Respect for Warren

[mickey1975]

Manfredo has massive name recognition, Welborn brought literally nothing. You saying Manfredo wouldn’t get passed nowadays, he would.

[maverick23]

Manfredo has massive name recognition, Welborn brought literally nothing. You saying Manfredo wouldn’t get passed nowadays, he would.

Again - I’m not sure what Welborn has to do with this. I’m not stating he was a deserving challenger but his fight against Hurd wasn’t a main event and wasn’t the headline fight at a stadium show. There have been countless worse world title challengers than Manfredo Jr but was he a good, worthy challenger for a unified champion like Calzaghe? No. Was there a good undercard for the show? No.

Manfredo would probably get accepted by some casuals nowadays but he would get torn apart by us guys who follow boxing properly. He fought a large part of his career at light middle, lost to Gomez (a blown up welterweight) and twice to Mora. Then goes up 2 divisions and beats a couple of average fighters before fighting Calzaghe.

You add in the crap undercard and it’s a really tough sell.

Back then there was very little choice for big boxing shows - it was FW in arenas and sometimes stadiums and other promoters in, more often than not, leisure centres or York Hall. People have more choice now and are far less likely to accept mismatches being pushed as competitive fights.

[bigjack]

Manfredo has massive name recognition, Welborn brought literally nothing. You saying Manfredo wouldn’t get passed nowadays, he would.

Again - I’m not sure what Welborn has to do with this. I’m not stating he was a deserving challenger but his fight against Hurd wasn’t a main event and wasn’t the headline fight at a stadium show. There have been countless worse world title challengers than Manfredo Jr but was he a good, worthy challenger for a unified champion like Calzaghe? No. Was there a good undercard for the show? No.

Manfredo would probably get accepted by some casuals nowadays but he would get torn apart by us guys who follow boxing properly. He fought a large part of his career at light middle, lost to Gomez (a blown up welterweight) and twice to Mora. Then goes up 2 divisions and beats a couple of average fighters before fighting Calzaghe.

You add in the crap undercard and it’s a really tough sell.

Back then there was very little choice for big boxing shows - it was FW in arenas and sometimes stadiums and other promoters in, more often than not, leisure centres or York Hall. People have more choice now and are far less likely to accept mismatches being pushed as competitive fights.

Really,fast car could sell sand to an Arab.

[Autobarn]

Didn’t warren fold a company which owed joe more than 1 million

yes and just previously he moved all of his assets to the different company. so you'd think this was a terrible, pre meditated thing. all of his fighters moved, signing from Sports Network to whatever they call him nowadays. This was just before Calzaghe tried his own promotional company, so he could promote his own farewell fight and obviously cut out the middleman. Promoters don't like fighters making their own companies, a controversial issue in itself. I recall FW pulling out of a TV deal with Setanta Sports because he wasn't happy that Hayemaker Promotions were also awarded a contract. Just pulled straight out.

The judge on the case was highly critical of the UK media whom he felt didn't do a proper job of reporting the controversy. He felt there was a huge bias because no one was giving Calzaghe's side, glossing over or just ignoring while reporting other, less relevant stories.

Anyway, good points pro and con Warren. The safety side, after Michael Watson's terrible injuries during the epic Eubank rematch. The huge nights of boxing he delivered. The undercards good and very bad. The unwillingness to work with other promoters. And the regular mismatches that made us all cynical.