Why Americans slag off calzaghe?

Do I look like Exige? I pick my beefs they don't pick me, and I'm not picking one with Rockin'

KAYJAY - The quote that you have for me in your #43 post is false/fake/illigit.................. Cut it out..............Rockin':boxing: Rockin' my man I sent you a pm in explanation. It was a quote from Anorak. Sometimes now the wrong name appears in the quote box. But that is a problem with Boxingscene, not with me. Edite: I removed your name.

I think the gist of the "Black thing" has about played itself out. After Jackie Robinson was allowed to compete in the majors, a whole slew of talented Black athletes followed. At first, they had to be the best of the best, so as to open the door for other Black athletes. The next thing you know, the majority of ball players were Black. Why? Was this because Blacks were superior to Whites? No. It was because sports were about the only way for poor Blacks to escape the poverty that most Blacks grew up in at that time. Also, those who were trying to tear down the color bar were not going to put less than excellent Black ball players in the majors because that would give the biggots an excuse to not allow any more to follow...."See, the negro doesn't have the capacity to compete with our superior White athletes" or some such nonsense, and the door would have slammed shut. The result was all these great Black athletes in baseball, football, basketball, and boxing. As Black youths grow up, when they want to see Black role models, what to they see? That's right, Black athletes on TV, making all this money and receiving all this acclaim. So, what was the predominant dream of these young Blacks? To follow in their heroes' footsteps and pursue an athletic career rather than to work in an office or whatever. What about White youth? Proportionally, more Whites have gradually crossed the poverty line and are either middle or upper class financially; and their parents are not pushing them to be athletes. Further more, they have a whole variety of role models who are not athletically based. To use a line from "Rocky" issued by Apollo Creed, "Stay away from sports...spots make you grunt and smell. Be a thinker, not a stinker." When I was in jr. high, I wanted to play football; but my dad was adamently opposed to it. Why? He wanted me to focus on my education becasue the odds of me succeeding were greater than in the sports world, regardless of what color I was. Another angle to think about, or rather echoing what I've been saying so far, is that atletes or would be athletes follow along the financial lines. The poor fight, the rich pay to watch them beat each other's brains out. Those who have usually don't compete because they have other paths that are easier that they can follow, whereas those without do what they must and will usually use their body rather than their brains. This is not saying athletes aren't intelligent; I am mererly saying this is the nature of things. The poor work by the sweat of their brow where those with money don't have to and therefore, usually don't. It has always been this way. As Rockin' alluded to earlier in the early days of the last century, the best fighteres were Jewish, Italian, and Irish......guess where they placed in the financial food chain. These days as more and more Blacks escape the projects and enter into the world of the middle and upper class, you will notice fewer and fewer Black athletes. Or, as a friend of mine once put it, for every Black fighter out there, there's a Latino waiting to kick his ass. Guess why. Financial status. It is a cycle as old as man.

All that I can say is that Ive seen Blacks that could fight and those that couldnt fight one bit. Ive seen the same with whites and all of the other races roaming the planet. It comes down to the individual and what they have inside. If the american youth views color as the barometer of talent then they will fall well short themselves. In the 40's and 50's the jews and Italians had a mess of great fighters rolling at the top of the game. Now would you have said that jews and Italians are superior fighters because of their race? Now the blacks seem to be doing great in the latest years. Does this mean that the race has superior fighters because of the race or genes? I would say not. It is a fact if you look through the history of the game that the top fighters of any generation were the same people that were occupying the ghettos at the time. Hard times bring up hard people and thats a must to step in a throw fists, you gotta be hard. ..............Rockin':boxing: All very well said. And you're right to claim that race-expectations can be a handicap. They are and they have been. But for that matter they are not asny the less real. This opens a completely different set of questions than the one this thread handled.

Strangely enough, I think it might be the opposite over here... I'm sure the UK public would love white boxers, and though we're probably doing better in that regard than we've ever done, our most successful boxers have been black. Lennox Lewis... Chris Eubank... and, of course, Daniel Williams. Well in the UK perhaps there is not the same sense of historical injustice complicating racial sentiments. In America things are even more complicated by the fact that the subject is taboo and so very few people will feel empowered to speak honestly on the matter.

Rockin, c'mon I was not say I expect this, but rather I used the first person 'we' in order to implicate us all. You admit that the stereotype exists in our country, and Anorak was only pointing that out to us. I was admitting it, regrettably, as part of the American way of thinking. If you don't see color then that's good for you, but we're talking here about public perception, and race is certainly relevant since most people do not see it like you. And regarding my own "athletic aspirations" I resent that you made it a personal attack. I was commenting only on the mentality of the public. I never backed down from anyone personally. But I'll admit that I always gave it a bit extra in pickup basketball games in black neighborhoods because I felt like I had something to prove. If you never felt that way, then you've been bigger than I.

You expect the atheletes in your country to be black? You must have set some low expectations of yourself or maybe your not athelticaly inclined, who knows. With me race is not an issue but in this country I would agree that there is a clear stereotype, as seen in your words above. White, black or whatever. Either they can fight or they cant. Thats all that I see.....................Rockin':boxing: Rockin, c'mon I was not say I expect this, but rather I used the first person 'we' in order to implicate us all. You admit that the stereotype exists in our country, and Anorak was only pointing that out to us. I was admitting it, regrettably, as part of the American way of thinking. If you don't see color then that's good for you, but we're talking here about public perception, and race is certainly relevant since most people do not see it like you.

