Look at these fights and then tell me...

[Deserter]

why so many of you are so quick to write Tony Bellew off?

Michael Watson TKO6 Nigel Benn

Carl Thompson TKO5 David Haye

Oliver McCall TKO2 Lennox Lewis

Over the years, I've lost count of the times where people are so eager to immediately write off a fighter on the basis of a loss, or even, as in last night's example, a poor showing.
Yet aside from the obvious examples above we've seen time and time again that fighters, being human, are capable of a poor showing and yet also capable of improving on that - last time I checked, the Joe Calzaghe that scraped past Robin Reid and couldn't put away Rick Thornberry was the same Joe Calzaghe who schooled Jeff Lacy and beat Kessler, for example.
The question I've got for those who've immediately dismissed Bomber's future, is why, given the evidence I've outlined above, you feel so confident in doing so on the basis of that one showing?
You're all boxing fans, you all know that any fighter's record contains strong showings and 'off-nights', so why the display of absolute certainty that he's going nowhere (this isn't addressed to those who've posted decent constructive criticism I hasten to add)?
I've just genuinely surprised, given I normally associate this forum with intelligent, nuanced views, that so many are displaying such knee-jerk reactions despite the weight of historical evidence regarding showings of this nature.
Surely it's ridiculously premature and you won't be able to make any considered judgement until subsequent fights which will reveal whether he's addressed the short-comings on display last night?
I'm all ears...

[orbtastic]

The big difference is that Bob will never be at the level of either of those 3.

[mickey1975]

The big difference is that Bob will never be at the level of either of those 3.

Fair enough,but Tony won and those three got knocked out!

[Deserter]

The big difference is that Bob will never be at the level of either of those 3.

But with the greatest respect you're missing my point, which is the concept of instantly writing a fighter off - I could easily have used Benn versus Logan instead, for example. And the Calzaghe-Thornberry one cited still holds.
My main contention is that I struggle to think of a single fighter who has never had an 'off-night' and how can the instant verdict be justified?

[orbtastic]

Nobody is writing him off?

Look at the threads before the fight - It's a love-in and with the exception of a couple of posters it's almost a group "yeah knock him out, this is only going 2 rounds". Bellew's own comments on here and elsewhere (did you see the broadcast?) is what has set-up the reaction post-fight.

He said himself on here he is not only ready to fight Cleverly, but beat him.

So if someone says "I'm the best" then when they don't put in a performance worthy of that, then surely they're in line for some criticism?

No-one's saying that he won't achieve anything? People are saying he would not beat Cleverly. On that performance I'm inclined to agree - He was predictable, had no plan b, rarely jabbed and just set out to try and bomb him out. It's Bellew himself that has put himself in the spotlight saying he would beat Clev - No-one else.

Now obviously some of what he says is PR and all the shine that comes with boxing in this age but no-one made him sit down for 5 minutes and give soundbytes to SKY? He showed a lot of respect to Bob after the fight and quite rightly - he had him down and marked up both his eyes and hung tough in there for 12 rounds and it was far from one-sided.

[ERIC GUY]

Just a bad day at the office, better days to come,

[Deserter]

Nobody is writing him off

Have we been reading the same threads??!!
I explicitly said in my initial post that I wasn't referring to those posters who'd come out with decent constructive criticism and put his aspirations in context, particularly in relation to Cleverley, but there are clearly a whole bunch of posters who've gone to the extreme and extrapolated a completely negative scenario based on one below-pa showing.
Just because some people were going OTT on Tony pre-fight because he posts on here doesn't mean that it needs to go 180 degrees the other way post-fight.

[Counter-puncher]

some people have definitely been writing him off. almost gleefully.

[orbtastic]

We obviously see different things in posts.

SKY themselves said "Star fails to shine" or something along those lines. That about sums it up.

Bellew said he learnt a lot.

"Just because some people were going OTT on Tony pre-fight because he posts on here doesn't mean that it needs to go 180 degrees the other way post-fight." Surely you can see why that happens? Somewhere between the two is the objective, reasonable opinion that's probably not far off the truth.

[tonyevs]

For some time now it has been almost silly how some poster on here have been arsehole scrapping Tony Bellew. And how Tony himself has been 100% convinced that anybody he hit would be ko'd......Cleverly especially.

