How big are boxers popularity wise abroad. i mean i know pacman is like a god int he philippines cuz my mom knows who he is but hwo bout others. how bout hatton, khan and calzaghe in england? or kessler in Denmark? or Abraham, Klitscho in germany? povetkin, Ibragimov, chagaev in russia? solomon in australia?
in the uk it is not as big as it once was due to the fact that many boxerw careers have only been on ppv tv. calzaghe for example fought 90% of his fights on sky. but equally how many americans would turn up to watch boxing if it was on at 2 am in the morning on a freezing novemeber night and calzaghe will still manage 40 to 50 thousand i would guess. in germany boxers are big, due to free mainstream tv coverage. biggest is japan where i read 60% of the population 60 to 70 million ? watched the 2 hamada brothers fight recently. now that is big.
really i would think that boxing would be bigger now than ever in the uk since they have great boxers at the top.
At my old job (a department store) I met alot of people from other countries and often struck up conversations that led to boxing. The Danes I met knew who Kessler was but seemed to be more interested in soccer. The English people I met definitely knew their boxing. Eubank, Benn, and Bruno seemed to be favorites. Met some Australian people and Danny Green's name would come up often.
in australia every man and his dog knows mundine hes like toilet paper and everyone wants to have a wipe on him.its weird how everyone hates him i know he's a dumb**** but talent wise in footy or boxing hes the best. but kostya and jeff fenech are definatly household names as well.
In Germany there are quite a few well known boxers; most popular are certainly the Klitschkos. Typical audiences for fights would be: Klitschko: 11-13 million (2-3 million if it's in the middle of the night) Chagaev: 5-7 million Valuev: 5-7 million Abraham: 4-6 million Sturm: 4-6 million Interest in boxing as a whole is very limited though, it's more a quick late Saturday evening entertainment. Nobody in Germany would know Floyd Mayweather for instance.
Biggest names in Australia are Anthony Mundine & Danny Green. After that probably guys like Paul Briggs(coz of his book & kickboxing connections), Vic Darchinyan & rising star Michael Katsidis.
Mundine is the know by everybody in OZ. He would be in top 5 famous sportmans in Australian and with out dought the most hated by a country mile.
Everyone in England knows who Hatton and Calzaghe are.. Khan is getting alot of exposure as of late too so they're all quite well known..
You'de be suprised.. footballs alot bigger over here.. and with the success in the rugby at the moment you really don't hear too much about boxing..