Will A-Side tricks become normal/accepted by most fans in the future?

Only the extreme nuthugging fan girls will defend everything their guy does.

Not all A-side are assholes. Look at Pacquiao. Thurman and Spence fights announced like 3 months out. No fighters complain about Pacquiao heading into a fight. Pacquiao can EASILY hang 3-4 week training camp on any opponent he wants.

 

I hope not. That kind of power/influence should not be allowed to happen!!! The state athletic commissions and sanctioning bodies need to put a stop to it immediately

 

It already is.

For my money it's always been this way, its just that usually the champion is the a side.

The biggest difference now is we have contenders claiming to be a sides based on ticket sales and profit generation etc.

 

I actually agree with you on this.

 

It's been going on like this for a decade, whoever brings more money to Vegas will get all the benefits of questionable decisions, and a-side favoritism, including favorable treatment by athletic commissions.....Then once they reach this "star power" they can dictate any terms, because they can pay most $ buck.

What irks me about this the most, is when Canelo walks in last against champions.....it maybe trivial stuff, but it's just disrespectful.

 

Cotto did the same against Martinez.

Even though they contested Sergios belt.

I hated that. Hated.

 

I think it has always been this way throughout history to some degree but A side tactics with Mayweather and Canelo has been excessive.

But it is not just the A side tactics it is the weight jumping /cherrypicking/ waiting for the opportune chance to choose their opponent. For eg. Canelo fighting an old GGG at 36 yo, Mayweather at 36..

Canelo fought at middleweight then out of nowhere fought Kovalev in an obvious shameful fix at 175. Then instead of staying at 175 he jumps down to 168 after seeing Callum Smith get outplayed by a European level John Ryder (not to mention Canelo gave Callum a short camp + Callum has a non existent resume). Callum Smith also fought odd as if to come to lose against Canelo despite all Canelo was doing was plodding towards him. Canelo and his team most likely took into account bloated up 160lber BJS looking trash at 168 and having won the belt off Shefat Isufi. If Billy had looked any good against Murray, Canelo's team would have probably jumped to another weight. Canelos fight at 168 with Yildrim was also very suspect with Yildrim not throwing llet alone landing a punch (cue the "but Canelo's Counters derhhh"). Canelo hasn't actually had a legit fight against a 168lber yet.

So in Canelos case it is a combination of a side tactics, weight jumping, cherrypicking, fixed fights and being a dodgy opportunist. In combination I haven't seen anything like it before. Mayweather was a card stacker cherrypicker but he didn't fix fights

 

A-side "tricks" have become straight up cheating in some examples.

Wlad with his canvas
Floyd with his IV bags

Dictating opponents gloves is real crappy also.

Undermining the commissions who have no balls to take a stand, they are complicit and take part in the corruption most of the time anyway.

Fury's knock the opponent out if fighting in America is now the gold standard.

The biggest problem in the UK is refs jumping in early, my god.

 

Pretty sure this type of thing happened to Gans a few times.

Was it his last defence when he lost to Nelson he was completely made a mug of in the negotiations.

 

Yes.
I remember they did him good with tge weight that time and he was having weight issues for some time.

 

Last year I went through a lot of old newspaper articles trying to dig up some of the strangest pre/post fight antics. Who knows what's true, but all kinds of crazy accusations and rumors would fly about mafia tactics, drugging, biased judges/referees, etc.

There have always been problems, I'm not sure if they've gotten better or worse. Maybe they are just different.

What has changed is that there are fewer fighters taking risks to be great. The Marvin Hagler video from @Rumsfeld showed how crazily difficult it was to get to the top of the MW division in 1979. He was 46-2-1 when he got his first major title shot, we'd be starting to talk about HOF status for him in the current era rather than getting his first title fight.

https://boxrec.com/en/event/436

If every division had 5-10 contenders staying busy fighting each other then Canelo wouldn't be able to push them around. That's the only real solution. You can cry about bullying all you want but it won't stop until you have your own power.

 

It's bull**** and a good way to flush whatever credit that you were due for beating a guy, down the toilet.

Does anybody really believe that Canelo could beat a good version of Kovalev with a proper camp at 175 with no weight games?

Maybe Shadow, but that would be about it.