The REAL Reason why the Heavyweight Division is considered weak

Good point. I have a hard idea thinking that somehow, we're worse off for now having a truly global Heavyweight era, but that's exactly how the picture gets painted. You wouldn't think opening the door to more fighters and talen would make a division weaker.

It's like people would truly rather go back to what it was 25 years ago when there was no base of real foreign HW talent- just the occasional challenger- instead of what it's turning in to now, where the base of HW boxing is moving from the US to overseas with the occasional US contender/beltholder. Now, because we're not familiar with the fighters and few make much of an effort to endear these guys to US fans, the entire division gets labeled as ****.

I'd go so far as to say it's not just the HW's that suffer from this- boxing in general in the US gets knocked not because things are actually worse, but because alot of fans don't know the fighters anymore. So we wind up with alot of people believing that some unknown Ukrainian "champion" would get knocked out by Kimbo ****ing Slice because that's the guy they've seen on commercials.

 

:deal

Nice post.

 

thanx man.

i cant believe a lot of people dont consider this when it comes to heavyweight fighters.

 

a fact or your opinion?

 

Sadly, advertising, and promotion counts for a lot.

 

It's because Wlad is terrible.

 

Exactly. There wasn't nearly as diversified a group of HW's than there is right now. The Holmes & early Tyson's eras were far worse & history will prove me correct.

 

the thing is even fights between fighters that are not Wlad are unimpressive. ITs not just a question of Wlad dominating. You look at fights like Valuev vs Chagaev, Arreola vs Witherspoon, Peter vs Maskaev, Toney vs Rahman, Povetkin vs Sykes or Eddie Chambers, etc and you think "Damn these guys suck"

Even without Wlad dominating, people would say the division sucks

 

Because they all use Miranda's nutritionist...:nut

 

IMO a lot of it also has to do with the state of play ATM.

So many top HWs don't fight each other or just don't fight.
When they do - it's an ongoing saga leading into it ... look at Gomez/Virchis or any other of the HW fights which have been postponed due to injuries or just plain messing around.

So many HW's don't seem to take their sport seriously - and come in out of shape for what are big fights. And then there are people like Tua who should have been right in the mix but have been MIA for years on end.

Lastly, there is the fact that until recently boxing has been hard/expensive to access for a lot of people around the world, and has been virtually ignored by the mass sports media. Casual fans never get the chance to see significant fighters on their way up and often even in title fights. If Wlads fights were getting reported in the mainstream media and people at my work knew who Povetkin was, then any fight between them would resonate all the more in the sports fan community.

In the 70's (before my time) everyone knew exactly who the key HWs were, and Tyson fight were leading sports news casts and making headlines on the back pages, and this translated into a perception that the HW division was perhaps stronger than it was.

Here in South Korea the media never shuts up about Beckham and it's somewhat hard to explain to people that he's not the best footballer in the world at this point in time (far from it).

(at work and a bit rushed ... sorry for any typos)

 

Because David "better than Prime Ali" Haye hasn't arrived yet :tong

 

If Brewster's not a fringe contender at best, tell me who else he's beaten other than Wlad.

 

Brewster is pretty much a gatekeeper that Wlad had no business losing to. Still avenging a loss is always a good thing.

 

Wlad really had no business losing to either of the 3 fighters hes lost to, he is always a KO loss waiting to happen in reality.

 

Wlad has won against too many top 10 boxers with diverse styles
to be considered anything but a good champion. He's defeated
powerpunchers with strong chins like Peter and outboxed slick boxers
like Chris Byrd. He's defeated difficult southpaws like Sultan and
tall, massive fighters like Austin and Thompson. He has reigned as
champion for a long time now and has taken on all comers. He is
building a legacy and writers in the future who know their stuff
will give him his due credit.