Well Said!!!!!!!!

[caldo2025]

I'm far from a Dan Rafael fan but he absolutely nails it with his article yesterday (link below). Boxing has been an absolute joke this year and Rafael doesn't pull any punches in this piece. He hits all of the networks, promoters and fighters in the mouth. Normally, i find him to be a jock sniffer just to be an insider to the good boys club's boxing network but he puts everyone on notice and puts this "catchweight" on blast as the joke it really is.

Worth a read. Boxing is such a joke.

http://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_/id/1 ... g-fan-2016

[Enlightened-One]

Dan should already appreciate the fact that boxing is a business and there are legitimate commercial reasons for some of the disappointing things we've seen happen this year.

It actually quite surprises me that he has conveniently decided to exclude these from his narrative, but I guess he's more interested in receiving proverbial pats on the back from casual sports fans rather than explaining the whole story.

For sure, from a sporting perspective, 2016 has been a disappointing year for boxing, but it's unfair to portray certain fighters as heroes and others as villains when all the decision-makers are businessmen, purely motivated to maximise revenue by encouraging public interest in high-profile bouts to marinate (as per the Mayweather-Pacquiao fiasco).

It intrigues me that Rafael decided to harshly criticise individual fighters, whilst refraining from attacking any of the head honchos at HBO, PBC, Showtime, GBP, Top Rank, K2, WBA, WBO etc. because those are the people that are actually responsible for boxing's dire situation.

Genuine boxing fans should criticise the middle-aged men wearing the business suits and moving all the chess pieces, not the athletes that are brave enough to step inside the ring.

[MachoTime]

I read a few paragraphs. It's the same stuff that has been said before and is posted on here and elsewhere.

[BAD INTENTIONS]

I'm far from a Dan Rafael fan but he absolutely nails it with his article yesterday (link below). Boxing has been an absolute joke this year and Rafael doesn't pull any punches in this piece. He hits all of the networks, promoters and fighters in the mouth. Normally, i find him to be a jock sniffer just to be an insider to the good boys club's boxing network but he puts everyone on notice and puts this "catchweight" on blast as the joke it really is.

Worth a read. Boxing is such a joke.

http://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_/id/1 ... g-fan-2016

Same guy who help promote Canelo/Khan and Brook/GGG?
Same guy who is an official/economically proven HBO stooge?

PS - Most people here are part of the problem.
Accept anything based on company/national allegiances ... aka severely biased.

Example - I will never watch Floyd/Manny II (Even if i don't have to pay and I didn't pay for the first one)
But I can't wait for Wlad/Fury II.

[Andrew]

Dan should already appreciate the fact that boxing is a business and there are legitimate commercial reasons for some of the disappointing things we've seen happen this year.

It actually quite surprises me that he has conveniently decided to exclude these from his narrative, but I guess he's more interested in receiving proverbial pats on the back from casual sports fans rather than explaining the whole story.

For sure, from a sporting perspective, 2016 has been a disappointing year for boxing, but it's unfair to portray certain fighters as heroes and others as villains when all the decision-makers are businessmen, purely motivated to maximise revenue by encouraging public interest in high-profile bouts to marinate (as per the Mayweather-Pacquiao fiasco).

It intrigues me that Rafael decided to harshly criticise individual fighters, whilst refraining from attacking any of the head honchos at HBO, PBC, Showtime, GBP, Top Rank, K2, WBA, WBO etc. because those are the people that are actually responsible for boxing's dire situation.

Genuine boxing fans should criticise the middle-aged men wearing the business suits and moving all the chess pieces, not the athletes that are brave enough to step inside the ring.

Whilst I agree promoters should get critisized particularly De La Hoya this year. The promoter still works for the fighter. Conelo should have been saying he wanted the GGG fight now but he shat it and dropped the belt.

I remember a couple of years ago. He went to Scahefer and demanded he made the Lara fight when Schaefer didn't want it. He wanted it to prove he was the best in the world at that weight

[SaadOffTheDeck]

I'm far from a Dan Rafael fan but he absolutely nails it with his article yesterday (link below). Boxing has been an absolute joke this year and Rafael doesn't pull any punches in this piece. He hits all of the networks, promoters and fighters in the mouth. Normally, i find him to be a jock sniffer just to be an insider to the good boys club's boxing network but he puts everyone on notice and puts this "catchweight" on blast as the joke it really is.

Worth a read. Boxing is such a joke.

http://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_/id/1 ... g-fan-2016

Same guy who help promote Canelo/Khan and Brook/GGG?
Same guy who is an official/economically proven HBO stooge?

