Vitaly Klitschko vs Lennox Lewis, a very underrated fight

But it appears to be the crux of the problem.

You are seeing it as an attack on individuals. It's not. It's a factual statement about a division that generates little revenue or mainstream interest.

 

I see it as a statement made by a guy who had given up covering boxing, is how I see it. I see it as broadly representative of the feudal mentality that now holds so much dominion in boxing. Joe Cal in Wales, Harrison in Glasgow, K brothers in Hamburg/Cologne....that mentality. All I did was allude to the American version thereof.

 

No...its not an attack on individuals, its not even an attack per se.....it's more an abandonment than anything else. People don't take interest in fights unless they are under their nose. They are all guilty of it, to a degree, one way or the other.

 

How can you possibly prove this?

Eubank and Thompson were fighting in a shit division for a shit title. The fact that the fights wound up being terrific has fuck all to do with what they represented. Seeing two good fights for a low-rent strap shouldn't alter the undeniable truth about the division in which they take place.

Two strawweights could fight tomorrow for the WBC Muir Interim Title in a fucking bloodbath where each guy is dropped 8 times and it still wouldn't change the fact that Strawweight is a wasteland that precious few care about.

Roy Jones was the unified champion of a division with a great history. Mike Tyson's strange journey has been a favorite subject of writers all over the world for decades. Lewis and Holyfield were the two best Heavyweights in the world. HEAVYWEIGHTS. You expect a fucking Cruiserweight fight for the WBO title to make a dent there? That's crazy talk. When has anything like that ever happened?

 

It's got nothing to do with that. The same fight between two Americans would have been ignored here, as well. It's Cruiserweight, a division nobody gives a fuck about. A division nobody has ever given a fuck about. That's reality. We can all name a few fighters here and there we enjoyed in that division; we can even name a handful of stellar fights... it doesn't change the fact that even among hardcore fans, it's a division few pay close attention to.

 

How could he have known about the brace of fights they had, and the results, and make a statement like that?

In any event, I think its pointless, any even oblique critique of an increasingly irrelevant American boxing scene brings you out in a rash.

 

I don't accept that.

In any event, considering the original post at the start, such a fight, had it been between two Americans, would have gone on to be regarded in a much better light, in America, after it had taken place. {The division/title be damned}

Eubank vs Thompson couldn't get any regard, it seems, even years after it took place :dunno:

Again, this is all in line with the question asked in the original post. The attendances at both Eubank fights were quite low, as low as 2000+ for the rematch. Yet the fights came to be regarded as modern classics- by the British.

 

You're just not quite subtle enough to pull this off.

 

1) Because the statement has nothing to do with whether or not those fights were terrific. Were the two participants fighting in a shallow division precious few give a rat's ass about for a paper title or not? Again, had he actually said "Cruisers are Losers", you would be right. He didn't say that.

2) Conspiracy theory fishing expeditions tend to raise my hackles.

 

I see you're coming around to recognizing that the sanctioning bodies provide a huge benefit to the sport.

 

And that is the problem.

 

Not even remotely.

Just pointing out that, especially at that time, WBA and WBC had some cache. They were seen as legitimate world championship organizations. Even fights for stepping stone titles like that NABF got some attention because of what winning them could mean for the career of the boxer. Had Mando been defending the Lightweight title (which he had lost recently to Ismael Laguna), then the fight would be better remembered. Reporters generally give more ink to title fights for obvious reasons.

That's hardly praise for the organizations that create these titles, even indirectly.

 

The cruiserweights are ignored because americans haven't fared too well at the weight and when they have (orlin norris, al cole, nate miller, james toney) it has been short-lived and they haven't been p4p type guys.

If Jirov had ko'd Toney, this might have changed as I think he would have stayed at cruiser, but maybe not. There is and was more money to be had at heavyweight.

Of course, to dismiss the weightclass as unimportant is wrong. Just call it heavyweight, have a single American do well at it at the recent Oympics, and the 200 lb weight class would have been the talk of the town and relevant.

 

Urgghh, I tend to agree with mikE here; it's rather similar to the story (until Ward appeared) to the 168lb division IMO.

MTF

 

Very convenient of you to leave Evander Holyfield, the most accomplished Cruiser of all time and one of the most famous boxers of all time, out of that little diatribe. I wonder why? Oh yeah, maybe it is because of the fact that his accomplishments there generated almost no mainstream attention puts a massive dent in your nonsensical position.

 

Right. The main commentator at HBO thinking that Joe had risen to stop Eubank kind of suggests that no too much attention was paid to 168 during those lean years. Any doubts about that might well be confirmed by the manner in which Joe slapped around Jeff Lacy, but of course I have no way of "Knowing" this.

 

I can only once again express my shock that people expect thorough, informed observations from a moron like Jim Lampley

 

For those of you still stuck on this whole "It's because the Americans aren't doing well", I just want to once again mention that a WHITE KID FROM OHIO was the fucking UNDISPUTED Middleweight champion of the world in America only a few years ago (you know, the same title that Marvin Hagler used to have) and nobody here gave a flying fuck about it. Walk down any street in America and say "Kelly Pavlik" to the first 50 people you meet and if 2 of them know who he is, I will take my girlfriend's iphone and film myself consuming my Yankees hat in its entirety and then post it on here for all to see.

