yiddo14 wrote:Jack Johnson was hated beyond extremes.
During my lifetime,I have never seen someone as hated as Chris Eubank was for a while.
I remember as a kid watching his fights,and everyone around rooting for the opposite fighter.
Remember watching the Eubank/Watson rematch in a pub(bad parenting..I know)and the men were screaming for Watson to kill Eubank!
Strangely though,the man was my boxing hero as a kid...remember having a load of arguments(and the occasional punch up!)with my friends who were all Benn fans!
The British public only ever really warmed to him once he started losing.
I always liked Eubank and prefered him to Benn....
yiddo14 wrote:Jack Johnson was hated beyond extremes.
During my lifetime,I have never seen someone as hated as Chris Eubank was for a while.
I remember as a kid watching his fights,and everyone around rooting for the opposite fighter.
Remember watching the Eubank/Watson rematch in a pub(bad parenting..I know)and the men were screaming for Watson to kill Eubank!
Strangely though,the man was my boxing hero as a kid...remember having a load of arguments(and the occasional punch up!)with my friends who were all Benn fans!
The British public only ever really warmed to him once he started losing.
Eubank was a classic pantomime villain. He made a name for himself by setting himself up as the guy you loved to hate (just like Bugner). These guys are important to the game.
This may depend upon where you live. If you asked 100 people at random in the United States what they thought of Chris Eubank (either now or when he was active) it's doubtful that you would find 5 people that have ever heard of him.
Obviously it would be a different story in Great Britain.
Some of guys mentioned were hated, but also had their share of fans. It would be interesting who has the worst "ratio" of like/hate. Off of the top of my head I would say John Ruiz. So many people dislike him and you so seldom hear of anyone that likes him.
In more 'modern' times I'd say Chris Byrd and John Ruiz, though myself I had mad respect for both men, though their fighting style was boring as hell.
I know when he fought, alot of people hated Michael "Second To" Nunn, because he was such a pompus ass prick, but I personally thought he could have been an all-time great, but unfortunately met his end (lost).
Joe Bugner is still a tad unpopular in England me thinks. And unlike some of today's fighters that are disliked for their personality (or lack of one), old Joe had the temerity to beat the beloved Enery Cooper to earn his status
follows wildly popular Muhammad Ali, and then even beats Ali in one of the saddest fights of all time with the 'Greatest' quitting on the stool. Then when he came approaching the 49-0 record of Marciano, he says "Marciano couldn't hold my jock strap!", when the media keeps hounding Holmes about Marciano rather than himself.
Then throw in the 'great white hope' fight with Cooney, where racist attitudes were on all all-time high, making it the biggest fight in boxing history for a number of years. Also throw in how many lambasted Holmes as being not as great as 'Ali, Louis, etc' due to him being in a crappy era, combined with the fact he never unified all the titles.
Plus Holmes own personality of being very 'self righteous' and coming across as more a business man and arrogant than as a HW champion should.
I would think Jack Johnson. The guy wasn't living far from the days of slavery and he was destroying great white fighters while sleeping with and even marrying white chicks... probably the worst nightmare for people living at the time. Even some black people didn't like Johnson, because they felt he was making trouble. It's probably hard to even picture today how different things were back then.
I tend to agree that Johnson in his time probably was hated more than any other fighter was in their time. He almost certainly was hated by more people (at least in the United States) than anyone else ever was.
..jack johnson it is..or was. the writer here who said he was even hated....well, at least resented...by some black fighters was right. Archie Moore said more than once...."we're still paying for that man ."
I've always thought it was ironic that Johnson was hated for being "too white" (women, not 'humble') and ali was disliked for being too black..(."white man is the devil"...taking muslim name...)
the others mentioned here may have been unpopular or disliked, but none, except perhaps for a time max schmeling....ever instilled the hatred that johnson did....with ali probably a close second.
Re: the comment about Larry Holmes.....he was unpopular in a lot of quarters.....but , while racism persists, in no way was it at anything near its peak during his time...not when compared to the johnson era and many years after it. Ironic, isn't it, that one reason for animosity toward him was because he beat Ali, who by then was outgrowng the dislike and on hisd way to his currtent sainthood.
Ambling Alp wrote:
Some of guys mentioned were hated, but also had their share of fans. It would be interesting who has the worst "ratio" of like/hate.
Interesting...
A friedn of mine who is a whizz in marketing always says: If you can get half the people to hate you the chances are the other half will love you for the exact same reasons.
I actually liked Davey Hilton in the 80's when I watched a few of his bouts. He had excellent handspeed, and I expected big things from him. Also liked Matthew Hilton as well. Then of course I found out what degenerates the whole Hilton clan are.
Fighters who were hated include: Jack Johnson, Jake
LaMotta, Muhammad Ali (early in his career), and Mike
Tyson.
Fighters who were unpopular include: Jack Dempsey (early
in his career due to allegations about avoiding the draft), Art
Aragon (who was a great drawing card, but was booed at his
fights), and Gene Tunney (whose personality and fighting
style weren't popular with the fans).
..jim corbett suffered disdain similar to that of gene tunney for a while....and for some of the same reasons. this was offset though by bringing new followers to the sport who liked his "new" boxing style and his gentleman persona.
One of our brothers mentioned that he wasn't "high profile," true for the general public but he was well known among fight fans and absolutely no mourned his prison sentence. Three arrests for rape or attempted rape before you are 21 years old kind of hurts your popularity.
It's odd looking back at someone like Ayala and how he was hated outside the ring for his depraved acts on defenceless women. Before being locked up and his history came out he was starting to take the proportions of some kind of fighting god. He reminds me a bit of Tyson and like Tyson, his past indiscretions were swept under the carpet up and the victims paid off
The most hater boxer today is Zab Judah. As for other countries not knowing of Mayweather is just unreal. Probably they don’t even know what the sport of boxing is. That is like saying that nobody in the United States knows anything about Calzaghe or Hatton.
although I don't recall him as being unpopular, as a matter of fact he probably was popular among the public due to his style and that awesome match with Foreman, Ron Lyle needs to mentioned. I mean he did kill two people! And of course Don King is absoultely hated by anyone who hsa ever done business with him.
