By no means is this a great fight, but it's not terrible either. Alexander has been out a long time, it would he foolish to jump right in with a top ten guy.
He did an interview not too long ago saying he had some demons to deal with. If I remember correctly it was a pain killer addiction that started before the Martinez loss.
Opioid addiction? Alexander? Do you have a link for this info?
As Haymon slowly creeps towards creating the boxing equivalent of UFC, fights like Collazo-Alexander are a great example of the benefits. If you watch all of Haymon's fights on Showtime, Fox, etc, you're being taught that these crossroads fights have real significance and trust is being built with the audience that the winner is going on to bigger things and will get a legitimate opportunity.
And it teaches the fighters that you won't be forgotten or discarded if you lose a big fight. There will be a chance to move your way back up the ladder. When Berto fought Ortiz on Fox, there was no doubt that the winner would get a bigger fight and if they won that bigger fight, they would get a title shot. Haymon has so much talent now that he can create a clear ladder for guys to climb and fall that makes logical sense to the audience.
If Collazo wins, he'll be moved into an IBF eliminator. If he wins that, he'll get a shot at Errol Spence. If Alexander wins, he'll be moved into the IBF rankings and put into a position for an eliminator.
Boxing fans used to have no idea who these mandatory challengers were, but now you usually see these guys come up through the Haymon system, the eliminators take place on TV, all the champions are with Haymon, most of the challengers are with Haymon. He just keeps accumulating more and more belts and always putting fights together that will move his lower tier guys into the mandatory spots.
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Originally Posted by IRONCHINHAGLER View Post
Yawn...meaningless fight btwn 2 average fighters with 11 losses btwn them...both way past it as far as serious contenders..Haymon throwing them a bone.
Originally posted by GhostofDempsey
Does every fight have to be between two undefeated champions in order to be entertaining? By your standards the Gatti/Ward fights would have been meaningless and thus not worth watching. After all, Ward alone had 11 losses to his name when they first fought.
Ignore the casuals. They're just like that. They should spend more time watching fights and less time commenting on blogs.
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