Who is the heavyweight champion of the World?

[Sammy Mendelson]

One thousand people at the Trafford Centre, Manchester, England were recently asked this question:

Who is the heavyweight boxing champion of the World?


The demographic was split thus: 18-30 (25%), 31-40 (25%), 41-50 (25%) and 51+ (25%). 50% male and 50% female.


Of those asked a total of seven people correctly named one, or more, of the following: Wladimir Klitschko, Ruslan Chagaev, Sam Peter or Sultan Ibragimov. Three of those who got the answer correct were from the 18-30 group and four were from the 31-40 group.

A total of 37 people attempted to pronounce "Klitschko" with varying degrees of accuracy but on further question were unable to determine between Vitali and Wladimir.

64 people said Lennox Lewis; 86 said Mike Tyson; four said Frank Bruno, eight said Chris Eubank and 167 said Ricky Hatton or variation thereof (e.g Hitman, Hatton or Ricky Hatton).

Interesting but I would say unsurprising.

[josh fg]

Well its because of a total lack of personalities and also cos casual fans are only interested in British boxers. I'm supprised no one said Audley Harrison.

[Sammy Mendelson]

I'm supprised no one said Audley Harrison.

Two did. I only picked out a selection of the recipients answers.

[Greg Nicholas]

At work, beyond Audley and Amir, Hatton is the first boxer to come along since Bruno, Tyson, Eubank, Lennox Lewis and 'that other little asian guy or pakistani guy' (Hamed).. there were no boxers inbetween.. none :)

[dondada]

That is fascinating, Sammy, and simply and unfortunately supports what I've been saying for years.

Belts are ruining the game.

I think everyone working in 'objective' media should cease to refer to anyone as a world champion unless they hold the Ring belt. They should just say WBA, or whatever.

Pain in the arse though, I know...

[rhino222]

ask a few hundred people randomly in the street who are the current FA cup holders and i dare say you might get 10 different answers.....its not just boxing that is confused, seems that todays news is tomorrows fish and chip paper....well it was before the print definately gave you cancer !!!!

[johnswan1]

Manchester the new home of British boxing? Well that's that resolved.

[johnswan1]

Unfortunately, you'd probably get similar results if you put the same question to the 20,000 fans that went to Vegas for the Hatton fight.

[Old bones Ian]

i don't think its just to many belts, its alot to do with heavyweight title fights not being on terrestrial tv. When Tyson was becoming champion his first few title defences were on itv, sunday morning if i remember rightly. This gave tyson a huge fanbase, and remember alot of those fights were pretty one sided, but it didn't matter to the casual fan. Another example is recently we've seen alot of Bradley Pryce on itv, a friend of mine was saying how he'd like pryce to get a world title shot, when i said pryce should fight Jamie Moore before that , he asked 'who's jamie moore ?' . Now jamie is a better boxer has beaten better men than Pryce , but because he fights on SKY he isn't as well known to casual fans.

[Abbo]

Never mind they didnt know their names, I wonder who'd recognise their faces. I bet not half the people that got their names right.

[Greg Nicholas]

ask a few hundred people randomly in the street who are the current FA cup holders and i dare say you might get 10 different answers.....its not just boxing that is confused, seems that todays news is tomorrows fish and chip paper....well it was before the print definately gave you cancer !!!!

Actually, who DID win the fa cup this year..?? i forgot..

[Asterix]

Actually, who DID win the fa cup this year..?? i forgot..

I had forgotten as well, but just checked on Wikipedia and Chelsea won it, by beating Man Utd. I think I watched Chelsea in the semi-final, but I don't think I saw the final. I don't find footy very interesting any more.

[Grant]

One thousand people at the Trafford Centre, Manchester, England were recently asked this question:

Who is the heavyweight boxing champion of the World?


The demographic was split thus: 18-30 (25%), 31-40 (25%), 41-50 (25%) and 51+ (25%). 50% male and 50% female.


Of those asked a total of seven people correctly named one, or more, of the following: Wladimir Klitschko, Ruslan Chagaev, Sam Peter or Sultan Ibragimov. Three of those who got the answer correct were from the 18-30 group and four were from the 31-40 group.


Whoever did this survey needs to 'get a life'

seriously

A total of 37 people attempted to pronounce "Klitschko" with varying degrees of accuracy but on further question were unable to determine between Vitali and Wladimir.

64 people said Lennox Lewis; 86 said Mike Tyson; four said Frank Bruno, eight said Chris Eubank and 167 said Ricky Hatton or variation thereof (e.g Hitman, Hatton or Ricky Hatton).

Interesting but I would say unsurprising.

[Sammy Mendelson]

The survey was one of several commissioned by a media group considering venturing into the 'combat sport' market. Market research is an important part of business, Grant.

[yiddo14]

So this survey proves Boxing is'nt mainstream.

Newsflash...the sport has NEVER been mainstream

I'am suprised that such a large number actually got the name of any of todays heavyweight champs correct to be honest.
White, Eastern European heavyweight fighters don't get a quarter of the press American heavyweights would do

I honestly could'nt care if Joe Bloggs on the my street does'nt know who Klitschko is.
The last thing I wanna hear is yet another punter who knows fvck all about the sport trying to tell me how it is!!!(got pretty sick of that in the build up to Hatton/Mayweather! It's incredible how many times I heard..."Hatton will blast him out in 6, no problem" from numerous bandwagon jumpers )

As far as I'am concerned, I hope Boxing forever remains as popular as it currently is.
I love it, I can come here and discuss it with other people who love it, and go to fights with other people who love the sport.
We don't want it to be like Football, where 99% of the time you end up sitting beside someone who knows very little about the sport they are watching(let's just keep that restricted to the Calzaghe/Hatton fights )

[Razor]

One thousand people at the Trafford Centre, Manchester, England were recently asked this question:

Who is the heavyweight boxing champion of the World?


The demographic was split thus: 18-30 (25%), 31-40 (25%), 41-50 (25%) and 51+ (25%). 50% male and 50% female.


Of those asked a total of seven people correctly named one, or more, of the following: Wladimir Klitschko, Ruslan Chagaev, Sam Peter or Sultan Ibragimov. Three of those who got the answer correct were from the 18-30 group and four were from the 31-40 group.

A total of 37 people attempted to pronounce "Klitschko" with varying degrees of accuracy but on further question were unable to determine between Vitali and Wladimir.

64 people said Lennox Lewis; 86 said Mike Tyson; four said Frank Bruno, eight said Chris Eubank and 167 said Ricky Hatton or variation thereof (e.g Hitman, Hatton or Ricky Hatton).

Interesting but I would say unsurprising.

ROFL, this has cheered me up. That is some funny shite there. What that tells me is that non-boxing fanatics do go to boxing. Nothing more or nothing less