BoxRec

Big Daddy has roped Johnny Greaves and myself in to talk about the tournament on his Radio London show, 8pm-9pm Thursday 20th January. But one thing he's asked me is about the qualification requirements: What do you lads think they should be?

Should it be for fighters who have had over a certain amount of contests? If so, how many?

Should it be based on the amount of 'star' names they have fought?

Should it be based on won-lost ratio? I.E. How many more losses should they have in comparison to wins?

Please let me know your thoughts, we're getting to the stage where the amount of support on the Facebook page is going to be hard for the powers that be to ignore, so we have to start thinking about the next stage now - how it will work?

Thanks

30 plus fights.

Less than 50% record.

Have fought 3 current, former or at the time, future British champions.

No hard and fast criteria. Experience should be the main thing and I think if they have fought names it will make it easier to sell.

30 plus fights&more losses than wins...

Thanks lads, nice to get a bit of consensus, I think the 30-fight limit and more losses than wins sounds about right. What about the level of opposition though? Is that too big an ask, to say they should have fought 'so man' championship level fighters? What do you think?

Glyn Leach wrote:Thanks lads, nice to get a bit of consensus, I think the 30-fight limit and more losses than wins sounds about right. What about the level of opposition though? Is that too big an ask, to say they should have fought 'so man' championship level fighters? What do you think?

Yeh, Glyn, that was asking too much. Be nice if they'd at least fought against some sort of title calibre opponent, even it was Celtic or Area type titles.

Glyn Leach wrote:Thanks lads, nice to get a bit of consensus, I think the 30-fight limit and more losses than wins sounds about right. What about the level of opposition though? Is that too big an ask, to say they should have fought 'so man' championship level fighters? What do you think?

Id say most of the journeymen who have been mentioned for the prizefighter would have boxed future champions...

If they have a couple of names that the show can mention to the public it will help.

What about having a time limit on when they were last stopped? For instance, they can't have been stopped in the last year or two (maybe that's a bit long)

I don't think you can be too specific but as a general idea to have fought names is a good thing. You limit it too much if you say X number of fights and X number of British level opponents etc. 8 from one division is difficult enough without lowering your options further.

BIGMARK wrote:

DavidPayne wrote:30 plus fights.

Less than 50% record.

Have fought 3 current, former or at the time, future British champions.

this is about right I would add the fighters should be those who are regularly active, those show savers deserve a lot of credit who come in at less than 24 hours notice yet still give it a go.

I agree Big Mark... regularly active&show savers

I also agree with bigmark in that you have to be regular. Someone who has say 3 or so fights a year with good prep time ain't really a journeyman. Also don't like the other guys idea about the last time you got stopped . Any good fighter can get clipped. I haven'tbeen stopped since early last year but, I'm out on sat & if I got cut, cracked rib etc, that would mean I'm not eligible. That won't be fair. I'm britains busiest boy. Always boxing .top lads

What about they can only have a certain stoppage-loss percentage? After all, the top class journeymen like John are the ones that can be guaranteed to last the distance and give the young hotshots a workout? What sort of percentage do you think that should be?

Glyn Leach wrote:What about they can only have a certain stoppage-loss percentage? After all, the top class journeymen like John are the ones that can be guaranteed to last the distance and give the young hotshots a workout? What sort of percentage do you think that should be?

If we are insisting on figures, 25% tops. Once every 4 losses or so seems reasonable. But perhaps it depends if they are doing 4, 8, 10 or 12 rounders, and that's why I'm not sure how constructive absolute numbers are.

You have to be careful you don't get too picky.

I'd personally go for;

1) Fighters must have had 30 plus fights.

2) Only fighters with less than a 50% win record.

3) Fighters must have fought at least 8 times in 2010.

It's difficult, to be sure. And while activity is important, like Johnny says anyone can be injured and laid up for a while. I think what we need to ensure in order to make this attractive to TV is that this tournament wouldn't be for fighters who lose on a regular basis, but for the ones like John who have the talent and knowhow to be able to hold their own against hotshot prospects. They're the ones we want to see compete against each other because they're the ones who can really fight. There's a big difference between a quality journeyman and a constant loser, but I worry that the distinction might be lost on the TV execs who will decide whether or not this idea is a goer.

A little off topic, but isn't there supposed to be a rule (perhaps historic now) about back to back knockout losses enforcing a layoff? I've seen guys recently with a number of KO losses in a row in a relatively short period and wondered how it happened.

Just make sure I get my f**king props on the airwaves on this one, G-Man. I don't want airbrushing out of history like Roy Disney

Are BM going to sponsor this? Mug for the winner?

orbtastic wrote:Are BM going to sponsor this? Mug for the winner?

Journeyman calendar next year, I've heard.

Also with the stoppage thing its quite hard. I've only been stopped genuinely against liam Walsh. I've been stopped on cuts quite a few times. The other 2 or 3 I put down too refs stepping in too soon. Throne nurse for example. Could go on but you get the point. Some refs don't take into account durability. But do accept they do a tough job & only have your best interest in mind, so I'm not having a go. Refs do on the whole a great job

Ian 'Mr' McNeilly wrote:Just make sure I get my f**king props on the airwaves on this one, G-Man. I don't want airbrushing out of history like Roy Disney

Mate, hate to break this to you, but Danny Thorpe says he first posted a thread about this in 2009! Gutted, as Astronormus had a joint byline, I was going to stitch you up and claim the idea as my own!

Sorry , but I hope orbtastic isn't labelling me a mug. I'm a hell of a lot of things, mug for sure isn't one of them.

orbtastic wrote:Are BM going to sponsor this? Mug for the winner?

I suppose we could have a commemorative two-handled trophy-like mug made ...

Glyn Leach wrote:

Ian 'Mr' McNeilly wrote:Just make sure I get my f**king props on the airwaves on this one, G-Man. I don't want airbrushing out of history like Roy Disney

Mate, hate to break this to you, but Danny Thorpe says he first posted a thread about this in 2009! Gutted, as Astronormus had a joint byline, I was going to stitch you up and claim the idea as my own!

Right, scratch Thorpe from the line up the lying little 111-loss b*****d!

johnnygreaves wrote:Sorry , but I hope orbtastic isn't labelling me a mug. I'm a hell of a lot of things, mug for sure isn't one of them.

Stand down Johnny, he's taking the piss out of the free mugs we've been giving away with subscriptions to the mag, standing joke mate. There's no one on this site doesn't respect Mr Greaves, you can be certain of that mate