If Naz Was Fighting Today

[dirk2686]

Usually Naz's changing room was one big party, boombox in the corner and loads of people gyrating around. Always before a fight I would go in and sort of wish him luck, I would say the same thing "I know your going to win and I hope you enjoy yourself". The Barrera fight I went down maybe 15 mins before he had to be in the ring. The room was silent, Naz was sat in the corner in an armchair and only Nabeel (his brother) was in there with him. Nabeel looked at me and said "you talk to him John" and left the room. Naz hadn't warmed up, he hadn't even got his gloves on. I tried to enthuse him but he was completely flat, not depressed just bored to tears by it all. A few minutes later a floor manger for HBO came into the room. She was panicking like mad, "we are live in 96 countries in ten minutes and he hasn't even gloved up yet", she looked at me, I just shrugged. I can't remember much after that but somehow we cajoled him into putting on his gloves and got him ringside. After the fight I was shell-shocked, it had never occurred to me that he could ever lose. In the hotel later Naz saw me and came over, he said "come on, cheer up, we are all on holiday now".

Really interesting post but this bit seems so strange to an outsider. It feels a bit like a kid who loved playing football on the park as a kid, became a pro, won the league and the FA Cup, and then becoming bored of the whole thing when he's sat in the changing room ready to go out to play in the World Cup final.

[JimJim2009]

Boxing has changed. It's no longer about good match ups and entertaining fights. It's about trash talking and hype especially in this country. Matchroom have a done good job of brainwashing people.

Yeah - Joshua Klitschko, Froch Groves, Brook Spence, Bellew Makubu. These are joke fights that make me long for the glory days when you got honest, proper, entertaining fights like Naz against Billy Hardy.

And who could forget those wonderful nights when we all made sure we were recording the likes of Calzaghe v Thornberry, or Starie, or Mkrtchyan, or Salem, or Pudwill, or McIntyre, or Sobot, or Manfredo, or Ashira, or Jiminez. They really were world title fights you wanted to watch time and time and time again. I personally remember exactly where I was when FW announced the Veit rematch. I suspect a lot of us do.

It's not like FW would ever try and con his audience by suggesting past their best fighters were relevant. Nobody could ever deny that it was a prime Barrera who came over to face Khan, appropriately on PPV. And speaking of Khan, I am utterly pig sick of being asked to pay pay per view fees for such unmitigated rubbish as Cleverly v Bellew and Whyte v Parker. I remember stumping up my money for Amir in his pick 'em thriller against Dimitri Salita, and I don't care who says it was over too quickly - the fight against Prescott was worth fifteen quid and if I could I would have paid more. How could you not with white-hot undercard action featuring Paul Smith against Danny Thornton, Matthew Hall against Taz Jones, and big Audley against Arias? Puts Mitchell Linares, Selby Gradovic and Joshua Johnson firmly in the shade.

Very good stuff

[JimJim2009]

If he was fighting today I would fancy Joshua.

He would somersault over the top rope bounce off the canvass like a space hopper and land on Eddie Hearns wallet.

Now that's worth £19.99

[jamamb]

As said, no Matchroom fighter has come close to Naz’s fame and never will.
Ps Hamed was briefly with Matchroom! They did a terrible job with him.

Why as you so anti-Matchroom Mickey? You seem to want them to fail.

So no Matchroom fighter will ever be as famous as Naz?! I would argue that AJ is now. He may not be as famous in the US but worldwide he would be. With the US he’s one win against Wilder away from being a US PPV fighter - something Naz never was over there.

AJ’s aligned himself to some massive worldwide brands. I’ve been in Canada, Australia and a few counties in Europe this year and is in each of them I’ve seen posters in shops, banners next to roads with him promoting brands in some of them and ads on tv pre promoting his fight against Parker.

The fight against Parker was shown in 215 countries. Naz at the time wouldn’t have got anywhere this.

are there even 215 countries in the world?

[tiny_acres]

As said, no Matchroom fighter has come close to Naz’s fame and never will.
Ps Hamed was briefly with Matchroom! They did a terrible job with him.

Why as you so anti-Matchroom Mickey? You seem to want them to fail.

So no Matchroom fighter will ever be as famous as Naz?! I would argue that AJ is now. He may not be as famous in the US but worldwide he would be. With the US he’s one win against Wilder away from being a US PPV fighter - something Naz never was over there.

AJ’s aligned himself to some massive worldwide brands. I’ve been in Canada, Australia and a few counties in Europe this year and is in each of them I’ve seen posters in shops, banners next to roads with him promoting brands in some of them and ads on tv pre promoting his fight against Parker.

The fight against Parker was shown in 215 countries. Naz at the time wouldn’t have got anywhere this.

are there even 215 countries in the world?

196 countries in te world

[SenorPipino]

Hamed was much better known in the US than Joshua is at this point.

The Prince was wise enough to come to the USA and showcase himself.

Joshua is fighting tooth and nail to stay in the UK's friendly confines.

[tiny_acres]

Hamed was much better known in the US than Joshua is at this point.

