What seperates a Hard Core fan from a Casual fan?

What about people who plan their lives/weekends around only 1 or 2 fighters?

 

My avatar

 

When you start putting your time, energy, and money into something, you start to cross over from being a casual fan. A guy who keeps HBO and Showtime primarily for boxing, attends a few cards per year, orders a couple of PPV's, and plans his weekends around fights is on that path.

It doesn't mean you have to watch every fight or can't have interests outside boxing, but friends and family realize that boxing is an part of your life.

 

When your wife doesnt include you in any social events that take place on friday nights and saturday nights. When your wife can rightfully justify buying a $800 Louie Vuitton purse because your monthly cable/boxing ticket bill exceeds that. When you sneak thru MGM grand arenas employee entrance on fight day at noon to sit and watch the under cards and not leave your seat for 9 hours till the whole venue is over

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5C-cqw2s00[/ame]

 

speaking as a former mgm employee its very easy you'd be suprised...

 

If two men slugging it out in a four sided, elevated ring isn't the greatest thing to you than you are a casual.

 

Right on!

 

no thats fanboyism

 

when you always see one poster stuck in a specific thread,

Here's where you can see a poster are casual fans. they have the most posts in one A,B,C thread while no such posts in another thread concerning X,Y,Z fighters.

Tip: look at posters who are mostly in these thread but not in other thread:

TKO6 thread
Pac-Floyd thread
Haye thread
Rigondeaux thread
Nonito thread.

you bet you wont see them in other threads like

SNV thread. (wait, I dont see any SNV threads anymore????)
Uzman ahmed the great thread
Koki kameda

 

True, but some couldnt get into boxing gyms due to health, but would still rather watch boxing video live or not whenever he has the free time.

I used to watch Thai and Japanese fights, and their commentaries was awful. you would know that those commentators are bias to one fighter because everytime A fighter lands a punch, commentators would shout with excitement, while if a B fighter lands a blow, you would hear like they were having conversations in a bathroom or watta **** else.

 

somebody that study the game and understand the sport from a technical standpoint

 

I believe it is the interest level. Simple to say right, but if you are really interested in boxing, like everything else, you will proactively find the lesser known boxers and matches from different sources. For example, US doesn't cover matches in Japan or Thailand, but the hardcore fans will follow it as that is there interest.

 

Hardcore fans follow boxing the way hardcore football fans follow football. They watch boxing on a consistent basis and follow more than just the mainstream names.

Casual fans know who the Mayweathers, Pacquiaos, or even Cottos are...they couldn't tell you who lets say....Hank Lundy is or Darnell Wilson..they just watch the big fights and usually only PPV...sometimes the HBO cards, but that's it.

A casual fan might only follow one fighter too...alot of *******'s are casual fans that pretend to be hardcore fans but they only watch Manny and things attached to Manny.

 

My take on it (and this is primarily based on what I do, TBF, so I can't speak for all):

When someone asks who your favorite boxer is, a hardcore (or at least not a casual) fan wants to know: All-time? Active? Which weight class? Based solely on technical ability? Marketability? Male or female? (See bio. )

A serious fan counts down the days until the weekend (for boxing, I mean), and plans around that week's boxing schedule (I add them to my phone's calendar as soon as I know the times). Then watches, and has opinions on, the undercard.

Budget permitting, a serious fan collects professional boxing merch. I mostly go for books (A History of Women's Boxing is really good) and clothing. I have several racerback tanks: one with the 6th-gen WBC belt, one with full-on alphabet soup, etc. Mostly excited about a Hagler vs. Hearns tote bag that's being delivered next week. I'm hoping some random boxing fan decides to strike up a discussion over it. LOL.

I don't think following the boxers' personal lives/social media presences is required to make one more than a casual fan, personally. But I have followed one producer's boxing documentaries with interest, and I got a "welcome to Twitter" comment from Ebanie Bridges (which had me fangirl-ing stupidly for about a week ).

I expect a lot of old-timers would consider me a casual. I'm admittedly a much newer fan compared to some of y'all and haven't had time to peruse all the matches available. Can't get some of the older PPVs I missed, so I've mostly been through what I can watch on DAZN and Showtime, and all the classics on ESPN+. At one point, I actually would've been one of Lopez Sr.'s (at Lopez Boxing Gym, which is close to where I live); but I'm moving up north now, so that's not gonna be a thing here.

All that said, I prefer to have serious discussions about boxing; but casuals are admittedly pretty fun sometimes, and I think they have a lot of, um, passion - as well as some quite interesting/surprising perspectives.