Hauser could have written 10,000 articles about Kelly Pavlik and it wouldn't have made a dent here. If Kelly Pavlik wins that same title in 1987, he's on the cover of every other magazine in the country, he's on a Wheaties box, Nintendo names a game after him, he does numerous commercials, and everybody's grandmother knows who he is.

Marvin Hagler hasn't thrown a punch since 1987. On top of that, he has lived in Italy and spent precious little time in the public eye in America. Do that same thing, walk down the street, ask 50 people, and I bet at least 25 know the name, and a few of those know the game that goes with it.

 

The thing is, though, that one man does not a division make, even in the US. 168lb RJJ was, IMO, the very best Roy but the American attitude to 168 has, since it's inception until recently when Ward started making waves, been that it was a pile of shit, history-less crock full of Euro-bums. There is a possibility that the same applied to 200lb

MTF

 

I'm not convinced that Pavlik was champion for long enough, mind, or 'high-profile' enough. How popular/well known in the US is Floyd? I'm guessing quite well :dunno:

The general premise that Boxing's popularity has declined in the US seems fairly irrefutable, though.

MTF

 

Here's the thing..when a moron like Bush is President, we can only assume that at least 50.1% of the electorate....are morons.

Lampley is head of HBO's commentary team for boxing. Kellerman is an avid bookworm on the sport. Manny Steward needs no introduction.

What Lampley said was stupid. What was truly perplexing was that neither Kellerman nor Manny, but especially Kellerman, leaped in to correct him. What Lampley said should have {to a guy like Kellerman} been a invitation to reflexive ,automatic contradiction.

I can only assume that not only did Lampley not know what the fuck he was talking about, but his chief 2nd didn't either. I can only assume that they never saw the fight. You are throwing a hail mary out there by claiming that Lampley is some sort of douche, nobody listens to what he says...fine...then what about Kellerman?

They never saw that fight and they never saw it because they don't actually follow boxing....at least not like you do do.

 

But the fact that not even Jones' presence could generate interest in the division would seem to bear out the fact that it's not as simple as "if Americans are doing well in it, then it gets a lot of attention" ... Don't forget, James Toney was around in those days too. Still, Super Middle was yawned at by the mainstream.

 

Yes. What is of more debatable nature is why it has declined. I think its a related concept. The sport declines in America, so interest in boxing in America declines, so the sport declines, and the standards elsewhere improve, so the interest, in America, amongst Americans, declines, and so on and so forth.

Hut has a related theory regarding sprinters. The line becomes blurred between non-participation and a lack of talent. Guys don't participate because they don't succeed. They don't succeed because they don't participate. This causes them to not participate. Eventually, it becomes hard to tell which caused which.

None of that, however, even addresses just what the fuck they were watching in 1997, cos it wasn't Joe Calzaghe vs Eubank or Eubank vs Thompson.

I like Cdogg and I think he knows what I am trying to say, but its like trying to tell a guy that his wife is a cunt. The guy knows she's a cunt, he'd just prefer if you didn't announce it so brashly.

 

Feebs. In 1987, he would have been the biggest story in American sports even if he won the title and then immediately lost it. He wouldhave been famous before he ever fought for such a title.

Ray Mancini was a household name here before he ever won anything. And he was a Lightweight.

Floyd is about as well known as a boxer can get nowadays in America. He's still not anywhere near as famous as someone like Leonard/Hagler, etc.

 

Toney vs Jones was a non-event. James was losing to Drake Thadzi and Griffin about as often as he was beating Barkley and that Prince Charles lad.

In any event, Ring Magazine referred to Eubank as a "popular British contender"...well...he was a "Popular British Contender" that popularly contended with Nigel Benn a damned sight better than some of his more illustrious rivals.

The pattern is there. Watson, Eubank, right up to Joe Calzaghe, were regarded as some sort of wishy-washy non-entities. Ottke is a good example. British press did to Ottke what the American press did to Calzaghe.

 

There is an argument that rivalries are what drives popularity; Ali/Liston/Frazier/Foreman, Hagler/Hearns/Leonard/Duran etc. Even a lower talent levels, rivalries like Gatti/Ward have made the general consciousness. Pavlik had nothing of that ilk to drive up his recognisablility (made up word alert) and indeed nor have many US fighters of late. Is this not a factor?

MTF

 

And Floyd had no nemesis either.....unless you count his dad. A dysfunctional weight advantage.

 

I remember that, actually.

MTF ::

 

WBO in the Ring meant "Non Champion".

Hamed was referred to as the "former IBF champ" :dunno:

Fuck off Mike :nono::shadow:

 

You put stock in Max Kellerman? I don't. These people, all of them in every country, get their facts wrong all the time. You are expecting excellence from these people? I'm not. I expect they will make mistakes, misrepresentations, I expect them to deliberately back the house fighter or overestimate his opponents to make him look good. That's the TV business. It's been that way as long as there have been TV contracts with fighters. You want to go back to the days of Don Dunphy coolly and objectively describing the action? TV bosses don't want that because there's no money in it. You see all of this cynicism, you are completely aware of it, yet you act horrified and shocked when it is illustrated on air. I don't get it. I bet most of the people watching that Calzaghe fight don't even remember this little "fact" of Lampley's. You pay a lot more attention to these jokers than any of the casual observers do.