BoxRec

tonyevs wrote:

jamesmcdonnell wrote:I think they are doing the right thing with Khan, letting him learn his trade as he matures physically and becomes a man. He is obviously still growing in physique and he looks much stronger already than he was as an amateur..

For me Khan already looks very mature for his age physically, and as for looking stronger now than what he did as an amateur...maybe that is to do with him fighting the same weight fighters as an amateur.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:Of course if he was Mexican, he would already have been in life and death struggles by now and would probably have had 20 odd fights by the age of 20. However, this isn't Mexico..

But you cannot dispute theres is a tried and tested way, how many truly great fighters have they had in the last 20yrs and how many have we had to compare?

jamesmcdonnell wrote:As long as they begin stepping him up by the time he gets to his 15th fight I will be happy, he's still got much to learn about professional boxing, his talents are precocious, but he is not an all round fighter yet..

The point is he should be learning now, instead of just blowing away the opposition, after 15 fights the public will expect him to achieve something, but those 15 fights will have taught him nothing

jamesmcdonnell wrote:What might be difficult with Khan is finding people who can extend him without being a massive risk, his speed of hand and accuracy are likely going to mean that most B class and below opponents will be whacked out of there pretty easily..

Khan is not a dynamite hitter, fighters at lt-welter would extend him...but not at s-feather.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:allegedly allegedly allegedly is a cautious man, that is well established, and it may be some time before Khan is allowed off the leash, however, looking at what he did with Hatton, and Naseem, who are we to say that his way isn't the right way? It might be frustrating, but how often does Britain get a major talent that can truly compete on the world stage, and how many more would we have had if they had been moved more carefully?.

Naz fell short of his own goals, Hatton has only now arrived...let us see how long he lasts there.
Which other British boxers would have benefitted being moved even more cautiously?

jamesmcdonnell wrote:Matchmaking is a bit of an artform, and in addition to entertaining the paying public, the ultimate responsibility of a manager is to do the right thing by the fighter, not an easy job today.

Agree

Naz didn't fall short of his own goals, he made 17 million nicker, got lazy and undermotivated, fired his manager, hired a trainer who would let him do whatever he liked, and got beat, and realised he didn't really give a fornicate, hardly his promoters fault.

The reason that so many great mexican fighters emerge is one word POVERTY. Most of the greatest fighters in history were from improverished backgrounds, and there are still plenty of dirt-farmers in Mexico and people living in 3rd world conditions. There is also the machismo culture of mexico, which to us would seem pretty primitive and brutish, but is still a way of life there.

For these reasons, guys turn pro at 15-16 and by the time they are in their early 20s' have often had as many fights as people from the US have in their entire careers.

By contrast, even people from relatively humble working class backgrounds in our country have fornicate all idea what it is like to go hungry or HAVE to fight for a living. Hence the hunger is not there to the same extent.

It is for this reason that there are more and more eastern europeans in boxing, these people are hungry for success and opportunity. This is a slightly different discussion we're getting in to here, but what I am saying is that in the UK, fighters are far less willing to take risks with their careers if they have potential, whereas in Mexico to make it as a big name, you have little choice but to get stuck in there as the crowds are not interested in overprotected glamour boys.

nickd wrote:Guys its no coincidence that Sports Network have only produced one truly world class fighter in recent memory - Hatton and almost a couple of others - Harrison/Calzaghe.

Bit harsh on Harrison and Calzaghe there i think, if you had to rate the best featherweights or Supermiddles in the world today then both of those boxers would be in the top 5, that makes them world class.

topper123 wrote:

nickd wrote:Guys its no coincidence that Sports Network have only produced one truly world class fighter in recent memory - Hatton and almost a couple of others - Harrison/Calzaghe.

Bit harsh on Harrison and Calzaghe there i think, if you had to rate the best featherweights or Supermiddles in the world today then both of those boxers would be in the top 5, that makes them world class.

I guess so, they're divisions are hardly the deppest talent pools in the world though. But when you think about all the promotions and fights SN have put on in the last decade and only 3 world class fighters coming out of it? You have to question the methods IMO. There is plenty of talent out there but putting them in 90-10 fights hampers their development. As for Calzaghe he is not really a Sports Network product, although he has been promoted by them for some time I think he was with Mickey Duff early on.

nickd wrote:

topper123 wrote:

nickd wrote:Guys its no coincidence that Sports Network have only produced one truly world class fighter in recent memory - Hatton and almost a couple of others - Harrison/Calzaghe.