PS - Most people here are part of the problem.
Accept anything based on company/national allegiances ... aka severely biased.

Example - I will never watch Floyd/Manny II (Even if i don't have to pay and I didn't pay for the first one)
But I can't wait for Wlad/Fury II.

He didn't leave HBO out of that. You should have read it, he's right all around.

[caldo2025]

Dan should already appreciate the fact that boxing is a business and there are legitimate commercial reasons for some of the disappointing things we've seen happen this year.

It actually quite surprises me that he has conveniently decided to exclude these from his narrative, but I guess he's more interested in receiving proverbial pats on the back from casual sports fans rather than explaining the whole story.

For sure, from a sporting perspective, 2016 has been a disappointing year for boxing, but it's unfair to portray certain fighters as heroes and others as villains when all the decision-makers are businessmen, purely motivated to maximise revenue by encouraging public interest in high-profile bouts to marinate (as per the Mayweather-Pacquiao fiasco).

It intrigues me that Rafael decided to harshly criticise individual fighters, whilst refraining from attacking any of the head honchos at HBO, PBC, Showtime, GBP, Top Rank, K2, WBA, WBO etc. because those are the people that are actually responsible for boxing's dire situation.

Genuine boxing fans should criticise the middle-aged men wearing the business suits and moving all the chess pieces, not the athletes that are brave enough to step inside the ring.

This oil spill that is the current state of boxing is caused by the boxers first and foremost. If you are looking for the cause and effect of this disaster, you can't point the finger at anyone wearing a suit and tie. The boxers are the ones that have cheapened this product and made it expendable to the major networks and put it in dangerous waters. The top level boxers in the sport make the call on whether they are going to fight and whom they agree to fight. Whether they fight once a year or three times a year, that's up to the boxers. Not some suit in a highrise. You have it ALL wrong.

DId you see the list of boxers that only scheduled one fight this year? Did you see the list of fighters that haven't fought at all this year? This has a cumulative effect on the supply and demand of the product. This is why you see HBO reducing their boxing budget and SHOWTIME not airing a show since June. Do you think that this would be the case if boxers were more active and taking tougher fights. If Boxing was run like the UFC, do you think this would ever happen? The answer is no.

Boxing is in dire trouble right now. HBO and SHOWTIME's might decide that they no longer want the Boxing product on their menu and then what? It's bad enough that we haven't seen a significant card in months but now every big fight is going to be a PPV even. It's sad. The blame belongs on the boxers for decreasing the value of the product by inactivity and easy fights. It's at the point of cowardice.

[BAD INTENTIONS]

This oil spill that is the current state of boxing is caused by the boxers first and foremost. If you are looking for the cause and effect of this disaster, you can't point the finger at anyone wearing a suit and tie. The boxers are the ones that have cheapened this product and made it expendable to the major networks and put it in dangerous waters. The top level boxers in the sport make the call on whether they are going to fight and whom they agree to fight. Whether they fight once a year or three times a year, that's up to the boxers. Not some suit in a highrise. You have it ALL wrong.

DId you see the list of boxers that only scheduled one fight this year? Did you see the list of fighters that haven't fought at all this year? This has a cumulative effect on the supply and demand of the product. This is why you see HBO reducing their boxing budget and SHOWTIME not airing a show since June. Do you think that this would be the case if boxers were more active and taking tougher fights. If Boxing was run like the UFC, do you think this would ever happen? The answer is no.

Boxing is in dire trouble right now. HBO and SHOWTIME's might decide that they no longer want the Boxing product on their menu and then what? It's bad enough that we haven't seen a significant card in months but now every big fight is going to be a PPV even. It's sad. The blame belongs on the boxers for decreasing the value of the product by inactivity and easy fights. It's at the point of cowardice.

There are like 5 boxers who can dictate their fights.

If you imagine some dream/movie world where Kovalev can punch the desk and scream,
"Make the Stevenson fight dammit!!!", you are either a child, or an adult-fool.

You must not realize that many top fighters are not "living the life".
They make like $300K after taxes in a good year.
They are "celebrities", so they spend like it.
Then they sit and wait, broke, until the promoter gives them a fight.
Then they have to act like the promoter is their best friend,
because if they don't, it's back to the shelf.

Stop judging all fighters by the "top" %1.
That's what we do with humans, to much misery.

[caldo2025]

This oil spill that is the current state of boxing is caused by the boxers first and foremost. If you are looking for the cause and effect of this disaster, you can't point the finger at anyone wearing a suit and tie. The boxers are the ones that have cheapened this product and made it expendable to the major networks and put it in dangerous waters. The top level boxers in the sport make the call on whether they are going to fight and whom they agree to fight. Whether they fight once a year or three times a year, that's up to the boxers. Not some suit in a highrise. You have it ALL wrong.

