There was a time when fighters had to pass a test first before they become contenders

Right now there's no gatekeepers in the HW division, raw prospects become contenders really fast and get destroyed by the K-Bros, I think Povetkin is doing a good job by ducking the Klits until he is ready

 

Its endemic of all boxing right now ,

No fighter is developed anymore like they used to be - meeting progressively tougher opponents , maybe dropping a points loss or two once they started to meet guys in the top ten but using that experience as a learning curve .

These days as soon as a prospect suffers a defeat we right him off as a hype job or a bum - two losses and his career is all but over , fighters dont have that 'seasoning' anymore that comes with the experience of mixing it at the top level with different styles of fighting .

Now its 20 fights against weak opposition to build an impressive KO percentage then in for a title shot - where are the gate keepers ? The proffessional journeymen who could give a top prospect 10 rounds of hell - they may risk losing thier 0 on thier record but such a fight is a like a Phd in the development of a fighter .

Look at Jermaine Taylor - in relative terms he was still only a prospect when he was put in with a master craftsman like B Hop in only his 24th fight
Yes , he got the decision twice but now at 33 when he should be just coming off his peak but still very much at the top of his game, instead he
his shot to bits and going nowhere .


just mt 2 cents and I dont know jack **** really !

 

youre right....
look at shannon briggs resume...and this isnt sarcasm...the guy doesnt hold 1 win his entire career over a top 10 guy except a 48 year old foreman who he ran from all night...and the white wolf who behind on all cards knocked him out with seconds left in the fight


june 2007 lost to Ibragimov
2008 inactive
dec 2009 Marcus Mgee 22 wins 17 losses
april 2010 rafael pedro 20 wins 8 defeats
may 2010 dominc alexander 19 wins 8 defeats
rob calloway 70 wins 11 defeats (1 win last 5 fights)


that impressive resume of 5 fights in 4 years against guys that werent even top 100 ranked earned him the beating of his life vs vitali ....
lots of things have changed over they years....its pretty bad

 

that actually is pretty dead on :good

 

There seems to be a lack of gatekeepers in boxing in general and specifically in the HW division.

I miss those fights that told us whether the young guy was for real or not. It depended on whether he could get through an established veteran who was trying to hang onto his career. Great drama and truly hard fought fights.

 

I think a big problem is fans like the ones on this board that are constantly starting "hypejob" threads about any prospect that loses a fight. Promoters take their cues from talk like this and won't put their young fighters in with anyone decent.
People don't seem to want good competition anymore as much as they want celebrities and hero-worship.
Take a guy like Lucian Bute. The guy is damn good, but he's got two things working in opposite directions, for and against him.
On one hand, he's being lauded as the greatest ever by his french-canadian worshipers. He hasn't really earned that yet.
On the other hand, the guys he's been beating lately aren't total stiffs. He's fighting the "just under the top echelon" level guys, and blowing them out.
True, we don't know yet if he belongs with the elite, but let's not call the guys he's beating bums. They've won a lot of boxing matches themselves. People think they're commenting on Bute alone, but their really giving a backhanded slight to the journeyman fighters that this sport so desperately needs in order to develop those guys.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop here for now. My basic point is, fans have to take part of the blame for the state of the boxing scene.

 

Boxing fans have to take their part of the blame for creating 'hypejobs'. But it's the promoters who are responsible in my eyes.

You have a promising young fighter, maybe even an olympic medalist, who at best is also popular with some part of the public and has an exciting, fan-friendly style. This is any promoters dream, they sign him and put some cash in that fighter. Not because they want to build up the GOAT, but because they see a lot of $ - and that is perfectably understandable, because they're businessmen. They want to have a new star, and a star better have an unbeaten record and at least 1 belt so he can call himself 'the champ'. The sooner the better. There you go, he's getting set against 15-20 journeymen, none of them too hard, no risky fights, and these days that's enough to create a buzz and have him ranked very high with at least one of the corrupt boxing associations. If things go well there's at least an eliminator to be fought, but most of the time the new star gets his title-shot at the big stage, ready or not, and the promoter can finally cash in. If he wins, everything is fine, but if he loses he'll be a total failure doomed to lurk on the undercard of the next young star his promoter then chooses to build up.