Tony Doshua was at pre Klitschko prices as he was 1/10 odds on earlier tonight, Lewis Hamilton at 13/1 with the rest above 100/1 at Betfair. After being recently exposed of blatant racism, it would appear that the public have seen through the mask. Looks like he is going to need an image transplant to worm out of this one as keeping a low profile has not worked.
How would it be embarrassing if Joshua won!? Hate on Joshua all you want but you can't deny that he is good for boxing, and him winning would only be a positive for boxing surely?
I wouldn't say that. Lewis Hamilton didn't even get top 3. The guys that came second and third as niche as you can get.
Tony Doshua was 1/10 odds on, Lewis Hamilton 13/1 with the rest 100/1 and over earlier on tonight. Neither Tony Doshua or Hamilton made the top three.
This shows boxing is seen as an unimportant sport now compared to when Henry Cooper won SPOTY. Bruno also lost out in '95 after beating McCall for the title.
PPV must be a major factor behind the low popularity of boxing as only a tiny audience actually pay PPV to watch boxing. Many of the big fights in the sport are simply out of sight out of mind for the vast majority of British TV viewers. No doubt many BBC viewers would see Bellew present an award and say that it is the guy who had a small part in the latest Rocky movie with no idea that he boxes for a living.
He could have redeemed himself by chinning that jug eared, sanctimonious, virtue signalling, tax dodging hypocrite, Gary Linekar.
Mo Farah: 83,524 votes Jonathan Rea: 80,567 Jonnie Peacock: 73,429 Anthony Joshua: 73,411 Adam Peaty: 63,739 Lewis Hamilton: 60,627 Chris Froome: 47,683 Harry Kane: 18,759 Anya Shrubsole: 15,237 Bianca Walkden: 13,962 Johanna Konta: 7,591 Elise Christie: 6,504
Nobody has won the award having been broadcast exclusively on pay TV. Even Lewis and Calzaghe (the Lacey fight) had terrestrial exposure before they won it. Shockingly low totals though.
Hardly surprising, the massive casual fan base AJ has are highly unlikely to be voting for something like the SPOTY awards. Quite surprised Farah wasn't the favourite to win considering it was the last year he would be in the running.
Anyone else find it hilarious that AJ got 73,000 votes, and Tyson Fury got 72,000 the year he was nominated? Imagine Fury actually had a promoter.
The BBC have treated Boxing as an unimportant sport for years now and they probably were relieved that Joshua didn't win as it would have been pretty embarrassing for them that their main annual sports award would go to a man whose sport is never shown on their channel.