DId you see the list of boxers that only scheduled one fight this year? Did you see the list of fighters that haven't fought at all this year? This has a cumulative effect on the supply and demand of the product. This is why you see HBO reducing their boxing budget and SHOWTIME not airing a show since June. Do you think that this would be the case if boxers were more active and taking tougher fights. If Boxing was run like the UFC, do you think this would ever happen? The answer is no.

Boxing is in dire trouble right now. HBO and SHOWTIME's might decide that they no longer want the Boxing product on their menu and then what? It's bad enough that we haven't seen a significant card in months but now every big fight is going to be a PPV even. It's sad. The blame belongs on the boxers for decreasing the value of the product by inactivity and easy fights. It's at the point of cowardice.

There are like 5 boxers who can dictate their fights.

If you imagine some dream/movie world where Kovalev can punch the desk and scream,
"Make the Stevenson fight dammit!!!", you are either a child, or an adult-fool.

You must not realize that many top fighters are not "living the life".
They make like $300K after taxes in a good year.
They are "celebrities", so they spend like it.
Then they sit and wait, broke, until the promoter gives them a fight.
Then they have to act like the promoter is their best friend,
because if they don't, it's back to the shelf.

Stop judging all fighters by the "top" %1.
That's what we do with humans, to much misery.

\

The top fighters today don't want to be tested by the other top fighters. They all want the Floyd Business model where low risk, high margin fights are the norm. There are only a few top boxers out there doing the right thing.

The top boxers nowadays look to one big fight in their career before they call it a day. Everything leads up to that one fight that they put everything aside and get in the ring with someone they might not be able to beat. Back in the day, boxers had many of these fights in the career. But now, it's all about one signature fight before they retire and that's what's killing the sport.

[Enlightened-One]

This oil spill that is the current state of boxing is caused by the boxers first and foremost. If you are looking for the cause and effect of this disaster, you can't point the finger at anyone wearing a suit and tie. The boxers are the ones that have cheapened this product and made it expendable to the major networks and put it in dangerous waters. The top level boxers in the sport make the call on whether they are going to fight and whom they agree to fight. Whether they fight once a year or three times a year, that's up to the boxers. Not some suit in a highrise. You have it ALL wrong.

DId you see the list of boxers that only scheduled one fight this year? Did you see the list of fighters that haven't fought at all this year? This has a cumulative effect on the supply and demand of the product. This is why you see HBO reducing their boxing budget and SHOWTIME not airing a show since June. Do you think that this would be the case if boxers were more active and taking tougher fights. If Boxing was run like the UFC, do you think this would ever happen? The answer is no.

Boxing is in dire trouble right now. HBO and SHOWTIME's might decide that they no longer want the Boxing product on their menu and then what? It's bad enough that we haven't seen a significant card in months but now every big fight is going to be a PPV even. It's sad. The blame belongs on the boxers for decreasing the value of the product by inactivity and easy fights. It's at the point of cowardice.

There are like 5 boxers who can dictate their fights.

If you imagine some dream/movie world where Kovalev can punch the desk and scream,
"Make the Stevenson fight dammit!!!", you are either a child, or an adult-fool.

You must not realize that many top fighters are not "living the life".
They make like $300K after taxes in a good year.
They are "celebrities", so they spend like it.
Then they sit and wait, broke, until the promoter gives them a fight.
Then they have to act like the promoter is their best friend,
because if they don't, it's back to the shelf.

Stop judging all fighters by the "top" %1.
That's what we do with humans, to much misery.

\

The top fighters today don't want to be tested by the other top fighters. They all want the Floyd Business model where low risk, high margin fights are the norm. There are only a few top boxers out there doing the right thing.

The top boxers nowadays look to one big fight in their career before they call it a day. Everything leads up to that one fight that they put everything aside and get in the ring with someone they might not be able to beat. Back in the day, boxers had many of these fights in the career. But now, it's all about one signature fight before they retire and that's what's killing the sport.

Hagler, Hearns and Leonard all preferred to chase the dollar by fighting against the marquee names rather than engage in bouts against dangerous prospects like Spinks, McCallum, Nunn, Kalambay and Graham.

The "risk versus return" business-oriented mindset we're seeing today has been occurring for decades.

[caldo2025]

There are like 5 boxers who can dictate their fights.

If you imagine some dream/movie world where Kovalev can punch the desk and scream,
"Make the Stevenson fight dammit!!!", you are either a child, or an adult-fool.

