Rudy Markussen is aiming for Brian Magee

Of course Calzaghe and Ottke were interested in unifying.
Ottkes trainer admitted he didnt want to fight Calzaghe and Ottke said Calzaghe didnt have a belt he wanted, but Ottke did unify the WBA & IBF belts.
When there were world champs willing to face Calzaghe he unified also.
Reid when champ wouldnt face Calzaghe. Woodhall was supposed to but lost to Beyer and Beyer wasnt interested. The WBC belt was passed around a bit until Kessler came along.
Steiglitz I dont think would have reigned for long as the previous era was a bit stronger than todays in my opinion

 

Ok, we disagree on that.

I think that there was a long era after the division was invented where very few countries took it seriously.

The UK was one of the only countries that took the division seriously and therefore the SMW championship was virtually a UK championship.

Slowly the division gained more weight around the world and today it is one of the deepest and best divisions in boxing - with world-wide competition and appeal.

 

Prime Larsen (98ish-03) was better than Stieglitz, easily.

 

The first SMW unification was Hearns/Leonard 2. Both American and a massive fight.
The division was always taken seriously, its just that America didnt have as much success in the division for long periods whilst Europe did. Similar to the HW division now which is strong but called weak because America arent doing well.
When Lacy was thought to be the greatest thing going, the division was hyped again.
As Ward is now being hyped after being a gold medallist and entering the final of the S6 it is once again hyped, but Ward hasnt done much more on paper or overall than Lacy or B Mitchell (Americas two previous top SMWs).

Remember for an ignored division
Jones was at SMW longer than he was at MW
Toney was at SMW longer than he was at MW or LHW
Nunn was at SMW longer than he was at MW or LHW

Its just all were a bit overshadowed by fighters like Eubank and Benn

 

Collins isnt British.
Not even remotely.

 

Thats my fault that he said that, as I said British when talking about fights between Eubank, Benn and Collins and didnt reiterate that Collins is from Eire (South Ireland)

 

Back in the golden days, the boxers wasn't the stars - the boxing shows were......

Mogens Palle was the only promoter and he rolled boxing i Denmark. In the 1980-1990-2000, he held shows all over Denmark every second month. Therefor he needed a lot of fighters. The entrance payed the salaries.


Danish national TV began to show the fights and all in a sudden, boxers became popularly athletes. I.l guess thats why boxing still in Denmark are so big to people in generally.

If the shows should go on, the boxing stars should be on a constant roll. Therefore every fighter generally fought foreign opponents. When the record was good enough, Mogens Palle more than once succeeded to get the fighter "A big money fight" for a championship belt.

Normally the fighters lost, and that ended there carrier.

But when Kessler won, then all in a sudden, the fighter was bigger than the show. Now Mogens Palle had to secure big fights to contend Kessler and his fans and the shows every second month stopped. Now only big money fights twice a year could secure promoter Mogens Palle. He had to cut down on fighters and at the end, this ended the golden danish boxing show era.

Now TV2 Denmark with there show "Fight night" shown on national TV tries to bring back the events. There are still a lot of boxing fans i Denmark, and the shows are popular. The last Kessler fight was also shown on national TV, and more than 2 mill (out of a 5 mill population) watch the fight live on tv.....

 

You can say ALOT of bad things about Sauerland, but their promotion has saved danish boxing, and taken it to a whole new level. All of our prospects are getting well known to the public because they all fight on the "TV2 Fight Night" shows.

Kasper Bruun, Kim Poulsen, Patrick Nielsen, Micki Nielsen, and our veterans Rudy Markussen and Christian Bladt.

Absolutely brilliant marketing. Also makes the lives for our boxers alot easier that they dont have to pay a percentage of their souls to Mogens Palle each time they want to have a fight. Palle destroyed Mads Larsens career with contract disputeds, and almost did the same to Kessler (Hence his long layoff pre-Perdomo)

I'm grateful to Sauerland.

 

Interesting post.
Now that the fighters have become more popular Larsen vs Markussen Im guessing could be intriguing with Kessler facing the winner if he beats Steiglitz. Just a thought.

Still as said very informative interesting post

 

You have the coolest avatar ever!!

 

Your avatar: Thought Otkke only fought on ARD..

 

But did Markussen really drop Otkke?

 

This.


Also, did Markussen really drop Otkke?

 

I did mean for Danish TV.

I do enjoy the SMW division, theres been so many talented fighters over the last 20 years that have been overlooked or missed out