Bit harsh on Harrison and Calzaghe there i think, if you had to rate the best featherweights or Supermiddles in the world today then both of those boxers would be in the top 5, that makes them world class.

I guess so, they're divisions are hardly the deppest talent pools in the world though. But when you think about all the promotions and fights SN have put on in the last decade and only 3 world class fighters coming out of it? You have to question the methods IMO. There is plenty of talent out there but putting them in 90-10 fights hampers their development. As for Calzaghe he is not really a Sports Network product, although he has been promoted by them for some time I think he was with Mickey Duff early on.

yeah SN have not always put there boxers in the hardest of matches and having them follow the WBU title route didn't help, i suppose we look at it from a fans point of view.

Mr Warren for all the critisism he gets on here, is a very clever man. His job is to get his fighters good paydays and make himself a very decent living as well. If you look at some of the shows he put on in the past he had sellout shows with his fighters facing guys that had a very small chance of winning.
I guess that shows that most of the public are mugs, me included.

Let me ask this, though

Do the majority of punters go to a "big" fight to see a competetive fight or to see their hero win?

While we may certainly like to see people put to the test, the truth is that we are probably a very small minority with a select level of interest ( being on this site would give support to that proffer )

The majority see this as a Christian and lion scenario. The want the lion to look the part, make all the right roaring noises and then, er lose allowing the star to milk their applause. Everyone feels good and the bread and circuses keep the crowd happy until the next time.

However, as Diocletian ( I think ) found out. If you kee offering the crowds crappy circuses with bedraggled lions, they soon get pissed off and stop coming or, in this case shove a spear up your arse. perhaps we can use that as an incentive for FW to make some more challenging matches for his charges

Slapsie

It's like I've been saying for ages, the onus is on the fight, not the promoter to go looking for the biggest challenges. If a fighter doesn't like it, he can leave the promoter when his contract is up and look elsewhere, it's not like they are sold into slavery.

Modern day fighters from affluent western nations are nowhere near as hungry as they would have been 30 years ago, and they don't need to be, not when TV companies have increased the amount in the money pool. The advent of PPV becoming commonplace, as it now has, and subscription money from the likes of Sky, HBO, Showtime, etc, means fighters are able to get paid well often for minimal risk.

It is all well and good laying the blame at the feet of promoters, but don't you think the likes of Hatton and Calzaghe were doing very nicely out of their arrangement with SN?

Fair play to Scott Harrison, though not as big a draw as Hatton, he's doing pretty nicely, and could probably have continued defending his belt against relatively soft touches, but is showing that he really wants to prove himself the best featherweight out there. If he does beat Guzman, he will be closing in on Marquez for sure. A unification bout would cement his legacy. Hatton's position was slightly different, he HAD to face Tszyu to be the main man, and was in a no lose position, as few picked him to beat Kostya and there was no shame in losing to a man who had destroyed Judah and Mitchell.

nickd wrote:Guys its no coincidence that Sports Network have only produced one truly world class fighter in recent memory - Hatton and almost a couple of others - Harrison/Calzaghe. While I can understand the reasoning of protecting your fighter (and your investment) there has to be a balance between that and looking to the future so your fighter is well prepared when the true tests come. In Warren's defence it does appear the balance is swinging back a little towards competitive fights but there's still a lot of room for improvement.

Warren has always erred on the side of caution for his fighters and the trouble is that largely when they do step up they fail, and one of the reasons for this is that they have too many easy bouts for too long. A good example of this in the past was George Collins... turned pro at about 18 and Warren built him a record of about 30 odd and 0 against fairly dubious opposition... but when he stepped up to British title level he was found wanting. Now Warren largely bypasses the Britsh and Europeon titles and goes straight for the mickey mouse 'world titles'....

again, partly to play Devil's advocate, do you not think that part of the reason for the proliferation of shite-arse titles is the TV's erroneous demand for world title fights and the fact that non-title affairs are more often than not between fighters who are unknown to the British public and therefore not attractive to not terrestrial broadcaster who after all have to tempt people into buying sky sports with 'high profile' sport.