You could possibly also add: 5. He's not black. That is probably the weakest thing that you have ever said.................Rockin':boxing: Rockin, don't you think that the racism of the American public extends this far? We expect our athletes to be black, and I don't think he was weak for suggesting that. It may be a sad fact, but nonetheless a fact.

This is not a learned boxing spectator site. It's a universal trashtalking-tough-guy-wannabe site with an underlying boxing motif providing minimal coherence. Watching 47 minute fight videos helps the trashtalking, but the payoff is not so great that everyone will do it. You heard it here first. :owned: :banana: :banana: LOL!!! Very articulate condemnation of casual fans. :D

I know I shouldn't be, and while this forum has improved a LOT lately, I still think that was BS's nadir... that a major fight that everyone was interested in was being commented on when 90% of those discussing it hadn't even seen one of the fighters involved. I used to never speak about fights unless I'd seen three or four fights MINIMUM. At that time I'd only seen about three of both and thought I didn't have the knowledge to make an opinion. It's weird, that little penis Diego Fucko always says that anyone who thought Blow would win must be a "homer" (even if they're not Welsh but English :rolleyes:) yet even my aunt saw Lacy and said that "he's wide open and misses a lot." Why is it my aunt in her sixties noticed something that virtually no one on a "learned" boxing spectator site didn't??? This is not a learned boxing spectator site. It's a universal trashtalking-tough-guy-wannabe site with an underlying boxing motif providing minimal coherence. Watching 47 minute fight videos helps the trashtalking, but the payoff is not so great that everyone will do it. You heard it here first. :owned: :banana: :banana:

I know I shouldn't be, and while this forum has improved a LOT lately, I still think that was BS's nadir... that a major fight that everyone was interested in was being commented on when 90% of those discussing it hadn't even seen one of the fighters involved. I used to never speak about fights unless I'd seen three or four fights MINIMUM. At that time I'd only seen about three of both and thought I didn't have the knowledge to make an opinion. It's weird, that little penis Diego Fucko always says that anyone who thought Blow would win must be a "homer" (even if they're not Welsh but English :rolleyes:) yet even my aunt saw Lacy and said that "he's wide open and misses a lot." Why is it my aunt in her sixties noticed something that virtually no one on a "learned" boxing spectator site didn't??? Well you can't take anything DF says seriously seeing as how he's mostly half-parrot. But your aunt saw him fight, which is the difference between an ecucated opinion and wild guess.

You could possibly also add: 5. He's not black. But 4. amuses me the most. It never fails to astonish me how little research people on here do. Before the Lacy-Blow fight we could have had some interesting conversations as people passed around the fight videos of both fighters. Instead, we got a forum of people who didn't bother to do any research and thought the word "pwn" constituted a debate. I'm not suggesting that the Blow has had a HOF career, but his resume is better than many suggest. Bare in mind that many fanboys on here run down his achievements while bigging up Lacy's, and they share many common opponents. If a completely shot and intimidated Robin Reid was good enough for Lacy to bash about, then why wasn't the prime version good enough to trade with the Blow? If Sheika was good enough to stun Lacy and take him the distance, then why wasn't he good enough to get blown out in five by the Blow? All piss-taking and shit-stirring aside, I don't think anyone normal is saying that Blow is an ATG. It's just the perception (one that I hold) is that if he WAS an American, every day we'd be logging in here to NSB reading "Calzaghe is an ATG, he's better than Sugar Ray, he pwns the azzzzes, anyone who says different is a freakin' HATER, LMAO, pwn!" Annie, you know as well as I do how lazy people are; they want stuff spoon-fed to them. If research is involved, then you might as well forget about it. People will almost always resort to the stereotypes rather than do homework. I honestly don't know why you're surprised. ...oh, and your #5 I completely disagree with.

A variety of reasons. 1. He's not American. 2. He's rarely been seen on American Television or been pimped by HBO or Showtime so that the braindead have someone telling them he's relly "that good". 3. He was the WBO champion, which is a title respected by virtually nobody. 4. Lack of familiarity with him or the majority of his opponents.

roy jone who is supposed to be a legend ducked everyone eubank, benn, colins and calzaghe that man never thought anybody with a hope of beating him for years even Ruiz had no hope the guys hopeless! Part of the reason why there is such a Brit-American rivalry is because you say incredibly dumb things like this. The fact that you brought this up shows your intense bias and lack of knowledge on the issue as to reasons why those fights did not happen. Furthermore, Roy fought various HOF fighters and more than ten top 10 fighters in his reign at 175, including many former and current world champs. His career was not perfect, but for to rap off 5 names like Benn and Eubank (etc) as if Roy 'ducked' them al is, frankly, a joke. Simply put, it is true that most of the Brits wanted to stay at home. Like it or not, that hurts their rep in the eyes of U.S. fans, which is where the Mecca of boxing is. This is a simple fact, and the more Brits deny it, the more it only hurts the rep of their fighters. Remember this: Lacy is the one who pushed for a fight with Joe. And he took it to Joe in the U.K.

You did say Lacy would pwn his azz though, Godzy. so did 95% of the board only ppl that knew he wud win easily was ppl who have seen hgim more than a handful of times

americans are jelous that joe isnt one of thier fighters......... its always the same.........its very hard for a uk fighter to get recognition in the us

I've never talked shit about Calzaghe, I did pick Lacy to beat him, because I had only seen him fight once, and I was not impressed. He impressed me in dominating Lacy.

I'm an American and I think Calzaghe is a very good fighter from what I've seen.

Britain. Is it really that difficult? Not really, it's just that no one cares enough to distinguish the difference.

Last time I checked England was also went to Iraq :nonono: Britain. Is it really that difficult?