So seeing somebody take his punches - and seeing Tony himself being put down .... Well its kinda poetic justice.

I'm sure that Tony merely met the type of opponent that didn't suit his style, maybe added to over-confidence and a desperate need to impress - especially after Cleverlys recent showing.

To write Tony Bellew off would be silly. But to carry on hyping him up as before would be as silly.

Tony will improve from lastnight for sure. Thing is though - Cleverly is younger and improving also ....and at the moment Cleverly looks far superior in every dept, and with the punch, it would seem, to do a Macintosh on Bellew.

[Tommy Gunn13]

I think inactivity played a significant part in Tony's bellew par (get it?) performance last night. You can do all the gym work you want but unless you are fighting regularly and getting used to the build-up, pressures and execution of fight night you are almost certain to under-perform. This is often magnified in the development stage of a fighter's career - which Tony is in.

Atoli Moore, with the greatest repsect to him, was nowhere near good enough to be in there with Tony. So whilst on paper it reads that Bomber has had a six month lay-off (already too long, in my opinion), in reality it is more like nine months.

Well Ajisafe hadnt boxed in almost a year,so the inactivity goes out the window..
Bomber should just forget about Cleverly for the forseeable future,one good thing to come out of last night on that performance some off his domestic rivals might step up&take the fight now...
Also People rave about Farnell as a trainer,but the boxers he train were class as amatuer,so he hasnt really had any novices types,Powell seemed to make more sense in the corner last night what i heard...
I still think Bomber will come good,but not at world level...

[Tommy Gunn13]

I think inactivity played a significant part in Tony's bellew par (get it?) performance last night. You can do all the gym work you want but unless you are fighting regularly and getting used to the build-up, pressures and execution of fight night you are almost certain to under-perform. This is often magnified in the development stage of a fighter's career - which Tony is in.

Atoli Moore, with the greatest repsect to him, was nowhere near good enough to be in there with Tony. So whilst on paper it reads that Bomber has had a six month lay-off (already too long, in my opinion), in reality it is more like nine months.

Well Ajisafe hadnt boxed in almost a year,so the inactivity goes out the window..
Bomber should just forget about Cleverly for the forseeable future,one good thing to come out of last night on that performance some off his domestic rivals might step up&take the fight now...
Also People rave about Farnell as a trainer,but the boxers he train were class as amatuer,so he hasnt really had any novices types,Powell seemed to make more sense in the corner last night what i heard...
I still think Bomber will come good,but not at world level...

The inactivity argument doesn't go out of the window at all. Both fighters were scrappy and it was clear that they were heavily burdened with ring rust. This actually made for a relatively compelling fight.

Bellew always has and always will be a headhunter. He knows he can bang and as a result will always have a propensity to look for the stoppage as early as possible. When this doesn't come, the frustration appears. We saw it with him as an amateur too. The only way to temper this is to build-up plenty of competition experience where the man in front of you won't just fall over. People are talking about him having no Plan B. last night. I doubt this was the case. He will have had a Plan B. he's just never had to implement it on fight night before. That is neither his fault nor Arnie's. It's just circumstantial as a result of the way he has been matched to date and inactivity over the last 12 months.

some good points there macho man,i hope ur right with the inactivaty,coz after he couldnt get him out there his boxing skill was poor,as u say frustration could have paid a part

[Deserter]

We obviously see different things in posts.

SKY themselves said "Star fails to shine" or something along those lines. That about sums it up.

Bellew said he learnt a lot.

"Just because some people were going OTT on Tony pre-fight because he posts on here doesn't mean that it needs to go 180 degrees the other way post-fight." Surely you can see why that happens? Somewhere between the two is the objective, reasonable opinion that's probably not far off the truth.

But you're completely missing my point again. Nowhere am I disputing that he failed to shine, what I'm disputing is the view of some posters on here that it was an utter disaster and on the basis of one performance he's effectively a write-off.
My exact point is what you've posted further on - that somewhere between the two lies the objective reasonable opinion that's close to the truth.
And given you've now accepted there are extremes of opinion to either side of the 'middle ground' (characterised by the pro-Bellew 'can do no wrong' type of poster and the recently unveiled 'knew he was nothing but hype all along' camp) you're actually contradicting your earlier statement that no-one is writing him off - for that middle ground to exist, it requires the existence of both the 'devoted' posters and the 'write-off' posters'... the "two" that you explicitly reference yourself.

