Talking boxing to a regular guy...

[Azteca]

your grandfather's an intelligent man. my father was the same way. i used to ask alot of questions about fighters of the past and he would always oblige and tell me about the 70's.

now, it seems to me boxing is hurting for more blue-collar guys who can relate to the average joe. i think that may be why ricky hatton is such a big star over in england. boxing is hurting for blue collar stars people can relate to, instead the media feeds us costume ***elry and calls them great fighters and charge small fortunes to watch them on PPV cards where you can usually pick the winner well before the first bell rings.

i miss the past because back then fighters stood for something. i miss the road warriors and guys that'll sign a contract to meet anyone anytime and anywhere. guys like hagler, mike weaver, yaqui lopez, qawi etc. those guys always have some extra losses on their dossier and i guess too many losses these days is a killer to the television powers that be.

[AREALFIGHTER]

your grandfather's an intelligent man. my father was the same way. i used to ask alot of questions about fighters of the past and he would always oblige and tell me about the 70's.

now, it seems to me boxing is hurting for more blue-collar guys who can relate to the average joe. i think that may be why ricky hatton is such a big star over in england. boxing is hurting for blue collar stars people can relate to, instead the media feeds us costume ***elry and calls them great fighters and charge small fortunes to watch them on PPV cards where you can usually pick the winner well before the first bell rings.

i miss the past because back then fighters stood for something. i miss the road warriors and guys that'll sign a contract to meet anyone anytime and anywhere. guys like hagler, mike weaver, yaqui lopez, qawi etc. those guys always have some extra losses on their dossier and i guess too many losses these days is a killer to the television powers that be.

This may comeas a suprise but that is exactly why steve jonhston is one of my favorite fighters. Blue collor to the core had no buisness beating mitchell and should have never competed agianst calisllo in a fight he won. My grand father would have loved johnston and would have enjoyed hatton. Hatton did not to my knowlege make excuses for the collazo fight. although my grandfather would have liked collazo just as much and if not more since he was suppose to loose and not be beaten, barely, people thought collazo was their to loose, and not their to be beaten ya know. Hatten beat collazo to win that fight collazo did not loose ya get it. he did not loose that would imply he never could have won or hatton could have just by his mear precense in the ring be delcared victor.

[Southpaw Stinger]

Similar things have happend to me. My mates know I box and know I'm into the sport. They ask me who the heavyweight champ is and I run through thye usual "Well we don't have an undisputed champ at the moment, the WBA champ in Valuev the WBC champ is Rahman..."
Then I get asked what the WBA is and the WBC etc. And I tell them that there are a lot of organisations each with their own champs and you have to win all the belts to be considered the one undisputed champ.

Obviously people are bored as hell by now and have no interest in boxing because there is no real champ anymore. Many people still think Mike Tyson is the heavyweight champ and that fights are still 15 rounders! Boxing is suffering.

[PATO 1]

i remember talkin to a friend bout the urango-rabah decision an he wouldnt understand about the judges giving it to urango

then he said i thought hatton was the champ so i had 2 explain about the 4 governin bodies etc

its real annoyin

[Southpaw Stinger]

then he said i thought hatton was the champ so i had 2 explain about the 4 governin bodies etc

Damn right, I also like to explain about the ring belt been issued to the real champs which also means that the heavyweight division has no champ - and regular guys only seem to care about heavyweights.

[BrooklynBomber]

My friend sees me reading Boxing News and takes an interest.

"You're really into this boxing, right? So who's the heavyweight champion of the world?"

"Well, it's complicated, because..."

"There's about a 100 different belts, isn't there? Anyway..."


That's all it takes for someone to lose interest. I did actually get them quite engaged with Valuev of all people, but for the man on the street the premier division is still where it's at, and it's a mess.

Jest tell them its Wladdy boy.

[BadMagick]

How could someone watch the Taylor-Wright fight and be disappointed, except with round 12? It was one of the better fights this year that I have seen. A guy at work who is not a boxing fan in the least watched it on HBO because he had nothing better to do, and the next day he was talking to me about the fight.

[catskills23]

The heavyweight divison has been created by the media. My father and my grandfather who is still alive and born in 1914 and my grandmother that I never knew but was a huge boxing fan, always said those guys can't fight they can barely move. This was back in like the 30's and 40's and so on, But there eyes lit up at least my grampa's about the good old days were the lighter guys fought like bigger weights do now. They had guts speed power in both hands balls down to the floor. They were fighters whats this boxing crap he still tells me. We watched the Taylor fight car and later in the week th alicne card. My bapa lot me those guy already have money refering to the taylor wright fight. The're not fight ing their boxing neather man fights like what they do puts food on the table. I told Him its not really like that anymore for top fighter at least. My bapa looked at me like I was crazy. He says what is that are these men, do they not have pride are they afriad. I said I don't know Bapa they fight and somtimes there are really good fights he kind looks at me funny. I tell him look boxing stopped being more about bride and about more money for the least wrisk than the last time you wer intested in boxing 70's. So he went on to tell me look a pure good boxer of the 70's woulf necer ever be Ko'd by the sluggers now, Because those pure boxers back them may not have punched hard but they puched hard enough to win, and their opponent sluggers could not punch hard enough to stop them.

How come your grandfather didnt watch tyson . Was he not impressed with his speed and power?.

Jest tell them its Wladdy boy.

I was tempted to go that route... I think Vitali may have just scratched the surface of mainstream culture here, so I could go with that. But then a conversation might go like this:

"It's Vitali's brother, he was in Ocean's 11 with Lewis."

"Oh, I remember. Is he as good as Vitali then?"

"Maybe better, some say."

"I did see that Vitali guy, he was in Lewis's last fight, wasn't he? He took some shots that night. So his brother can take big shots as well then?"

"Errrrrrrrrrrrr..... fancy another beer?"

[AREALFIGHTER]

How come your grandfather didnt watch tyson . Was he not impressed with his speed and power?.

he both he and my dad stopped watvhing the fights in like 78 or so right before I was born. every once in a while my dad will watch the fights with me. My grand dad said he foot sick of all the politics in boxing so he just stopped watching but your right he missed out on tyson. He really like louis and Ali and my dad was a mariciano fan but they really prefered the lighter weights.