You must not realize that many top fighters are not "living the life".
They make like $300K after taxes in a good year.
They are "celebrities", so they spend like it.
Then they sit and wait, broke, until the promoter gives them a fight.
Then they have to act like the promoter is their best friend,
because if they don't, it's back to the shelf.

Stop judging all fighters by the "top" %1.
That's what we do with humans, to much misery.

\

The top fighters today don't want to be tested by the other top fighters. They all want the Floyd Business model where low risk, high margin fights are the norm. There are only a few top boxers out there doing the right thing.

The top boxers nowadays look to one big fight in their career before they call it a day. Everything leads up to that one fight that they put everything aside and get in the ring with someone they might not be able to beat. Back in the day, boxers had many of these fights in the career. But now, it's all about one signature fight before they retire and that's what's killing the sport.

Hagler, Hearns and Leonard all preferred to chase the dollar by fighting against the marquee names rather than engage in bouts against dangerous prospects like Spinks, McCallum, Nunn, Kalambay and Graham.

The "risk versus return" business-oriented mindset we're seeing today has been occurring for decades.

Comparing Hagler, Leonard and Hearns with the frame of minds of today's top stars is insulting. The simple fact being that these three all fought each other and some multiple times. If you include Duran into the mix, you prove my point. Duran, Hagler, Leonard and Hearns were the top stars in the sport within the Welterweight-Middleweight division and they all fought each other so your point has no air in it.

The Welterweight division has been chalked full of stars for years and what do we have to show for it? We've had TWO quality showdowns that i could think of. Floyd/Manny and Thurman/Porter. The division has been packed for 7 years plus and we have only two fights to mark the era?

Look at the 7 years where Hearns, Hagler, Leonard and Duran reigned. From 1980 to 1987 we had the following fights:

Sugar Ray vs. Roberto Duran
Sugar Ray vs. Roberto Duran II
Sugar Ray vs. Tommy Hearns
Sugar Ray vs. Hagler
Hagler vs. Hearns
Hagler vs. Duran
Hearns vs. Duran

Not to mention the other battles these guys had against other boxers during that period of time. Not even the same ballpark man. You are VERY incorrect.

[Enlightened-One]

\

The top fighters today don't want to be tested by the other top fighters. They all want the Floyd Business model where low risk, high margin fights are the norm. There are only a few top boxers out there doing the right thing.

The top boxers nowadays look to one big fight in their career before they call it a day. Everything leads up to that one fight that they put everything aside and get in the ring with someone they might not be able to beat. Back in the day, boxers had many of these fights in the career. But now, it's all about one signature fight before they retire and that's what's killing the sport.

Hagler, Hearns and Leonard all preferred to chase the dollar by fighting against the marquee names rather than engage in bouts against dangerous prospects like Spinks, McCallum, Nunn, Kalambay and Graham.

The "risk versus return" business-oriented mindset we're seeing today has been occurring for decades.

Comparing Hagler, Leonard and Hearns with the frame of minds of today's top stars is insulting. The simple fact being that these three all fought each other and some multiple times. If you include Duran into the mix, you prove my point. Duran, Hagler, Leonard and Hearns were the top stars in the sport within the Welterweight-Middleweight division and they all fought each other so your point has no air in it.

The Welterweight division has been chalked full of stars for years and what do we have to show for it? We've had TWO quality showdowns that i could think of. Floyd/Manny and Thurman/Porter. The division has been packed for 7 years plus and we have only two fights to mark the era?

Look at the 7 years where Hearns, Hagler, Leonard and Duran reigned. From 1980 to 1987 we had the following fights:

Sugar Ray vs. Roberto Duran
Sugar Ray vs. Roberto Duran II
Sugar Ray vs. Tommy Hearns
Sugar Ray vs. Hagler
Hagler vs. Hearns
Hagler vs. Duran
Hearns vs. Duran

Not to mention the other battles these guys had against other boxers during that period of time. Not even the same ballpark man. You are VERY incorrect.

You need to consider what I’ve said in context of what transpired at the time, not with the benefit of hindsight.

The WBA stripped Marvin Hagler for refusing to face their long-time mandatory challenger Herol ‘Bomber’ Graham, as he preferred to face Ray Leonard intsead. And the IBF stripped him at the same time also, because they wouldn't sanction a bout between their middleweight champion and a welterweight that had only competed in one fight in five years, due to a detached retina… who immediately retired after his most recent and terrible performance against Kevin Howard (who decked him).

