Not only have boxers changed, boxing fans and journalists have too

[Butt stuff]

You move up if your body can accommodate the move.
Bob Foster was 6'3" and at 175 he was one of the hardest hitting in that division in the history of the sport!
Ray Leonard was 5'10 1/2" and an outstanding athlete with amateur credentials unmatched! He could move up because he had the talent and size.
Willie Pep was not able to move up because of size and lack of power but was one of the most outstanding boxers of all time to date!
For the most part the division champs from the past stay in their divisions the most recent little guys from 140 to 154 who move around are considered the "norm" by fans who don't know the history of boxing. They see Mayweather grow out of division because of his youthful beginnings.
Hagler at barely 5'9" and easily making weight and not being a one punch power artist stayed at middleweight because that's who he was!
There was a time in boxing when the Middleweight Champion was only second to the Heavyweight Champ. Middleweight was the second most prestigious belt in boxing.
Today the Middleweight Champ wants his opponents to weigh 155.........really! What a joke that is...........then he hits the ring at 170+.

Not everyone is a Sugar Ray Robinson who could be TBE in two divisions!!!
In fact there's only been one!!
Ray

Ray, just curious, what's your opinion of golovkin? As a fighter not the "moving up", personality or promotional stuff. Just purely as a fighter?

[Godsfly]

I guess Pryor wasnt great then....... smh......

on the ATG list where exactly do u rank pryor? lol


great jr welterweight no doubt.........

[original zero]

here is what's changed:

twice as many belts in each weight class. twice as many weight classes.


that is what's changed. it's now 4x easier to get a belt and hide behind it. and sometimes you don't even need to hide because everyone else is hiding behind their belt too.

when it was 16 belts instead of 68 + super/interim, the best had to fight the best. there was no choice.

[LoadedWraps]

When Leonard had cleared out 147, he was expected to fight THE MAN at 160, long before th1987 when the fight eventually happened.

When Bob Foster was THE MAN at 175, it was not unusual when he fought two of the greatest heavyweights of all time.

When Tito became the man at 147 and 154, progression to 160 only seemed necessary.

Size was an issue but it was a selling point for the fights, not an excuse to not make the fights happen. These excuses are not only given by the fighters themselves but by the modern boxing fan and sadly, the modern press. To go from calling for Leonard v Hagler to now applauding fighters for not going up divisions...it's a sad turn of events.

Where has this new culture come from? And who has cultivated it?

[soul_survivor]

here is what's changed:

twice as many belts in each weight class. twice as many weight classes.


that is what's changed. it's now 4x easier to get a belt and hide behind it. and sometimes you don't even need to hide because everyone else is hiding behind their belt too.

when it was 16 belts instead of 68 + super/interim, the best had to fight the best. there was no choice.

I understand that from a fighters perspective but the fans are getting behind it and openly applaud and the media...they are the worst, especially these internet writers promoted and made famous by sites such as this. They openly exacerbate the problem.

Boxing as a whole is going through this issue and it's sad because it hurts the sport and it hurts the future potential of young fighters.

[original zero]

fans are always going to support their favorite fighters. that is nothing new.

as for the "media," journalism in general has deteriorated, especially in boxing. when i was a newspaper writer many years ago, everyone on press row for a fight was seasoned and professional. now press row is a circus for a lot of fights.

[Ray Corso]

..."Ray, just curious, what's your opinion of golovkin? As a fighter not the "moving up", personality or promotional stuff. Just purely as a fighter"?

I like GGG because of his methodology first, his technique is good also and you can see he's well schooled. He isn't a super polished boxer in form and style and we haven't seen him in any trouble to speak of to have an opinion on dealing with stress.
He is refreshing to watch because he doesn't neglect the body and uses both hands to the body. He is a pressure guy but uses his jab a lot to set distance for combinations and to pressure his opponents.
He is open to right hands and right hand counters but the last guy who landed on him got KO'd at the same time he landed so so much for that scenario for now!
Another fault is his lack of head movement once he feels his opponents power and doesn't believe he could get hurt. He moves in to straight up and neglects using his overall skills. You take the chance of being cut all the time in boxing so not incorporating all your techniques all of the time shows a lack of discipline to me. It's his "macho" time and and it is demoralizing for his opponent but I prefer utilizing all your defensive techniques to set up offense. Offense is your best defense but negating your defense isn't smart.

I don't see him moving beyond 168 and that's not his best weight either.
He's not a small Middleweight but he is a very small Lightheavy!
Just because guys like Qwai were short men didn't mean they could make 160.....in boxing you need to be comfortable making weight especially as you age. This guy is a natural 160 pounder just as Hagler was so that's were they belong.
There's a hand full of fighters today that I would pay to see and GGG is one of them. If not for his over all skill level just for the excitement he brings to the ring. Again his methodology is my way of boxing unfortunately not everyone brings power punching with them but when you have it is exciting.
He reminds me of a little Joe Louis in some aspects. His shuffle when he's taking his time and when he shortens up his punching. Lately his shots are longer and wider but thats because opponents are moving away quicker!!!

