Khaosai-Galaxy wrote:
Watching UFC a bit recently I was struck at the "clarity" of the whole product, stories and characters are established quickly and clearly. X is a bad guy so we see him generally acting like a pudendum, Y is a good guy, so we see him making with the nice nice. They then make sure the audience knows both guys history, giving a story as to how we got to this point where these 2 guys are fighting (Boxing promoters are horrible at doing this, its like they have to keep it a secret) show them knocking some people out and its done.
The audience knows who, why, where, when.
I couldn't agree more with this statement.
What I also love about the UFC is the way the fighter is who he is and that's it. The match making is usually of such a high standard it's almost like a video game in its reliability. The other week I was watching a phenomenal battle between Dan Henderson and Shogun Rua, and apart from during the usual pre fight stats, I don't think there was one mention of the fact that one guy was 42 and the other 29. This was name against name, that's all you needed to know. You trusted the match making to be of the highest order, and so it proved yet again.
I don't know how boxing can expect to attract new fans when a match between the 2 best fighters can't be made. It's bad enough that the match itself is unlikely to live up to the hype in the event that it did happen (neither can win by KO, Mayweather virtually impossible to hit with a clean shot) but now Pacquiao's reputation has taken a real dent while they both move towards their mid thirties.
I only pray Deontay Wilders is the next Riddick Bowe!
I hate the fact that boxing promoters cant seem to put 2 top "contenders" in a fight.
Rather than have the number 2,3,4,5,6 etc in the world fight it out to produce a clear contender for the champion, boxing has developed a bizarre system where as soon as a fighter gets a world ranking, they are put into stasis, occasionally fighting someone way below their level whilst they await a title shot.
we all onow boxing can do out heads in. but i have found UK boxing far more satisfying than in the frustrating days of joe calzaghe, etc. maybe we don't have a world level star, but this year has seen plenty of positive stuff:
the domestic fights we all wanted to see - mitchell-murray, fury-chisora and of course cleverly-bellew. all these fights delivered, not to mention some small-hall, mini-classics (the mcdonnell fight in doncaster, buckland-sykes 2).
and, after a couple of flops in which defensive-minded brits were thoroughly outworked/outboxed in haye-wlad and rhodes-alvarez, we got to see some proper, determined title challenges in which john murray (v brandon rios), martin murray and matthew macklin (both vs felix sturm) & del boy chisora (v supposed world class puncher helenius), falling a bit short but really making a fight of it.
post-recession we've seen much tougher matchmaking and even falling short, some of these fighters are seriously gaining something in career momentum. macklin may get to fight middleweight standout sergio martinez; martin murray may have a genuine rivalry with WBA champ sturm; sauerland has been saying that controversial loser chisora will get a rematch; if murray, j can bounce back from a pair of stoppage losses, a ricky burns fight may not be impossible to make (burns coming off another top showing, v katsidis).
all we need are rivalries, and fierce ones, on both the domestic and world scene.
i think boxing has been moving in this direction, to a decent extent.
not so many fights of the gary lockett-katsimpas or enzo mac v azzaoui ilk, these days.
regarding the good guy-bad guy stuff - life is rarely that simple and probably neither are the audiences, these days.
also, i hope nobody decides that deafening music between rounds is the solution to improving boxing as a spectacle. do they think we all have a substandard attention span, that we cannot wait a full minute for the action to resume?