The Prince was wise enough to come to the USA and showcase himself.

Joshua is fighting tooth and nail to stay in the UK's friendly confines.

I still do not understand not wanting to fight in the US. He could be a huge ppv star

[mickey1975]

Why as you so anti-Matchroom Mickey? You seem to want them to fail.

So no Matchroom fighter will ever be as famous as Naz?! I would argue that AJ is now. He may not be as famous in the US but worldwide he would be. With the US he’s one win against Wilder away from being a US PPV fighter - something Naz never was over there.

AJ’s aligned himself to some massive worldwide brands. I’ve been in Canada, Australia and a few counties in Europe this year and is in each of them I’ve seen posters in shops, banners next to roads with him promoting brands in some of them and ads on tv pre promoting his fight against Parker.

The fight against Parker was shown in 215 countries. Naz at the time wouldn’t have got anywhere this.

Naz had the entire Middle East watching. Plus Arabs all over the world. That’s a pretty big area.

Entire Middle East watching?! Any evidence for that? Were his fights even available in places like Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel? I doubt it.

Boxing has never been massive in the Middle East. It’s partly why there haven’t been big fights there in some of the richer countries - there just isn’t the interest.

I’m happy to be proven wrong as I was a big Naz fan.

God knows why every fight the ring sponsor was an Arabic tv company. And, AJ beating Wilder won’t make him bigger. Hamed-Barrera was much bigger over there. Anyway, it’s a moot point, they’ll only fight if it’s here and the ref is under strict orders not to let Wilder hit him. People are saying it’s building the fight. Only on Sky! Is their news channel popular over there?

[SenorPipino]

I think Hamed vs Barrera was his only PPV fight in the US.

That fight was big, especially in the heavily Latino southwestern states.

It had been discussed for several years. Longer than Wilder vs Joshua.

I'm not certain a Joshua win over Wilder would make him a very big star in the US.

Right now there seems to be scant interest in the heavyweight division here.

Lewis, I'm sure, will always be considered a bigger US attraction than Joshua.

Probably because he fought during an intriguing heavyweight era, especially in America.

Outside of Wilder, every other US heavy is pretty anonymous here so there are no rivalries.

Hamed was able to capture the attention of American audiences with his brash personality, ring style and power.

He certainly wasn't beloved here, but as long as fans paid to see him, Hamed wasn't too concerned.

[mickey1975]

We know AJ won’t travel to fight, but a working holiday in Nigeria might boost his profile. Hamed did it in The Yemen and had something ridiculous at his public workouts, like 100,000 people if I remember rightly. His head was on the stamp there! Nigeria is a fairly big country, plus the rest of Africa where he has genuine links to. America isn’t everything, but neither are Wembley and Cardiff!

[dirk2686]

Hamed was much better known in the US than Joshua is at this point.

The Prince was wise enough to come to the USA and showcase himself.

Joshua is fighting tooth and nail to stay in the UK's friendly confines.

It's two decades since Hamed fought Kelley. A lot has changed in boxing and American interest in the sport is one of them.

[jamamb]

Why as you so anti-Matchroom Mickey? You seem to want them to fail.

So no Matchroom fighter will ever be as famous as Naz?! I would argue that AJ is now. He may not be as famous in the US but worldwide he would be. With the US he’s one win against Wilder away from being a US PPV fighter - something Naz never was over there.

AJ’s aligned himself to some massive worldwide brands. I’ve been in Canada, Australia and a few counties in Europe this year and is in each of them I’ve seen posters in shops, banners next to roads with him promoting brands in some of them and ads on tv pre promoting his fight against Parker.

The fight against Parker was shown in 215 countries. Naz at the time wouldn’t have got anywhere this.

are there even 215 countries in the world?

196 countries in te world

well then they mustve done a hell of a job promoting that one that it was shown in every single country plus about 20 others

[dirk2686]

There aren't 215 countries in the world, but isn't that number reached by including dependent territories or separating united countries into separate entities? (So England, Scotland, Wales etc, and places like Bermuda, Puerto Rico.)

[mickey1975]

Hamed was much better known in the US than Joshua is at this point.

The Prince was wise enough to come to the USA and showcase himself.

Joshua is fighting tooth and nail to stay in the UK's friendly confines.

It's two decades since Hamed fought Kelley. A lot has changed in boxing and American interest in the sport is one of them.

I’d imagine Ggg-Canelo will do crap numbers. Like Floyd.

[dirk2686]

Hamed was much better known in the US than Joshua is at this point.

The Prince was wise enough to come to the USA and showcase himself.

Joshua is fighting tooth and nail to stay in the UK's friendly confines.

It's two decades since Hamed fought Kelley. A lot has changed in boxing and American interest in the sport is one of them.

I’d imagine Ggg-Canelo will do crap numbers. Like Floyd.

So you're disagreeing that interest in boxing in the States has declined? You get some big fights but overall it's on the slide. Two decades ago you had Tyson, Holyfield, De La Hoya, Jones, Barrera, Morales. Proper household names. Crawford, Lomachenko, Wilder and so on are well under the radar by comparison.