Also, Thomas Hearns was apparently offered decent money to face Herol ‘Bomber’ Graham in 1983, which was swiftly turned down by Emanuel Steward, because it was “totally unwise thing to do to send Tommy over to England to defend his title against a spoiler who is unheard of in America”. There was more money to be earned elsewhere.

Also, Roberto Duran was stripped of his WBA 154lb world title for refusing to defend it against the undefeated Mike McCallum, because he was chasing a bigger pay cheque to face Thomas Hearns instead.

Whilst Graham and McCallum were both ducked by the proverbial “fab four”, in preference of the chasing the biggest pay cheques, the same could be said of other fighters competing in the same era who were avoided also, such as Spinks, Nunn, Kalambay etc.

Simply put, Hagler dropped his titles to chase the cheque, which is the same approach used by today’s fighters.

[caldo2025]

Hagler, Hearns and Leonard all preferred to chase the dollar by fighting against the marquee names rather than engage in bouts against dangerous prospects like Spinks, McCallum, Nunn, Kalambay and Graham.

The "risk versus return" business-oriented mindset we're seeing today has been occurring for decades.

Comparing Hagler, Leonard and Hearns with the frame of minds of today's top stars is insulting. The simple fact being that these three all fought each other and some multiple times. If you include Duran into the mix, you prove my point. Duran, Hagler, Leonard and Hearns were the top stars in the sport within the Welterweight-Middleweight division and they all fought each other so your point has no air in it.

The Welterweight division has been chalked full of stars for years and what do we have to show for it? We've had TWO quality showdowns that i could think of. Floyd/Manny and Thurman/Porter. The division has been packed for 7 years plus and we have only two fights to mark the era?

Look at the 7 years where Hearns, Hagler, Leonard and Duran reigned. From 1980 to 1987 we had the following fights:

Sugar Ray vs. Roberto Duran
Sugar Ray vs. Roberto Duran II
Sugar Ray vs. Tommy Hearns
Sugar Ray vs. Hagler
Hagler vs. Hearns
Hagler vs. Duran
Hearns vs. Duran

Not to mention the other battles these guys had against other boxers during that period of time. Not even the same ballpark man. You are VERY incorrect.

You need to consider what I’ve said in context of what transpired at the time, not with the benefit of hindsight.

The WBA stripped Marvin Hagler for refusing to face their long-time mandatory challenger Herol ‘Bomber’ Graham, as he preferred to face Ray Leonard intsead. And the IBF stripped him at the same time also, because they wouldn't sanction a bout between their middleweight champion and a welterweight that had only competed in one fight in five years, due to a detached retina… who immediately retired after his most recent and terrible performance against Kevin Howard (who decked him).

Also, Thomas Hearns was apparently offered decent money to face Herol ‘Bomber’ Graham in 1983, which was swiftly turned down by Emanuel Steward, because it was “totally unwise thing to do to send Tommy over to England to defend his title against a spoiler who is unheard of in America”. There was more money to be earned elsewhere.

Also, Roberto Duran was stripped of his WBA 154lb world title for refusing to defend it against the undefeated Mike McCallum, because he was chasing a bigger pay cheque to face Thomas Hearns instead.

Whilst Graham and McCallum were both ducked by the proverbial “fab four”, in preference of the chasing the biggest pay cheques, the same could be said of other fighters competing in the same era who were avoided also, such as Spinks, Nunn, Kalambay etc.

Simply put, Hagler dropped his titles to chase the cheque, which is the same approach used by today’s fighters.

You obviously have some affinity for this chap Graham but it's you that seems to be missing the point here. The point is that the problem with boxing is that the biggest stars are not fighting each other. Fans back in the 1980s wanted to see Hagler face Leonard a lot more than they wanted him to fight Graham. The fans won in the 80s and that's because we saw most of the fights that we wanted to see.

Boxers today are not "chasing the money", they are chasing the most money they can get for an easy opponent. They are not trying to make mega fights right now. Look at Canelo as a prime example. This kid is at his peak right now and he ditched the most prestigious belt in the sport to fight some no name at Junior Middleweight that presented little risk and a world title belt. That's why he fought Cotto, it's low hanging fruit. That's all boxers are after today. Out of all the boxers Canelo could be fighting at Junior Middleweight, he took on the worst boxer with a strap.

Sure Sugar Ray did that same thing with Donny Lalonde late in his career but not in his prime. He wanted to be great. Boxers today don't want the same things and the things that they do want do not equate to what fans want to see. Not even close.

[boxingtruth]

I read a few paragraphs. It's the same stuff that has been said before and is posted on here and elsewhere.

Agree 100%. He was stating the bleeding obvious. His recent pound for pound list was embarrassing .