I say more?

 

The apprenticeship is gone. Now it is basically a 3 week job seeker course and a nice long unbeaten record.

Reflectant on society.

 

It's not an apprenticeship, it never was. MMA has exposed how protected fighters are. In MMA guys serve their apprentice in about 10 fights. In boxing it can go as much as 30 fights, sometimes 40 - look at top fighters like Williams and Hatton who with backing didn't step up for a long time. Even guys like Saul Alvarez has had 34 fights.

All hype jobs should step up quickly. I'm talking about top amateurs or guys who've been boxing since they were young. Olympians, World Champs etc These guys can jump domestic or go through it quickly. Everyone else can work their way up domestic, europe etc or in the states NABF, USBA etc

DeGale, Gavin, Groves etc should be fighting for titles around 8 to 12-0. They should be on the world stage at 20-0, much like Cleverly.

At the moment these guys are stepping up which is good. It's funny that when they do lose no one cares and often it makes these guys step up - Haye, Khan, Froch etc Even when Hatton lost to Floyd and got dominated, within a few fights he was back in there with Pac in a huge fight.

 

Cleverly has beat Tony Quigley, Tony Oakey, Joey Vegas, Danny Macintosh, Courtney Fry, Brancalion and Karo Murat among others in just 20 fights - hardly a padded record.

 

It NEVER was Boxing used to be much harder to climb the ranks, there are many, MANY examples of fighters doing it the hard way. There are many examples of era's that were stacked and competitive in a way that MMA, in it's admittedly short history, has yet to attain.

MMA is doing it the way Boxing used to. Now Boxing has to look at MMA and go back to its old ways. One title per division would be the perfect start, sadly will never happen. Then again, the many promotional outfits in MMA have stalled great fights not happen in the past (and there are of course many fights not happening now, which you'll know more about than me) due to promotional wranglings.

It's society that's changed, things are just made easier to attain nowadays. Whereas before it was a case of 'can't stand the hear get out of the kitchen', now it's a case of 'he can't stand the heat but will make us money, let's make it easier for him'.

I think that's thewinfellas way of thinking, which I do not understand. Competitive fights are what we need, just because the perception of two fighters is as 'prospects' doesn't mean a good, competitive fight shouldn't be made.

Rant over, bed, I probably misinterpreted your opening sentence anyway AtG Stoned and tired :good