Comments Thread For: The Beltline: Do journeymen exist only to ?stat pad? prospects?

[BoxingUpdates]

Nakisa Bidarian knows the Jake Paul business inside out but there's some holes in his understanding of boxing, writes Elliot Worsell
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[PRINCEKOOL]

Do people exist who work in supermarkets and stack shelves, only to boast the profits of the business owners? Do factory workers exist only to boast the profits of the factory owners?

Note: Journeymen boxers, most likely have their own stories and reasons for fighting at the level they are competing at 'boxing is a brutal and competitive sport, and people all have different levels of ability. That statement is relevant in all fields of business and sport, even within the boxing media. I am sure there are many different types of people contributing to the boxing media at different levels, maybe? Metaphorically there are journeymen people within that sector of boxing'.

Journeymen boxers exist, because that is their level 'and that is alright, that is life'.

Anyone who has watched boxing for many years, will be well aware of how journeymen boxers are utilized 'and I don't think that is a issue'.

To conclude: Boxing is a one of the last true working class, blue collar sports 'and I personally think, that is why journeymen boxers exist. It is still an opportunity to participate in the sport, and better themselves instead of doing things within society which are potentially not so great'.

And there are most likely different levels of journeymen, recently? A former boxer and cruiserweight WBC world champion called Toney Bellew, suggested that Micky Ward was a journeymen boxer. I personally have never considered him a journeymen boxer. But according to Bellew, he was until he collided with Arturo Gatti. But before Micky Ward fought Gatti, he did win the WBU World title vs Shea Neary in a great fight' etc.

[Pulmonary Embolii]

I am so old that I can remember when Romanian journeymen were the biggest UK import. Until Boxing News, a cheap magazine printed on Izal toilet paper*, interviewed one Romanian fighter and published his comments. "We know never to win, but to look like we are trying to win". Overnight, the UK promoters had to look for other sexy losers, who they should probably just have given contracts to and trained up, because they were better than

[1Eriugenus]

I agree, as I usually do, with Prince Kool, but add that the boxer who is expected to win will have trained for weeks leading up to the bout and will have ensured he is on weight. His opponent will be lucky if he is told on Tuesday that he will be fighting on Saturday. Sometimes he literally will be told on Saturday to drive to a venue and fight! So how can the opponent, no matter how good his boxing skills, ever win? He will also probably either be fighting a bigger man or, which is much worse, be told he has to come down to a ridiculous weight. ‘Just stop eating for 2 days and stay in the sauna’. How could that end badly? There are opponents and opponents. Kristian Laight was a human punch bag. Peter Buckley was a very skilful boxer who moved young fighters around and made them work but never did anything more than he was paid for

[1Eriugenus]

I remember Peter Buckley was asked if he would’take a dive’ and he said generally not, but he fought Prince Naseem twice. The first went the full 4 rounds. The second time he said Naseem was hitting scarily hard and he had not agreed to get killed or badly injured so he took the first opportunity to go down. That is how a sensible opponent approaches a fight

[TheProudLunatic]

Being a patsy pays better than the alternative

[Grandma Lover]

What a ****** fvkcing headline lmao

This site is such shlt. I wanna know how much the "writers" are being paid for each word cause I had to scroll thru alot of nonsense to hit the comments. Ridiculous.

[Toffee]

I thought it was a well written and interesting piece.

I'm not sure sure why the padding of CVs is considered a UK thing.

Ironically the fighter that Nakisa Bidarian is talking about (Joshua) has one of the least padded records. He fought for experience and moved through the levels pretty quickly to International and regional titles. His first 13 fights had much better fighters on it than Jake's does.

For comparison you have Joshua's long time rival, Wilder, who was still fighting against journeymen at 20, 25 fights and building up impressive numbers without any real development.

But Wilder's record wasn't the problem of the journeymen, but his own promotion. The journeymen themselves likely took great pride in their work and did things plenty of people can't put themselves through.

Remember these guys might not go into these fights hoping to upset the script and suddenly progress to Rocky style glory, but it doesn't mean they don't want to progress their own boxing careers. There are plenty of levels below the elite and lots fight for standings that are well below that level.