US Boxing Bias - Worst In The World?

[abadger]

"And in this corner, the p4p, undefeated, most biased in the WOOOOORLLLLD... THE US OF A!"

WE DA BAST..... AT EVERYTHING....

Ha! Very funny. LOL

[Bobby Shaw]

You are awesome. You are completely allowing your dislike for British fighter to cloud your judgement of boxing. Everything you say is wrong, and anyone with even a passing knowledge will tell you the same. Do you like boxing really, or just Floyd?

Man you have a problem.You need to seperate issues here.I have shown anyone with reason how people support some fighters not out of excellence but national issues.This aint a no British fighter campaign,I mentioned I like Witter and I believe Witter is the best 140lbs fighter,Witter is British.I like Haye,he's undisputed champion at Cruserweight,he's British.

Ricky Hatton,-one dimensional hypocrite,who even lies about doing things for his fans by fighting in Mancheste.The reality was HBO didnt want the fight.(Thats another issue altogether-but you wont see this because you are too British to be reasonable and analytical)

Calzaghe-I looked at his record,if this was for a job application,I wouldnt even invite him for the interview.The quality of his opponents is pathetic

[Sweet Pea 50]

Ha! Very funny. LOL

I was just trying to lighten things up a little bit.
For me, a great fighter is a great fighter. Race, or nation has nothing to do with it in my eye's.
I can't lie, Calzaghe wasn't really on my radar until the Lacy fight.
Well, he woke me up with that performance. That was an EPIC ass whooping.
And yeah, I picked B-Hop to win in his bout with Zags. But it wasn't bias. I thought the old junkyard had one more great fight left in him. I was wrong. I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again.

[abadger]

I was just trying to lighten things up a little bit.
For me, a great fighter is a great fighter. Race, or nation has nothing to do with it in my eye's.
I can't lie, Calzaghe wasn't really on my radar until the Lacy fight.
Well, he woke me up with that performance. That was an EPIC ass whooping.
And yeah, I picked B-Hop to win in his bout with Zags. But it wasn't bias. I thought the old junkyard had one more great fight left in him. I was wrong. I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again.

We've all been wrong before! I too try to be objective, and I totally understand why some people picked Hopkins. Also I agree on Lacy. It was ridiculous.

[Dynamite Kid]

Man you have a problem.You need to seperate issues here.I have shown anyone with reason how people support some fighters not out of excellence but national issues.This aint a no British fighter campaign,I mentioned I like Witter and I believe Witter is the best 140lbs fighter,Witter is British.I like Haye,he's undisputed champion at Cruserweight,he's British.

Ricky Hatton,-one dimensional hypocrite,who even lies about doing things for his fans by fighting in Mancheste.The reality was HBO didnt want the fight.(Thats another issue altogether-but you wont see this because you are too British to be reasonable and analytical)

Calzaghe-I looked at his record,if this was for a job application,I wouldnt even invite him for the interview.The quality of his opponents is pathetic

who has Shane Mosley beat of any note besides Oscar he fought nobodys as a LW and got beaten Decisvely by Forrest ,Winky ,twice & he should have lost the second Oscar fight ,lost to Miguel Cotto aswell

he beat Oscar and he has 2 wins over completley shot to bits Fernando Vargas who had a glass jaw anyway ,yet Shane is seen as a Legend

[βetamax]

sounds like a sensbile point well made to me ,good post

Thanks but I'll probably revert back to being a bias and arrogant American after this post.

[Clegg]

I don't think that Americans are more biased than any other group of people, but I think that Americans are more influential in the sport than any other group of people, and so the bias has more effect. For example people all over the world read Ring magazine, and so will be influenced by it. The same is not true of European magazines.

I watched lots of fights from HBO on sopcast or downloaded, but I've watched very few from German TV, and the ones I did are unlikely to influence me because I don't speak German.

One thing Americans seem more likely to do is judge boxers that they have never seen. For example if we did a poll on who would win Pavlik vs Abraham most people would vote for Pavlik. This is fair enough if you have seen both of them fight, but the fact is that some of those people voting have never seen Abraham fight, they are just giving Pavlik the benefit of the doubt based upon his previous performances.