Boxing by contrast is a boom sport here. AJ is making more money and selling out vastly bigger venues than Naz was. Yes - Naz went to America but at the time it made sense to. Now? Not so much.

[paddy chavez]

Usually Naz's changing room was one big party, boombox in the corner and loads of people gyrating around. Always before a fight I would go in and sort of wish him luck, I would say the same thing "I know your going to win and I hope you enjoy yourself". The Barrera fight I went down maybe 15 mins before he had to be in the ring. The room was silent, Naz was sat in the corner in an armchair and only Nabeel (his brother) was in there with him. Nabeel looked at me and said "you talk to him John" and left the room. Naz hadn't warmed up, he hadn't even got his gloves on. I tried to enthuse him but he was completely flat, not depressed just bored to tears by it all. A few minutes later a floor manger for HBO came into the room. She was panicking like mad, "we are live in 96 countries in ten minutes and he hasn't even gloved up yet", she looked at me, I just shrugged. I can't remember much after that but somehow we cajoled him into putting on his gloves and got him ringside. After the fight I was shell-shocked, it had never occurred to me that he could ever lose. In the hotel later Naz saw me and came over, he said "come on, cheer up, we are all on holiday now".

Nice post John ,

[mickey1975]

But as you’re repeatedly told. Tickets sold mean very little there. I think Loma-Garcia would do huge business there.

[dirk2686]

But as you’re repeatedly told. Tickets sold mean very little there. I think Loma-Garcia would do huge business there.

So you're saying boxing is just as big in the US today as it was in the 90's?

Behave yourself. This is why I think you're a troll.

[Boxerbeetle]

There aren't 215 countries in the world, but isn't that number reached by including dependent territories or separating united countries into separate entities? (So England, Scotland, Wales etc, and places like Bermuda, Puerto Rico.)

Don’t forget places like Jersey / Guernsey / Isle of Wight / Republic of Sealand.

[mickey1975]

But as you’re repeatedly told. Tickets sold mean very little there. I think Loma-Garcia would do huge business there.

So you're saying boxing is just as big in the US today as it was in the 90's?

Behave yourself. This is why I think you're a troll.

I don’t think it’s as big here as in the 80’s. Am numbers, pro shows, etc. I’d be happy to be proved wrong. Boxing news circulation? Tv audiences. What did McGuigan-Pedroza get? Please don’t churn out AJ stats, they’re hardly ever boxing fans at those shows.

[maverick23]

There aren't 215 countries in the world, but isn't that number reached by including dependent territories or separating united countries into separate entities? (So England, Scotland, Wales etc, and places like Bermuda, Puerto Rico.)

Who knows how it’s calculated but this is where I got the 215 from....

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/talkspor ... 77371/amp/

[maverick23]

But as you’re repeatedly told. Tickets sold mean very little there. I think Loma-Garcia would do huge business there.

So you're saying boxing is just as big in the US today as it was in the 90's?

Behave yourself. This is why I think you're a troll.

I don’t think it’s as big here as in the 80’s. Am numbers, pro shows, etc. I’d be happy to be proved wrong. Boxing news circulation? Tv audiences. What did McGuigan-Pedroza get? Please don’t churn out AJ stats, they’re hardly ever boxing fans at those shows.

Boxing news circulation has no relation to how popular the sport is. People consume media very differently these days. It’s like making the link that news isn’t as popular nowadays as newspaper sales are down.

Also TV viewership doesn’t mean much. We’ve gone from 4 channels to 400 so there’s clearly far more choice and comptetition. Darts had more people watching it in the 80s/90s than it does now through being on BBC but not many people would argue darts was more popular then than it is now.

I don’t have any info on the number of amateur shows but I would think we have more pro shows now than we’ve ever had since I’ve been following boxing (mid-late 90s).

And why aren’t the people who AJ boxing fans? Were all the people who watched McGuigan v Pedroza boxing fans?

[dirk2686]

But as you’re repeatedly told. Tickets sold mean very little there. I think Loma-Garcia would do huge business there.

So you're saying boxing is just as big in the US today as it was in the 90's?

Behave yourself. This is why I think you're a troll.

I don’t think it’s as big here as in the 80’s. Am numbers, pro shows, etc. I’d be happy to be proved wrong. Boxing news circulation? Tv audiences. What did McGuigan-Pedroza get? Please don’t churn out AJ stats, they’re hardly ever boxing fans at those shows.

More trolling. You were asked about boxing popularity in the US in the 90's compared to now. You answer by saying boxing in the UK is less popular than it was in the 80's.

You've literally got completely the wrong country and completely the wrong decade.

Your AJ point is obviously a joke.

[mickey1975]

It’s not, I know a lot of people who go to AJ fights who wouldn’t go to any other show.

[mickey1975]

Am numbers were huge, they’ve increased since Audley but still 1,000’s less carded boxers. That’s the true test. Same with number of pro boxers. Dirk, you ARE a troll and literally obsessed with AJ! I say exactly the same things about Warrington fans by the way.