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The first leg of Showtime’s promising super middleweight tournament kicks off next Saturday and if a fight fan fell asleep in, say, 1988 and woke up today, he’d think the whole world had gone topsy-turvy.
In the eyes of most, Arthur Abraham, Carl Froch or Mikkel Kessler are likelier to win the whole thing than are Jermain Taylor, Andre Dirrell or Andre Ward.
In case you’ve forgotten, Abraham is an Armenian based in Berlin.
Froch is from Nottingham.
Kessler hails from Denmark, of all places, which has produced in recent memory all of two fighters of note: little Johnny Bredahl, the bantamweight belt holder of the 1990s, and the heavyweight Brian Nielsen, whom comebacking Mike Tyson pummeled into something resembling 260 pounds of jiggling eggplant parm in 2001.
These three favored over Americans? To fight fans of my generation, it’s an unthinkable proposition.
We grew up with Jim Watt and Richard Dunn and Frank Bruno. With Lorenzo Zanon and Davey “Boy” Green and Lucien Rodriguez and Murray Sutherland. Earnest losers.
European fighters weren’t the best guys in the world. Most of the time they weren’t even in the top 10. And they were never favored over the better American fighters.
Yes, there was Marcel Cerdan and Randy Turpin and Ken Buchanan and Nino Benvenuti. But they were the rare exceptions.
Most of the time European fighters came over and tried hard and after they got pancaked they shrugged their shoulders and went home and were heroes for having made the trip. They were humble and usually in awe of their American brethren.
Later a lot of them stayed in Europe and became big stars but never sought out their American counterparts. Then, one by one, they came. And they conquered.
Lennox Lewis. Naseem Hamed. Joe Calzaghe.
In the eyes of most, Arthur Abraham, Carl Froch or Mikkel Kessler are likelier to win the whole thing than are Jermain Taylor, Andre Dirrell or Andre Ward.
In case you’ve forgotten, Abraham is an Armenian based in Berlin.
Froch is from Nottingham.
Kessler hails from Denmark, of all places, which has produced in recent memory all of two fighters of note: little Johnny Bredahl, the bantamweight belt holder of the 1990s, and the heavyweight Brian Nielsen, whom comebacking Mike Tyson pummeled into something resembling 260 pounds of jiggling eggplant parm in 2001.
These three favored over Americans? To fight fans of my generation, it’s an unthinkable proposition.
We grew up with Jim Watt and Richard Dunn and Frank Bruno. With Lorenzo Zanon and Davey “Boy” Green and Lucien Rodriguez and Murray Sutherland. Earnest losers.
European fighters weren’t the best guys in the world. Most of the time they weren’t even in the top 10. And they were never favored over the better American fighters.
Yes, there was Marcel Cerdan and Randy Turpin and Ken Buchanan and Nino Benvenuti. But they were the rare exceptions.
Most of the time European fighters came over and tried hard and after they got pancaked they shrugged their shoulders and went home and were heroes for having made the trip. They were humble and usually in awe of their American brethren.
Later a lot of them stayed in Europe and became big stars but never sought out their American counterparts. Then, one by one, they came. And they conquered.
Lennox Lewis. Naseem Hamed. Joe Calzaghe.
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