[orbtastic]

Post the most critical responses in this thread, I just don't see people writing him off [as] completely [as you are saying] . I see people saying he won't do [based on last night] what he's [Bellew] said he can/will, which is beat Cleverly.

I'm saying that the negative responses aren't as negative as you're making out.

If you want to get into an argument about semantics and grey areas, find someone else to bother.

[whicker]

why so many of you are so quick to write Tony Bellew off?

.

I don't think people ARE writing him off- it's just that his performance last night didn't live up to the Hype that was being suggested.


Also, can people PLEASEEEEEEEE stop starting new Tony Bellew threads? Post in a current on, FFS!

[Deserter]

Post the most critical responses in this thread, I just don't see people writing him off [as] completely [as you are saying] . I see people saying he won't do [based on last night] what he's [Bellew] said he can/will, which is beat Cleverly.

I'm saying that the negative responses aren't as negative as you're making out.
If you want to get into an argument about semantics and grey areas, find someone else to bother.

"cleverly v bellew for me is simular to haye v harrison, it will be over within 3 rounds guarenteed" (Jessi)
"Tony only fights one way, Nathan would play with him sorry" (Taffytoon)
"bellew should have at least 10 more fights before he thinks of fighting cleverley" (Fast Eddie)
"i think cleverley would make bellew look like he was back in the amateurs,he would schooled as bellew once said to a comment i was commenting on brains beats brawn everytime so cleverley would destroy bellew in 4 rounds" (Fast Eddie)
"Where was the ice man tonight...."I think he has melted" hahaha (xxxHammerxxx)
"Bellew was well and truely exposed completely live on sky in my opinion. Slow, weak chinned and out of ideas when plan A doesn't work" (Goldbird)
Well I'm sorry to 'bother you', but if you're going to initiate the debate with one-liners such as 'no-one's been writing him off' then I think it's perfectly justfied to call you up on it given the evidence I've outline above (as per your request).
My point is that the middle ground is clearly occupied by a host of reasoned posters ranging from Scrap and Steve Dow through to GlobalBox and WeslhDevil, who've identified flaws but haven't been so utterly dismissive of Bellew. The opinions above completely lack that perspective IMO.

[banjo]

Yeah it is an overreaction, even if Tony didn't look good last night, he did enough to win and both he and Arnie will look at that fight and see that he needs to improve, make adjustments to his style, not rely on power punches etc.

Last night would have done Tony more good than knocking over some hapless cannon fodder in a couple of rounds.

[Twinkle Toes]

You're only as good as your last performance, or some such nonsence.

Boxing has always had a fickle following, and kneejerk reaction to performances is common place - I can't see that changing anytime soon.

[Asterix]

That fight was much better for Tony than if he had it all his own way. He'll learn from it. He needs more tough fights like that, sprinkled between easier ones. I think him and Arnie have a lot of work to do in the gym, but Bellew does have talent.

[mickey1975]

Fighting an Ingle fighter at a London hotel with a pissed up Fwank doing the corner,Tony did well to come away with the W!
Seriously,this will have done him a lot more good than harm.Virtually every fighter has struggled at some stage in their early career.He has done the twelve rounds although it is worrying to hear him say he didnt think he could do it at LH,just how much is he losing?Physcologically though he knows he can do it now so doesnt have to go for the knockout all the time.As probably the most open of the proffesional posters on here i did wonder how people would react when he struggled a bit and sure enough the knives were out.As someone said,nobody minds constructive criticisim but some of it is way over the top.If Clev was on here around the time of the Vegas fight he would have got the same.I just hope it doesnt put Tony off as i think we have already lost Tony Jefferies.

[Matt W]

For me one of the problems is the level of expectation and hype that exists, often directly as a result of the fighters themselves. As a result a sub-par performance is seen as a disaster rather than a normal learning experience. The bigger problem comes when a fighter believes the hype and looks for excuses following a disappointing performance and therefore doesn't heed its lessons.

One thing I'm often wary of is the 'anybody I hit will go' line. The truth is that at the highest level there are relatively few boxers that can end things with one shot, and of course it's harder to land the shots at the higher levels too. I think that one of the real negatives of knockover jobs is that they make some fighters over-reliant on their power when they would be better served developing the skills that will be needed to succeed at higher levels.

