Every other sport great defense is fine but in boxing it's a bad thing.

What ? Being defensively minded is not popular in any sport I can think of. People want to see aggressive attacking play. In what sport are defenders paid more than offensive players ?

I agree with this. People just do not like it that some fighters become so one dimensional and defend only to the point that they slow the fight down to a crawl .... which can make it a boring fight. I prefer an athlete or team that can showcase both offense and defense. Exactly. Sport is supposed to be entertainment, first and foremost and people should be compensated for the ticket prices they pay for a fight that actually entertains them. Or any sporting event for that matter.

Ultra defensive styles are pretty much universally hated in most sports. People want to see players/teams daring to be great and taking the game/match by the scruff of the neck.

That's it, man. All those skills require training and discipline and are very impressive to watch. Numerous times I've heard a crowd cheer when a guy avoids a string of punches and counters. It's very impressive to watch. let a casual watch Willie Pep and they would be impressed. You keep watching to see if the other guy can actually hit him. It's when guys have no skill and use the desperation tactics and are allowed to use them over and over that you end up with an amateurish, low action fight and I'm no casual, but I hate low action fights. Like with Fury-Klitschko. I respect that Fury was able to throw Wlad off and it was a smart performance, but he could have done a lot more and made the fight much more fun to watch. it wouldn't have involved a hell of a lot of risk either. He had Wlad stumped. He could have fired on him more and brought more excitement. Yup, it separates the men from the boys. Real ability is how to evade punches. Fury and Vlad are heavy weights. They burn more energy faster than light weight boxers. And that is why every punch they throw saps energy. That said, I can cut them some slack for clinching at a certain extent, but you have a point it was too much even for a heavy weight to clinch that much. Would have been great if Fury went guns blazing. I think if he was more assertive he could have KO'd Wlad.

Who says great defence is bad? I've never heard a genuine fan or renowned boxing analyst sya such thing. What's bad is if that defence is not backed up by appropriate attack. I dunno about nfl or near but in almost every major international sport, simply defending is as bad as simply attacking. The best teams and the ones who provide the most entertainment have a balance of the two. The same is said of boxing. I agree with this. People just do not like it that some fighters become so one dimensional and defend only to the point that they slow the fight down to a crawl .... which can make it a boring fight. I prefer an athlete or team that can showcase both offense and defense.

That does show a serious lack of skill. I respect a guy with a great defense and excellent footwork, but all too often, fans try to say a guy who runs and holds is great at both, when he just isn't. He's holding because he can't fight on the inside. He'd running and leaping away from shots because he has no fundamentals as far as footwork and feinting to put the opponent where he wants them. A lack of knowledge and skill overall, which is annoying to say the least. Derrick Gainer is a prime example of this. Just watch his fight with Marquez. Gainer showed speed but not really any skills or heart for that matter. Good points. He's holding coz his skill is limited. Holding is a desperate act of survival. It's the easiest way to get away from a tight fix. Refs that allow this are either paid off or just plain stupid not to notice this isn't allowed in boxing. A boxer should try to get away from a pickle by boxing, bobbing, weaving, slip, sliding, rolling with the punches, feinting, countering, while holding is a form of desperation and is very amateur given they are suppose to be Pros. Boxers are expected to fight/punch and block punches with their ability to evade punches through defense and not by holding.

Clinching is even dangerous when you happen to have an opponent who retaliates by rabbit punching. Guys like Matthysse against Postol is one example. Prichard Colon is still in a coma (I believe) because of the rabbit punches he took from Williams, in my opinion. (I'm not a doctor so I can't be sure of that. I based it on what I saw in that fight.)

