Does all this business and ego crap......

[JmH Reborn]

Ya it seriously ticks me off too.

Immagine this:

Joshua Clottey vs Shane Mosley
Miguel Cotto vs Margarito
Paul Williams vs Sergio Martinez
Pacquiao vs Mayweather jr

I would easily pay 100 to see that card

Putting Clottey on the card devalues the card...by atleast 25%!!!

I'd pay for Mayweather/Pac and Cotto/Margarito alone

Mosley/Mora > Mosley/Clottey

[Russian Crushin]

Business and greed has always been part of the sport and always will be.

I expect that type of ****, but I also hope for and expect to see the most important fights to materialize.

This whole May/Pac saga has just gotten annoying.

It hurts boxing a lot in the US that it's hardly on network TV. You can call that greed (it goes on HBO), but it's also the fact that boxing does not attract many sponsors.

If greed and "it's simply business" was something that kills boxing, it would've died LONG ago.

If Duran, SRL, hearns and Hagler were in thier primes today, i doubt they would face each other like they did in 80s because of this crap.

I mean how is the UFC able to put on a PPV everyother week and still sell 750,000 PPV or more pretty much everytime?

Its because the best fight the best and fight several times a year.

Boxing you have Floyd who fights once a year if we are lucky and Pac who fights 2x.

[Thread Stealer]

Its a whole new playing field...the economics are vastly different. Before Tyson...nobody was making this type of money. Also, there was more TV money, more to share. ABC, NBC, ESPN and more were involved. The pot was bigger. Now its just HBO and Showtime (to an extent). Its a different world...all its about is PPV. Guys don't fight for pride and honor anymore it seems. Just a select few

That's why the lack of sponsors for network TV hurts the sport. Before Tyson, HW champs still made big money (not Tyson level, but still really good), Leonard too. It wasn't PPV, it was closed-circuit then, where the biggest fights would be.

But you'd still get good fights and exciting fighters on network TV. Saad, Mancini, Spinks, Qawi, etc....Also, boxing used to be big in the Olympics, which is why fighters like Leonard, Breland, Howard Davis, to name a few, made their names. Champions naturally will be less active (Toney and Chavez being exceptions), but some of these champions made their names on network TV moving up the ranks.

[Thread Stealer]

If Duran, SRL, hearns and Hagler were in thier primes today, i doubt they would face each other like they did in 80s because of this crap.

I mean how is the UFC able to put on a PPV everyother week and still sell 750,000 PPV or more pretty much everytime?

Its because the best fight the best and fight several times a year.

Boxing you have Floyd who fights once a year if we are lucky and Pac who fights 2x.

Why not? They want the big paydays and the glory. Leonard was like a Ray Robinson, very demanding at the negotiating table because of his popularity, but eventually he usually got what he wanted. Opponents would agree because they also wanted the big payday, glory, exposure, etc...We see it later with De La Hoya, and later others like Pacquiao & Mayweather having the negotiating leverage to do so.

Leonard was a very inactive fighter throughout the 80s. He had what, a dozen fights through the decade?

Some of those big Leonard fights took awhile to materialize too. Lots of politics and business crap, but they got sorted out.

[Russian Crushin]

Why not? They want the big paydays and the glory. Leonard was like a Ray Robinson, very demanding at the negotiating table because of his popularity, but eventually he usually got what he wanted. Opponents would agree because they also wanted the big payday, glory, exposure, etc...We see it later with De La Hoya, and later others like Pacquiao & Mayweather having the negotiating leverage to do so.

Leonard was a very inactive fighter throughout the 80s. He had what, a dozen fights through the decade?

Some of those big Leonard fights took awhile to materialize too. Lots of politics and business crap, but they got sorted out.

Because now they dont fight for pride, a loss and they are damaged goods for some reason. Same reason we have the big 4 in the JW division but they just wont fight eachother. In the 70s or 80s there would br a top guy at the top.

[Thread Stealer]

Because now they dont fight for pride, a loss and they are damaged goods for some reason. Same reason we have the big 4 in the JW division but they just wont fight eachother. In the 70s or 80s there would br a top guy at the top.

It's always been a mixture of money and pride. Leonard made no bones about that, he was a shrewd businessman, he wanted to prove he was the best, but the money had to make sense too. Hagler too. He had no interest in facing the top LHWs who expressed interest in fighting him, but wanted to fight guys like Duran, Hearns, and Leonard who could give him the biggest purses. He'd say "if Ray is my friend, he should fight me and give me that nice payday".

Furthermore, the best guys in each division didn't always face each other. All you have to do is look at the amount of times a division didn't have a unified champ (back when it was only the WBA and WBC).

Sometimes it'd take forever to materialize, or sometimes it would never take place period.

Boxing of course as a whole has suffered in many ways, most notably its popularity, but these problems with business and greed that people talk about are not new or unique.

This is a sport that in the 50s was run by mobsters who were part of Murder Inc for crying out loud. Greed and capitalism is the nature of the sport, and just in big business in general.

[Russian Crushin]

It's always been a mixture of money and pride. Leonard made no bones about that, he was a shrewd businessman, he wanted to prove he was the best, but the money had to make sense too. Hagler too. He had no interest in facing the top LHWs who expressed interest in fighting him, but wanted to fight guys like Duran, Hearns, and Leonard who could give him the biggest purses. He'd say "if Ray is my friend, he should fight me and give me that nice payday".

Furthermore, the best guys in each division didn't always face each other. All you have to do is look at the amount of times a division didn't have a unified champ (back when it was only the WBA and WBC).

Sometimes it'd take forever to materialize, or sometimes it would never take place period.

Boxing of course as a whole has suffered in many ways, most notably its popularity, but these problems with business and greed that people talk about are not new or unique.

This is a sport that in the 50s was run by mobsters who were part of Murder Inc for crying out loud. Greed and capitalism is the nature of the sport, and just in big business in general.

Greed is not New in boxing but it is extremely excessive. I mean there is no Reason Bradley shouldnt be fighting Devon. There will be alot of money and if he wins, he will make way more money then if he beats Abregu.

Why does Bradley deserve Pac? Hes avoiding the top 140 guys and doesnt come close to Pac.

If your projected to get Paid close to 50 mil and still want more money with a 60-40 split, then thats just ridiculos. There is no passion in fights anymore. It used to be "i wanna kill this mofo and just wanna get the fight signed"....but now its "i wanna kill this guy but unless i get 60 mil and more then the other guy, im not fighting"

[Thread Stealer]

Greed is not New in boxing but it is extremely excessive. I mean there is no Reason Bradley shouldnt be fighting Devon. There will be alot of money and if he wins, he will make way more money then if he beats Abregu.

Why does Bradley deserve Pac? Hes avoiding the top 140 guys and doesnt come close to Pac.

I agree that Bradley-Alexander should happen. I don't know all the details of the offers.

If your projected to get Paid close to 50 mil and still want more money with a 60-40 split, then thats just ridiculos. There is no passion in fights anymore. It used to be "i wanna kill this mofo and just wanna get the fight signed"....but now its "i wanna kill this guy but unless i get 60 mil and more then the other guy, im not fighting"

It is ridiculous but I'll save my complaining on the Mayweather-Pacquiao situation until after everything is sorted out. Right now it is just a nuisance.

I just don't agree when people talk about this type of bull**** being something new or unique to boxing. Especially if we're talking about Leonard, look at the type of demands he made. Not just financial demands, but competitive demands as well, which affects the entertainment value to the fan (I could give two ****s how many millions a guy is getting).