Ray.

[- Ram Raid -]

The '90's and early 2000's ushered in an era where companies began to spend more on marketing and brand image than they did on actually manufacturing the products that they were pushing. That business model inevitably seeped it's way into boxing.

A title and a '0' in the 'L' column is good for pushing the boxers image as a commodity in and of itself. The brand image is what were buying into. Mayweather got that instinctively, but lacking the personality to pull it off he very cleverly sold us an aspirational lifestyle at a time when that was very much in vogue, so to speak. A substantial part of Adrian Broner is pure brand image marketing.

When a management team has promoted a boxer as commodity and used a title (albeit a paper one) and an undefeated record as part of the selling point (however meaningless that may be in actuality due to careful matchmaking) then as soon as they hook us in as consumers they're fighting a rearguard action to keep those selling points in tact.

If they had an actual bonafide real deal product to push none of this would matter to the extent that it does but the fact of the matter is, they don't. We have a number of very flawed paper champions who are protected because of their commodity value. With the proliferation of belts it's easy to make claims that don't stand up to much once they're put under scrutiny. But only hardcore boxing fans are scrutinising so it's easy to push a boxers 'brand' onto casual fans and the wider sporting public.

[soul_survivor]

fans are always going to support their favorite fighters. that is nothing new.

as for the "media," journalism in general has deteriorated, especially in boxing. when i was a newspaper writer many years ago, everyone on press row for a fight was seasoned and professional. now press row is a circus for a lot of fights.

This right here. All I see now are fanboys with an agenda who start posting random **** on the internet and they get press privilege. It's really sad.

The '90's and early 2000's ushered in an era where companies began to spend more on marketing and brand image than they did on actually manufacturing the products that they were pushing. That business model inevitably seeped it's way into boxing.

A title and a '0' in the 'L' column is good for pushing the boxers image as a commodity in and of itself. The brand image is what were buying into. Mayweather got that instinctively, but lacking the personality to pull it off he very cleverly sold us an aspirational lifestyle at a time when that was very much in vogue, so to speak. A substantial part of Adrian Broner is pure brand image marketing.

When a management team has promoted a boxer as commodity and used a title (albeit a paper one) and an undefeated record as part of the selling point (however meaningless that may be in actuality due to careful matchmaking) then as soon as they hook us in as consumers they're fighting a rearguard action to keep those selling points in tact.

If they had an actual bonafide real deal product to push none of this would matter to the extent that it does but the fact of the matter is, they don't. We have a number of very flawed paper champions who are protected because of their commodity value. With the proliferation of belts it's easy to make claims that don't stand up to much once they're put under scrutiny. But only hardcore boxing fans are scrutinising so it's easy to push a boxers 'brand' onto casual fans and the wider sporting public.

I take on board a lot of this, so what can be done now? Fans, especially of the internet variety are too far gone to correct but what can promoters, managers, tv networks and journalists do now?

[- Ram Raid -]

I take on board a lot of this, so what can be done now? Fans, especially of the internet variety are too far gone to correct but what can promoters, managers, tv networks and journalists do now?

Part of the issue is that everyone involved has on some level a vested interest in keeping things as they are.

Journalists have got copy to sell and they want to keep their access. If we look at someone like Thomas Hauser, irrespective of whether we agree with him or not he clearly cares about the sport, but the things that he's been saying over the last few years people don't want to hear so he's been increasingly ostracised. Whereas video journalists are granted an enormous amount of access so long as they don't rock the boat because they provide a platform for self promotion and masses of social media coverage.

TV networks have the power to be of influence but only move as and when it suits them as was the case with Mayweather Vs Pacquioa. For the most part they're happy to let the status quo continue because they benefit from having overhyped fighters pulling in the viewers and hence advertising and subscription revenue. If a rival network has a genuine threat of a fighter in the same division they don't want to risk their guy losing so they won't push the issue.

Managers of course are the most implicit of the lot because that's what their job entails. Promoters probably have the most scope for making a difference but it very much depends on the scale of their promotional company and their stable of fighters. Haymon seems to be working towards the lines of the UFC model. He has a platform for broadcasting fights, he's signed up a mass of talent who's pockets he's lined with money from big fights for the also rans and routine but named defences for title holders and now it makes sense for his company to have title holders and top contenders fighting each other. This issue of course is that it'll all still be in house, he just has more fighters under his roof.

The biggest fights will nearly always get made . . . . eventually. But the sport is so fractured and has so many petty self interested parties that this situation is unlikely to ever be resolved barring a unified regulating body. The only way I see that happening is if its imposed upon the sport. But let's face it, that's a massive undertaking and who would want to be solely responsible for clearing up the cesspit that is professional boxing?