If you mean clinches, understand that's an allowable strategy, whether you like it or not. Touching your opponent in distance running is not. That's the flaw in your analogy. Now, if you said something like Ronda Rousey stepping into a boxing ring against Laila Ali and going for a takedown, that's different. It's not allowed. But no MMA fighter should be that stupid. Now, if Joe Calzaghe used his slap boxing skills in the MMA ring and wins, guess what? That's legal. A bit dirty, but still legal as far as I know. You and all of your ilk keep focusing on clinching for your complaints. You complain if Floyd or anyone else clinches even once. That's not how it should be. Learn the difference between clinching coz they got tangled up and the intentional clinching which is not allowed in boxing and an obvious foul. In any sport there are good defense and defense that are not allowed coz it's foul, in other words the kind that has no merit. WBA rules A list of common fouls that may be committed by boxers that may be cause for penalty or disqualification is as follows: ... 13. Excessive holding the opponent or maintaining a clinch. No clinching is allowed. Its a rule , a rule refs dont enforce. Especially floyd go to ref Bayless. https://ronehothiphopdetroit.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/455404770_10.jpg?w=660%5B/IMG%5D You don't prevent an opponent from countering by hugging. That's just not boxing. too much fouling by Floyd and not a single point deduction from Bayless tsk tsk tsk... Look at Pac unleashing his barrage of punches. What does Floyd do? He hugs it out to prevent an opponent to connect. This ain't boxing. This is lame cowardly, foul tactics lol http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk145/daheadache/MANNYFLOYD_zpsg1mmif31.gif . This ain't no defense to be impressed about. This is called FOULING. ...

Actually, even though you do hear that defense wins championships in basketball, defensive teams always get crapped on by writers, they always have poor ratings, and their players never get respect and are labeled boring. It's exactly same thing in boxing.

In basketball, for instance, there are defensive rules that must be adhered to. Otherwise, you're fouled. In boxing the refs are too scared to enforce the rules. The excessive clincher always gets away with it.

Well, if you think about it, running with excessive clinching is one dimensional. It shows your lack of inside skills. You're doomed if the ref happens to enforce the rules. The opponent is like fighting two people in the ring.

Defense always wins championships but slowing down your offense in any sport as a defensive strategy is never popular. Floyd in half of his fights were exciting but his last three fights were stinkers and relied on clinching and slowed down offense. Detroit Piston with Isaah Thomas were exiting to watch and they were winning with tough defense and still played a decent pace offense. Bad defense was Villanova vs Georgetown. Villanova just held the ball for most of the possession as part of the defense strategy which led to a very boring game and also led to adding shot clock in college.

If all you do is defend, no one is going to appreciate you. There needs to be a sufficient amount of attacks put out too. Defending and winning is skillful, its not entertaining. Entertaining to 60 year olds perhaps.

defensive football (soccer) teams are usually unpopular, like mourinho at his worst, tony pulis, sam allardyce, etc. a lot of people even criticise pep guardiola's possession football casual fans just like to see points being scored this, italian catenaccio is the worst thing that ever happened to futbol.

In basketball or football all you hear is defense wins championships but in boxing you have fighters like Rigo or Floyd and they get **** on by boxing fans. Rigo can beat a top p4p guy and get hate from his own promoter. Floyd beats champ after champ, has high ppv sells time after time and gets called boring while the Broncos offense sucks all year no one says they're boring they just say that's football it happens.A football team could win a game 10-7 or 13-3 and people wouldn't say the game was boring, they would talk about how great the defense is. Even a team like the Spurs who some people call boring get respect league wide and from the fans and get called a model franchise by everyone. Do other sports fans just accept the way they're sport is and boxing fans can't? Is it because it's easier to criticize a individual than a whole team? It could be but even mma fans don't really call guys boring if they're great at bjj or wrestling. Why is that? Real question this isn't to start a race debate. If you get all of your information from a message board like this or Twitter, you would think that defense is not appreciated or is a bad thing. However, if that was the case, Floyd Mayweather would not be the most popular boxer in the world since 2007 based on PPV sales and live gates.

The "boxing hipster" crowd (the "oh look how smart and evolved I am because I like Rigo, etc) will never understand that its not so much "skill" per se, but "drama" that captivates the VAST majority of sports fans. Take Ward for instance. Talented, yes, but that "jab, clinch, jab, straight right, clinch, lay on opponents neck, lather, rinse, repeat" style is completely void of any drama. Its just not compelling to watch.