The same is true of Vernon Forrest vs Sergiy Dzinziruk, Zsolt Erdei vs Tarver, Hopkins, Johnson, RJJ or Dawson. I don't think that this is a nationalistic bias in all cases, for example most of those same people would pick Hatton to beat Kotelnik, even though they haven't seen Kotelnik fight. It's just a matter of picking a guy you've seen prove himself over a guy you haven't seen at all.

In the UK we get to watch a lot of the British boxers and the top Americans. This means that when someone from the UK steps up to world level, some of us Brits will have seen him fight a few times and will probably have seen his opponent too, and therefore can have an informed opinion on who would win. That opinion may be influenced by patriotic bias, but it is likely to be closer to the truth than that of someone who has never seen the UK guy fight and is just giving the benefit of the doubt to the boxer they are familiar with.

I should point out that there are a lot of good US posters on this site and I'm sure most of them do not do that.

[abadger]

I don't think that Americans are more biased than any other group of people, but I think that Americans are more influential in the sport than any other group of people, and so the bias has more effect. For example people all over the world read Ring magazine, and so will be influenced by it. The same is not true of European magazines.

I watched lots of fights from HBO on sopcast or downloaded, but I've watched very few from German TV, and the ones I did are unlikely to influence me because I don't speak German.

One thing Americans seem more likely to do is judge boxers that they have never seen. For example if we did a poll on who would win Pavlik vs Abraham most people would vote for Pavlik. This is fair enough if you have seen both of them fight, but the fact is that some of those people voting have never seen Abraham fight, they are just giving Pavlik the benefit of the doubt based upon his previous performances.

The same is true of Vernon Forrest vs Sergiy Dzinziruk, Zsolt Erdei vs Tarver, Hopkins, Johnson, RJJ or Dawson. I don't think that this is a nationalistic bias in all cases, for example most of those same people would pick Hatton to beat Kotelnik, even though they haven't seen Kotelnik fight. It's just a matter of picking a guy you've seen prove himself over a guy you haven't seen at all.

In the UK we get to watch a lot of the British boxers and the top Americans. This means that when someone from the UK steps up to world level, some of us Brits will have seen him fight a few times and will probably have seen his opponent too, and therefore can have an informed opinion on who would win. That opinion may be influenced by patriotic bias, but it is likely to be closer to the truth than that of someone who has never seen the UK guy fight and is just giving the benefit of the doubt to the boxer they are familiar with.

I should point out that there are a lot of good US posters on this site and I'm sure most of them do not do that.

I agree with most of what you are saying, it is a very plausible explanation of why it is that US fighters get lauded to the high heavens whilst people like Hatton and Calzaghe are doubted for all eternity.

At the end of the day it could probably be summed up as easily as saying:

"We all like our favourite fighters and they are usually from the country where we live."

I definitely agree though that the UK posters on here do tend to take a more balanced view than a lot of the US posters, especially as regards the fighters they don't like. I would never even call Lacy a bum, and right now he looks a lot worse than Hatton ever has.

[Dynamite Kid]

i dont think American fans are biased cause the British fans are waaay to overly biased IMO ,not me personally well i dont think so anyway

but like u say American fight fans do have a tendency to dismiss fighters they are not familiar with ,which can be viewed as ignorant or in a nice way misinformed

personally i think the emergence of MMA in the states has helped bridge the gap between Us fans and British /European fans ,maybe American fans appreciate European fighters better than they ever did before ,it is much more exciting now that Boxing is more of a global Sport these days

i must stress it is a small minority that show a total distain for European fighters

[abadger]

i dont think American fans are biased cause the British fans are waaay to overly biased IMO ,not me personally well i dont think so anyway

but like u say American fight fans do have a tendency to dismiss fighters they are not familiar with ,which can be viewed as ignorant or in a nice way misinformed

personally i think the emergence of MMA in the states has helped bridge the gap between Us fans and British /European fans ,maybe American fans appreciate European fighters better than they ever did before ,it is much more exciting now that Boxing is more of a global Sport these days

i must stress it is a small minority that show a total distain for European fighters

Agreed, but they like to make a lot of threads on this forum.