If it is someone who really knows absolutely nothing about boxing I'd take a very different approach.
People are at their most invested in a sporting match when they know one of the competitors.
They probably won't know people like Naz, or Gatti or Hagler or perhaps even Pacquiao.
They probably know Tyson, but Tyson's fights were either uncompetitive blowouts, boring clinchfests by survivalists, or he lost.
You need someone who is both recognizable and has some sort of cultural lore.
Everybody knows Ali.
So I would pick an Ali fight.
Everybody has heard the phrase "Rumble in the Jungle" or "Rope a Dope" but not everybody knows the full lore around Ali-Foreman. It's like "Luke I am your father" to someone who hadn't seen any Star Wars movies yet. They know the term, but have no context yet.
That makes Rumble perfect for a boxing newbie. It's a dramatic fight, with dramatic commentary that places Ali squarely as the underdog, it is the origin of a couple of popular cultural phrases in most English speaking countries, and it features the greatest triumph of perhaps the most recognizable face in all of sports.
Ali-Foreman. No contest.
I hate streaming services and it sucks that i have to use two of them to see all the fights I want to see. Buffering sucks (and i get 250 mbps) and it happened about a dozen times during the card.
I flirted with a persistent subscription to DAZN but they don't have enough good fights often enough to warrant paying every single month. So i just use them as a cheap PPV service.
I haven't done anything other than a free preview with ESPN+ yet, but having to pay $10 to see Loma fight a no-hoper is insulting and I won't do it. Especially when they still charge $65 - $75 for mediocre PPV events on top of that.
The only decent value right now is Canelo. Otherwise, boxing has become more expensive to watch post-HBO.
Dude started at 154 pounds and we are criticizing him for not fighting top heavyweights. This is how far gone we are with our expectations. If basketball fans were like us they would slam Jordan for not guarding Centers every game.
Anyway, at the time he moved up, Tyson was no longer relevant. Roy wanted a heavyweight title. Mike didn't have one, he just came off a loss to Lewis, and opted for a comeback fight against Etienne shortly before Roy's fight against Ruiz, which turned out to be the final win of Tyson's career.
Holyfield didn't have a title, either. After Jones won the title from Ruiz, he did challenge Holyfield, but Holyfield declined. I remember him giving an interview explaining why and he said something to the effect of "I don't want to spend 12 rounds running after a jackrabbit."
Anybody who faults Jones for not fighting Lennox Lewis is a moron.
Still, Jones' plan was to drop back down and dispatch of Tarver, then move back up for some big money fights against any named non-superheavy who makes him money, then retire as GOAT with $100m in the bank.
But Tarver derailed those plans with a strong performance in the first fight and the rest is history.
It was really that simple.
For the record, I would have given Roy odds over either that version of Tyson or that version of Holyfield. Holyfield went life and death with Ruiz and was Tysons superior. Jones absolutely dismissed Ruiz and Toney stopped Holyfield shortly after. Jones would have beaten them both, maybe even stopped them and today I would be on a thread called "why did Roy cherrypick Tyson and Holyfield?"
No one knows who he is AND it's not just about surpassing 50-0 or 53-0, it's who you've fought along the way to get to 53-0.
Floyd has De La Hoya, Cotto, Corralas, Hernandez, Pacquaio, Alvarez on his resume among others.
Who does Menayothin have on his resume? Can anyone list them without going to Box Rec? I had to look at the title of this guy name in order to type it for this post.
What do you mean? That's not the record. The record is most wins without a loss in a career. The record says nothing about quality of opposition. Floyd holds the record only because he is technically retired. But if Wanheng retires without losing and Floyd doesn't catch him, then Floyd's name is stripped from the record books, like it or not.
IMO neither of them should be recognized because i don't think a boxer should be considered retired until they've been inactive for five years.
Watch it again tonight with no sound. Or record it and watch it later with no sound. I’m curious if people watch it with no sound, who they have winning. I plan on recorded it tonite on showtime and watching with no sound on Saturday. I remember watching it live on PPV and I thought Maidana and Floyd fought to a draw. Then I watched it again later with no sound, and had Floyd by split decision. I will watch it again and try to score it objectively.
Does a one person split decision mean you disagreed with yourself?
When I score fights, I'm not just the judge, I'm the referee too. This removes elements of bias and bribery that is rampant in our sport.
So I had Floyd winning by disqualification. I gave Maidana multiple warnings for low blows and rabbit punches, and after he ignored them, I had no choice but to award Floyd the victory after the 8th round.
Up to that point it was Floyd's closest fight since his No Contest against Zab Judah, though.
If you wait a year to try to build the fight, Garcia will likely outgrow 135 and we will have to do some sort of undesirable catchweight that will mar the fight.
Neither fighter will become a superstar a year from now. Just do the fight now while the weights are still aligned enough.
I think we should make a distinction between representatives of Russia and Russians. Punishing Russians because of where they happen to be born smacks of WWII internment camps and are highly discriminatory.
Punishing Russian representatives is a different thing and that I could get behind. So I would be ok with banning Russian Olympic boxers because they are part of a state sponsored program. But I'm not in favor of banning professional Russian boxers because they are private citizens and might not even agree with Putin's actions. Think of all the Russians arrested protesting Putin. Should we punish them on top of Putin punishing them? Doesn't seem right.
I can think of atleast 4 but i know u will not agree which is fine because we each have our own opinion.
I suppose that is true. I still remember a thread a couple of years back in which someone tried to make a case that Floyd was 0-6 with 42 no contests. I just thought to myself "ok".
I wonder what they have on Miller that they were able to force him to admit to a bunch of false positives. You really expect us to believe that someone would take that many PEDs knowing they are being tested? How can you all be that naive?
Miller is the victim of a MASSIVE conspiracy! I only feel comfortable pointing that out because I'm using a public wifi and VPN. If i don't post again, it means they found me anyway, but I will always stand for the truth!
So you have Terence Crawford taking two L's - Amir and Kavaliauskas?
I missed the Kava fight, but yes, Amir won via DQ. It was one of the bigger upsets I've seen since Taylor barely beat the count to escape with a 115-112 victory against Chavez.
Then let me help you, ref.
Round 2, Crawford gets lured in off a basic trap and eats a BEAUTIFUL two-piece combo with a biscuit:
Round 3, Crawford gets DROPPED after eating a right hand bomb over the top.
Round 4, angry and frustrated after getting DROPPED, Crawford starts holding and hitting.
What say ye?
I say it's time to watch that whole fight and see how he responds to my repeated instructions to avoid hitting and holding!
It's an easy game to play with any boxer in history. Even Foreman. Even Shavers. Just make a list of people they failed to knock out, and then expand it to include people they failed to knock out within, say, eight rounds, and then call them overrated punches for failing to knock them all out or knock them out soon enough for your liking.
Nobody would pass.