Boxing fans have so many misconceptions about the UFC & its popularity thats still growing & will only get bigger. Now granted the UFC has taken off to a whole new level with some personalities as of late, but the trend was already in play beyond those personalities. The UFC hasn't gotten popular off of hype, the UFC has gotten popular off of results & competitive fights. Seen someone in MMA media say that the underdog has won on the main card 45% of the time this year. In boxing you're lucky if 10% of the main card fights result in an upset. There are also highlight reel outcomes on every single UFC show. Guys get KTFO with those light ass gloves. Guys have much more room for creativity in the cage & with multiple disciplines in play. Boxing & the UFC are two different animals. And most boxing fans who haven't been onboard with all combat sports don't seem to grasp what the UFC & MMA in general offers that boxing has failed to do in a long ass time. And don't get me wrong boxing should for sure hijack some MMA ****, but its not guys talking **** more or hypemen. Boxing needs to scale down all the weight divisions & champions. There is far too much confusion in who the fighters that matter in boxing are. Being the #1 contender means f#ck all in boxing cuz there are 4 of them at any given time. Boxing also needs to make matchmaking a priority for the show thats on tonight or tomorrow not just that big show they are marinating for sometime in the fall. Every fight card needs to matter (All Cards Matter!!!) & not just be about building up a good to great prospect who's 17-0 (13) for a title shot in 3 years by fighting a guy who's been KO'd 5 times in his last 8 fights & hasn't fought in a year tonight. Let the cream rise to the top, don't put the guy you think is the **** on the top cuz you like the cut of his jib & see him as sellable at a future date. Throw the fighters into the fire & they will organically become sellable, it just may not be the guys who are the best possible guys to sell or then again they could create a guy who'd have never thought was THAT sellable into some giant star. I think Manny Pacquiao is a great example of just that. No one would have picked Manny out as some Terrence Crawford or Errol Spence type future star kinda guy. Manny was thrown into the fire & came through it with some L's, but mostly W's, to become the 2nd biggest draw in the sport & surely among the best draws in all of boxing history. That sorta **** isn't happening like it used to not that long ago in boxing & thats a problem. you forgot to mention your favorite...legalize steroids in boxing lol, eff pandas is to peds what el blanco is to cocaine you know im jus ****ing wit you bro, but foreal what stuff have you used/

Defense is exciting when the guy has some pop Rigo to me isn't Boring he makes you miss and can lay you out with one punch. Mike Tyson had good defense under Cus and Rooney he slipped punches than knock you out but when I guy rolls and holds for 12 round with no head snapping punches than it becomes boring cause everyone knows the out come UD in 12 with Rigo or Tyson you don't know what round it would end. Thats the big difference

Imagine Nate Diaz racing Usain Bolt in the 100 meters and hugging him all the way to the finish and then pushing himself ahead at the finish. That wouldn't make Diaz a better sprinter in the same way that hugging doesn't make Floyd, Ward, Rigo etc better "fighters" when they "beat" their opponents with hugging. Ali, Floyd, etc are better *points manipulators*. That's it. Since you mentioned race, the white fighters from the 1st half of the 20th century are much better than even white writers and fans realize because they were "beaten" with hugs.

OP is stupid to include Football, people pay to watch the BIG hits by the DEFENSE in football. Defense in Football is nothing like in Boxing, in football the Defense MAKES HARD CONTACT with vicious tackles, while sticking to the receiver like glue not running away, Defense in football invites contact, its nothing like in boxing. In football its the offensive receiver or running back or QB who must make defensive moves to avoid getting hit tackled and run as fast as possible. also the reason people watch Baseball is because of the hard hit homer. Just like in boxing you watch to see some knockouts or action fights. Also you can't even really hit guys hard in football anymore but still as the big hits go down the popularity still rises.