Right the reason behind what seems to be the problem is the top promoters are afraid to put their top fighters against each other as they beloved it will lose them money but in the long run they are killing the sport. They are penny punchers and don't think about the long term investment in the game. It's because they know you can buy a world title and make an profit on the return that's what they have done with Kahn and that's what is happening with regale and groves and the likes. I'm not saying that they aren't good fighters as the clearly are but does anyone really believe without the funding or protection they receive from their teams that any of the aforementioned would be in the postition they are in cos I don't. Kahn would have got knocked out after about 5 fights by someone who wasn't near his boxing ability but could punch a little harder than a light wind. James regale would have been bullied into submission by the first decent fighter with any sort of will to win and George groves woulda got stopped by Kenny Anderson. If he had Anderson in that much trouble that early on it would have been stopped. I do however relieve thy out of the three chosen names groves has had it the hardest by a very small margin. I had a look through their records and they literally fought nobodies until they met each other degale was fighting guys from the weight below until they decided to drag a fighter from the weight above down who was hand picked because they knew he was useless. Anyway my point is have aloof at the small hall promoters such as Helliet Goodwin and fearon all of which put on cracking shows as they can't afford to buy fights for their fighters they have to put them in with tough opponents who will actually try and win. Take for instance the coroner 25th November top of the bill was tony Owen vs Ben murphy both Helliet fighters both with a lot to lose. It was a cracking fight as was the whole show especially my knockout ha ha seriously it was great for the supporters and even greater to see it get some recognition on Eurosport those shows are the sort of shows that should be on terrestrial tv forget sky and allegedly let them have their hyped up goody goodies and give fighters like myself a chance to show what we can do cos we won't hide from anyone nor will we be protected mainly because we ant afford to it also because that's the sport we are in "fighting" so let's fight won lose or draw lets fight and fight again until we don't want to do it anymore but lets also make sure we entertain the people that pay our wages and give them value for money like the small hall promoters I mentioned try and do.
iftkwoody wrote:Right the reason behind what seems to be the problem is the top promoters are afraid to put their top fighters against each other as they beloved it will lose them money but in the long run they are killing the sport. They are penny punchers and don't think about the long term investment in the game. It's because they know you can buy a world title and make an profit on the return that's what they have done with Kahn and that's what is happening with regale and groves and the likes. I'm not saying that they aren't good fighters as the clearly are but does anyone really believe without the funding or protection they receive from their teams that any of the aforementioned would be in the postition they are in cos I don't. Kahn would have got knocked out after about 5 fights by someone who wasn't near his boxing ability but could punch a little harder than a light wind. James regale would have been bullied into submission by the first decent fighter with any sort of will to win and George groves woulda got stopped by Kenny Anderson. If he had Anderson in that much trouble that early on it would have been stopped. I do however relieve thy out of the three chosen names groves has had it the hardest by a very small margin. I had a look through their records and they literally fought nobodies until they met each other degale was fighting guys from the weight below until they decided to drag a fighter from the weight above down who was hand picked because they knew he was useless. Anyway my point is have aloof at the small hall promoters such as Helliet Goodwin and fearon all of which put on cracking shows as they can't afford to buy fights for their fighters they have to put them in with tough opponents who will actually try and win. Take for instance the coroner 25th November top of the bill was tony Owen vs Ben murphy both Helliet fighters both with a lot to lose. It was a cracking fight as was the whole show especially my knockout ha ha seriously it was great for the supporters and even greater to see it get some recognition on Eurosport those shows are the sort of shows that should be on terrestrial tv forget sky and Allegedly Channel let them have their hyped up goody goodies and give fighters like myself a chance to show what we can do cos we won't hide from anyone nor will we be protected mainly because we ant afford to it also because that's the sport we are in "fighting" so let's fight won lose or draw lets fight and fight again until we don't want to do it anymore but lets also make sure we entertain the people that pay our wages and give them value for money like the small hall promoters I mentioned try and do.
Sorry about the spelling am posting from my phone and it's a new one so am not used to the keyboard yet
iftkwoody wrote:Right the reason behind what seems to be the problem is the top promoters are afraid to put their top fighters against each other as they beloved it will lose them money but in the long run they are killing the sport. They are penny punchers and don't think about the long term investment in the game. It's because they know you can buy a world title and make an profit on the return that's what they have done with Kahn
I agree with your sentiments completely, but to use Amir Khan as an example is just silly.
Just using him as he has been well protected I have no personal gripe with him as I believe him to be a good guy but he is testament to the fact that you can get anywhere with the right backing.
