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I'm in NYC right now and I just came from a bar in the LES area. I'm sitting next to a guy who is friends with the bartender and I hear them say "Broner". My ears perk up because it's rare to be in a bar and hear people talk boxing. They asked what happened to Broner after Maidana. So I speak up and tell them he lost to Porter and he beat Allakhverdiev for the lightweight WBA title. I guess you could call these two people semi-casual fans. We talk more and I tel them Crawford is coming to NYC Feb. 27th and the bartender gets excited and said to his friend they should go. He said he went to the GGG fight at MSG and waited until the day of the fight and bought a $100 ticket for $18. His friend asked if the ticket was in the nose bleeds and he said no, it was the level right above the floor seats. Now that I know these guys are a level above casual fans and a level below hardcore fans I start asking them other questions. Did they see the Wilder fight in NYC? No. And he looked at me kinda puzzled when I said Wilder's name. So I ask if they're thinking about going to the Thurman fight in March. They ask me who is he fighting. I told them Porter but they didn't seem to interested. The bartender is from Mexico and his friend from Brazil. The bartender is a big GGG fan. He repeats the same thing most boxing fans repeat "everybody is afraid to fight GGG". I didn't get into the nuances of the situation. So I brought up the possible Hopkins fight. He was all for it. I brought up a possible DeGale fight and he had no idea who Degale was. I brought up Ward to see his reaction and it was the same as here. "Andre Ward barely fights. Why does everybody have him p4p when he never fights?". They were also cool with the Khan/Canelo fight. The Mexican liked GGG more than Canelo but he did bring up a good point. He said Canelo isn't afraid of GGG, Oscar is. I asked him why does it seem a lot of Mexicans don't like Canelo and he said because he's a "white boy" and a "ginger". The Brazilian guy was a big Roman Gonzalez fan and called him by his nickname, Chocolatito.
We talked for a little while about boxing but my biggest takeaways were this:
PBC is doing a horrible job of getting their boxers name out there. They knew who Broner was but hadn't followed him since his loss to Maidana. They didn't even know Wilder fought in NY a couple of weeks ago.
GGG has some real hardcore fans but he has a price his fans will pay to see him and it aint that high. The Mexican bartender picked GGG to beat Canelo but he waited until the last minute to buy tickets to the GGG fight at a severely discounted price.
They didn't really have any interest in MMA and they had to be in their late 20's early 30's.
I was just happy to talk boxing in a bar. I even stayed and ordered two more drinks.
We talked for a little while about boxing but my biggest takeaways were this:
PBC is doing a horrible job of getting their boxers name out there. They knew who Broner was but hadn't followed him since his loss to Maidana. They didn't even know Wilder fought in NY a couple of weeks ago.
GGG has some real hardcore fans but he has a price his fans will pay to see him and it aint that high. The Mexican bartender picked GGG to beat Canelo but he waited until the last minute to buy tickets to the GGG fight at a severely discounted price.
They didn't really have any interest in MMA and they had to be in their late 20's early 30's.
I was just happy to talk boxing in a bar. I even stayed and ordered two more drinks.
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