The British Disease

Hardcore Brits cannot be fooled.

The general public lap it up though.

 

Not really. Thats sort of the point of the thread I think...

Anyway, Hatton, Kessler etc are victims of their support in a way. If a promoter can sell out soccer stadiums matching the home town hero against alphabet soup mandatories, he will; thats their main objective, money making. There's just no market for it in the US, the country is too big and diverse I suppose. The closest you get is someone like Pavlik, or Taylor, guys from small towns who don't have sports teams. But still, its nothing like the same scale; Hatton probably takes more than the population of Youngstown to Vegas to buy tickets.

 

Problem you have in Britain is most of the people in the media build fighters up to be bigger than they are because the talent pool is small because of the population of the country. You can only build up the talent you have regardless whether it be slightly inferior.

Its like the England Football team the people trying to sell the product to you are not going to tell you the team is a load of rubbish are they.

I dont care if you are promoting Micky Ward, if you can make people believe that he is better than he is, and make more PPV money you going to do it. You can also take advantage of the fact that Boxing is a niche sport in Britain and there are plenty of casual fans out there that will take in what ever you are projecting to them threw the television.

Also......... most pundits dont have a clue what they are taling about but still comment on it anyway. I mean do you think some of them guys reporting on skysportsnews have watched Manny Pacquiao fighting JMM X2,Barrera 2,Solis,Ledwaba and him getting knocked out by Torrecampo ? i highly doubt it.

 

If the general public in the UK did not 'lap it up', as you claim, then boxing in the UK would now be near-dead. People in this thread are slating followers of JC, Hatton, etc. but these people put a lot of money into boxing. Boxing is in serious decline all over the world, with the exception of those countries where boxing is the only means of escaping the poverty trap, and the more fans that the Hattons of this world get into boxing, the better for the sport. So, just remember, the general public is far more important than the hardcore......at least when it comes to money generation.

 

Well the casual fan/general public might be part of the reason Boxing is on the decline.

If they were real Boxing fans instead of fair weather fans, they would probably not even put their hand in their pocket to buy PPV for some of these non competitive super fights, if they had a grasp of each combatants credentials.

Boxing would most probably benefit, because the decline of the sport would mean that PPV events would have to go back on terestrial television and their would be far more people getting involoved in the sport, because they are being more expsosed to it and they would not have to pay money to watch it. Some people cant even afford cable let alone buy PPV's.

Also the best fighters would make more effort to fight each other, because the purses would be smaller and the only way of making top dollar would be to fight another top line fighter.

A decline in Boxing could be the resurgence of the sport. All PPV's do is kill the potential next generation of Boxing fans.

 

The mainstream public in Britain follow personality over skill when it comes to boxing e.g. Bruno, Hatton etc

Boxing fans who are relatively new to the game, regardless of where they are domiciled, can get easily caught up in the hype after seeing a boxer do well in a fight

(you can see it on ESB all the time)

 

I dont mean to be pedantic here but Joe Calzaghe was not a two weight world champion as he never fought for a world title at LH.

Hoya makes some very good points but I surprised he missed out Honeyghan from his Brit list.Honey went to Vegas and beat at the time the number one p4p king Don Curry rated p4p number one by ring magazine along with KO and World Boxing magazine.

 

i never fought that a pac victory would send hatton into the elite class let alone P4P best in the world. the only way ricky could do that was by beating all the top junior welters like witter, bradley, torres and holt

he had all to lose and not much to gain by fighting pac (apart from the pay check)

 

I think Calzaghe is that good, thing is he never proved it.

Very good chin, fast hands, unorthodox, he doesn't beat Roy in his prime but who does?

 

Thats fair enough. Not just because hatton is british, but which ever fighter fought pac and floyd on those particular days would have got their arse handed to them, because they were just a level above.

 

great post man, you talk alot of sense

i have gained alot of respect for you :good

 

I dont really care about supporting fighters from the same place as me, I always liked Calzaghe`s style & grit, nobody is perfect & he should have maybe went about things a bit differently but he was Britains most talented fighter, the best, Lewis wasnt on his level IMO.

 

No point us arguing about the same old same old. You prefer Calzaghe to Lewis coz you think he was a better boxer, I prefer Lewis to Calzaghe coz his resume was better and I think he was a better boxer. Fair do's.

 

Hatton and Calzaghe do not belong in the same category.

The fact that they come from the same general part of the world is no reason to lump them together, any more than lumping John Ruiz with Mike Tyson would make sense, given that they're both American.

 

Both are overrated by people from their own country.

Sorry, Hatton was overrated, but probably isn't now - because he, unlike Joe, had the guts to seek out prime world p4p#1's and take them on.

Yes, he lost. But so would Joe have if he fought Jones when he was p4p#1 or Hopkins when he was p4p#1.

Then Joe wouldn't be so overrated, just like Ricky isn't now.

But the all-time great career strategist never did do, hence why he kept his zero, hence why in Blighty you and others still view him a master skilled demi-god, which he never was.