All that said I guess it's all part of the learning experience of becoming a better boxer. For what it's worth I think that Bellew seems to be saying the right things in response to last night and isn't throwing out excuses. I think he'll learn from this and come back a better fighter.

[Counter-puncher]

Fighting an Ingle fighter at a London hotel with a pissed up Fwank doing the corner,Tony did well to come away with the W!
Seriously,this will have done him a lot more good than harm.Virtually every fighter has struggled at some stage in their early career.He has done the twelve rounds although it is worrying to hear him say he didnt think he could do it at LH,just how much is he losing?Physcologically though he knows he can do it now so doesnt have to go for the knockout all the time.As probably the most open of the proffesional posters on here i did wonder how people would react when he struggled a bit and sure enough the knives were out.As someone said,nobody minds constructive criticisim but some of it is way over the top.If Clev was on here around the time of the Vegas fight he would have got the same.I just hope it doesnt put Tony off as i think we have already lost Tony Jefferies.

good post mickey

[oliverfennell]

The big difference is that Bob will never be at the level of either of those 3.

But with the greatest respect you're missing my point, which is the concept of instantly writing a fighter off - I could easily have used Benn versus Logan instead, for example. And the Calzaghe-Thornberry one cited still holds.
My main contention is that I struggle to think of a single fighter who has never had an 'off-night' and how can the instant verdict be justified?

This is BoxRec, where the mantra is "everything and everybody is crap", where you have people watching a 21yo, 12-0 Tyson Fury and conclude that the evidence of what they see in a novice is the be all and end all of his career potential, etc...

[ourkid1984]

I have never wrote him off and if you want to add more great fighters to suffer early defeats then you can add Manny Pac......

Whether a fighter has lost early in his career or disappointed but still won it doesn't really matter. The things that will eventually matter is whether the said boxer has the skills to beat the best in their division.

I personally believe that that fight on Friday shows that at the moment especially Bellew hasn't got the skills to beat the best in the division or even the best at European level. Whether he will have in the future is to be proved. For the matter I always thought that Bellew was, is and will be that little level under Cleverly.

People can say that Cleverly at a similar stage of his career didn't show signs of being a world beater either but he wasn't exactly full time was he? Apart from Bellew's inactivitity he seems to live and breath boxing so therefore don't really see him improving as much as Cleverly has.

Overall I think Bellew will get to European level and possibly fighting for world titles but falling short. In comparisson I can see Cleverly becoming world champion and staying there for a good few years.

[cutthecacklebullyup]

Post the most critical responses in this thread, I just don't see people writing him off [as] completely [as you are saying] . I see people saying he won't do [based on last night] what he's [Bellew] said he can/will, which is beat Cleverly.

I'm saying that the negative responses aren't as negative as you're making out.
If you want to get into an argument about semantics and grey areas, find someone else to bother.

"cleverly v bellew for me is simular to haye v harrison, it will be over within 3 rounds guarenteed" (Jessi)
"Tony only fights one way, Nathan would play with him sorry" (Taffytoon)
"bellew should have at least 10 more fights before he thinks of fighting cleverley" (Fast Eddie)
"i think cleverley would make bellew look like he was back in the amateurs,he would schooled as bellew once said to a comment i was commenting on brains beats brawn everytime so cleverley would destroy bellew in 4 rounds" (Fast Eddie)
"Where was the ice man tonight...."I think he has melted" hahaha (xxxHammerxxx)
"Bellew was well and truely exposed completely live on sky in my opinion. Slow, weak chinned and out of ideas when plan A doesn't work" (Goldbird)
Well I'm sorry to 'bother you', but if you're going to initiate the debate with one-liners such as 'no-one's been writing him off' then I think it's perfectly justfied to call you up on it given the evidence I've outline above (as per your request).
My point is that the middle ground is clearly occupied by a host of reasoned posters ranging from Scrap and Steve Dow through to GlobalBox and WeslhDevil, who've identified flaws but haven't been so utterly dismissive of Bellew. The opinions above completely lack that perspective IMO.

As mentioned earlier the main reason he has been so talked about is that he talks him self up so much he has not knocked over a good few few lamp posts but talks so disprespectfully about ko'ingclclev,,the two fighters are an different leagues!so for me there is no middle ground as bomber himself has said he ready for top level fights.