British champions used to be very high profile in their own right, Cooper v Bugner for instance was HUGE drawing masses of column inches and Tv coverage in the run up to the fight. Terrestrial TV were the ones who began withdrawing from boxing long ago, thus lessening the impact British champs made on the national consciousness.

The likes of Sky in the past seemed only to be interested in fights they could be billed as 'world' titles, even if world translated as IBO, WBF uncle tom cobbley and all. They helped to cook the dead goose that laid the golden egg.

I think TV have finally cottoned on to that, certainly Sky seem to have gotten their act together a bit. Harrison and Calzaghe are both in upcoming 50-50 fights, and I wonder whether that is anything to do with TV demanding high profile fights for their money rather than the likes of Calzaghe v Veit or Harrison v Kebede?

I think what happened prior was that as they saw the demand for the sport shrinking, they felt it best to concentrate on world title fights, and at the same time people realised that there was TV money to be made from bogus titles, so there was an explosion in the number of sanctioning bodies.

You only have to look at how tough pretty much EVERY fighter from the likes of Ghana are, do people think it is purely some sort of genetic ability which makes them so hard, or the fact that compared to the grinding poverty of their lives back home, taking lumps in a boxing ring for the chance at the bigtime seems a reasonable proposition.

That is not to suggest that our boxing stars are soft, they are a lot fornicating harder than I am, but I thought it noticable that Ricky Hatton stated something along the lines of 'I don't want too many more nights like that one' after the Tszyu fight.

Morales has taken more punishment than Hatton took that night virtually every time he fights, Hatton only had it rought for about 4 rounds in the middle, and it's not like he was getting beaten all over the place either.

there are alot of boxers that train very hard over here, I think you can tell when a fighter has that hunger, looking around now guys like Morris, Mitchell, Cook, Skelton and lots more do have that hunger.

It might have to do with more distractions nowadays, and the public like fighters to have unbeaten records, look at SN i think that in their contracts they have a realise clause if a fighter losses 2 fights, so why would they put an up and coming fighter in dangerous matches.

Earlier on someone mentioned George Collins, I would have to say that i thought he was promoted well , He never really had that much of a star quality as a pro, but careful matchmaking and good public promotion got him a shot at Gary Jacobs. If i remember most were calling it a 50/50 fight at the time. He lost but earnt a good payday.
What would have been the point in matching him with dangerous opponents on the way up, a couple of losses and his career is over. At least the careful way he can earn some money.
I have a feeling that his trainers , managers etc knew what level he was , that was why he wasn't matched to strongly before taking on Jakobs.

topper123 wrote:there are alot of boxers that train very hard over here, I think you can tell when a fighter has that hunger, looking around now guys like Morris, Mitchell, Cook, Skelton and lots more do have that hunger.

It might have to do with more distractions nowadays, and the public like fighters to have unbeaten records, look at SN i think that in their contracts they have a realise clause if a fighter losses 2 fights, so why would they put an up and coming fighter in dangerous matches.

Earlier on someone mentioned George Collins, I would have to say that i thought he was promoted well , He never really had that much of a star quality as a pro, but careful matchmaking and good public promotion got him a shot at Gary Jacobs. If i remember most were calling it a 50/50 fight at the time. He lost but earnt a good payday.
What would have been the point in matching him with dangerous opponents on the way up, a couple of losses and his career is over. At least the careful way he can earn some money.
I have a feeling that his trainers , managers etc knew what level he was , that was why he wasn't matched to strongly before taking on Jakobs.

He fought Kirkland Laing too... how could they know his level when he was only 18 when he turned pro?.... he wasn't given the right fights to allow him to develop... instead he had 30 odd fights against journeymen and became stale before he even fought for the titles....

I'm no expert, but i saw some of the early Collins fights, and i just thought at the time i couldn't see him developing into a really good pro.

I do think he turned pro way to early, he didn't have what you would call a mans strength at 18, although he was a good amatuer.

saying that though , the Jakobs fight was quite close , i think Jakobs pulled away in the last few rounds, didn't he floor Collins in the last?
Unfortunatly for Collins he was then put in with Laing, and Kirkland was right on form that night, the finish was spectacular, Collins was all over the place.