Is a boxer a household name pretty much if he's known to the casual fan and non-boxing fan as well? Basically Ali, Tyson, Holyfield, Leonard, Hagler? What about the borderline household names, I'll list below names & please comment whether they fit this description, doing so will help to better understand I think this concept of "household name:" Teofilo Stevenson Laszlo Papp Micky Ward Andrew Golota Brian Nielsen
House hold vary from country to country friend here Tszyu and Fenech are still topics between old and young alike as is Danny Green... Aussies typically still know Ali, Tyson, Roy Jones jnr and oddly Sugar Ray Robinson although his career is often blended with Leonards it's still nice to hear him mentioned causally. You won't hear someone outside sports knowledge talk about Hagler here... and Stevenson is largely unknown aside from cuban folk and Olympic boxing die hards from my experiences. personally i originally discovered him attached to an article about being an unknown great.
None. I never saw a photo of Stevenson when I was in Havana 2 years ago. I never saw a pic of Papp in a bar in Budapest or Vienna. About 5 years ago I was in NYC, Upper 44th st ,I drank in Jimmy's Corner Bar every night ,its loaded with boxing memorabilia,I don't recall a pic of Ward there , nor Golota.I can't speak about Nielsen, in his homeland he might be popular ,but I've never been there. In my twenties I hitchhiked half way around the world,I saw Muhammad Ali's photo in small abodes in Tunisia,Algeria,Morocco,Spain,France ,Italy etc. Apart from Joe Louis and Mike Tyson ,no fighter has really reached the non boxing world.imo
Household name, of course, will vary from country to country; I imagine that in nations where boxing is more popular, you're more likely to find non-fans who can name fighters. Here in the US, it's been decades since a non-boxing fan could name a fighter, and to me, that's what signifies the decline of boxing's popularity in the US. When someone who's a non-fan of a sport, any sport, can name an athlete, it suggests the sport has achieved mass appeal: Gretzky in hockey, Jabbar/Magic Johnson/Bird in basketball, Carl Lewis in track, etc ... the US hasn't seen anyone like that in boxing consistently since the 80s. A non-fan could conceivably know Leonard, Duran, Hagler - I think Mancini had a certain following as well; I don't think Holmes ever quite reached that level. Tyson was a given. Evander, maybe ... I'm sure I'm missing a few, but today you'd be hard pressed in the US to find a Joe on the street who knows Wilder, Fury, etc.
