The Man who beat The Man - Every boxing fan needs to listen

Imagine WBA telling to Klitschko "we are going to put you in a tournament including Chagaev, Browne, Ortiz and Oquendo".

 

True

 

Irish travelers are not true gypsies. Most gypsie people in the UK are Romanys who came from Central Asia to Europe around 900 years ago fleeing Islamic incursion. They have lived in England for hundreds of years and tend to look dark haired and olive skined (the ones I know anyway)they like to keep themselves to themselves they unfortunately don't always get on with Irish travelers and object to being lumped together with them by the authorities.

 

the british do.

 

a gypsy is simply a term for a nomadic type of people.

 

..and do they constitute a majority of the boxing fandom all of a sudden?

No, they're still a small niche (if passionate) group in the grand scheme, and so attributing the whole of anti-Fury sentiment to "racism" against gypsies when only a slim minority of boxing fans around the world even know about Irish gypsies is a fallacious point.

 

I consider myself pretty worldly (for a Yank) and tbh I had never heard of Travelers until ESB.

 

Yeah it's kind of sad Tyson is the heayvweight champion of the world. Nothing can take that away from him and it's exactly like Bobby says.

The ring Magazine title is the only title nowdays that REALLY means anything.

 

Agreed.

To most Fury is just another white guy.

 

...not to mention the only title you can really say is "the same" as the one held by Ali, Louis and Dempsey - all the alphabet lineages have broken at some point along the way.

 

Agreed!

 

Not in England he's not. Pikeys are despised here.

 

If I'm not mistaken, and I may be, Fury was Wlad's mandatory, and it's very unusual for a mando to have a rematch clause in the contract. I think that's the crux of the IBF thing. The word is that he only agreed to the clause because he was promised a ****ing massive purse for this second fight.
The sanctioning fee is what, 2%? Pretty insignificant relatively speaking. I reckon Tyson paid it knowing there was a chance he would be stripped, but thought it was worth for the prestige of taking all of Wlad's belts.
There's certainly a stigma against gypsies here, but itseems a stretch to think it played a part in this.