Admit it: do you follow midgets?

Do you care about the fighters in the lowest weight-classes? Any real boxing fan can easily name tens of heavyweight fighters, most can name also ten guys fighting at middleweight or around it. But can you name ten fighters who fight lower than in bantamweight? I can't, even if I combine all names I can recall from jr.bantams to strawweight, pissweight or whatever the smallest class is these days.

 

I watch, but don't follow them as closely as I should, I guess.

 

i did until recently. them belts change hands too often and the talent pool isn't even that great.

 

Unless it's a midget megafight ( something like Arce-Darchynian ), I don't really give a fuck. IMO, no matter your preference, you can't disreguard the hw, because after all, the hw champ is the best boxer in the world ( A little bit off topic but I'm sure soon a midget lover will say screw the hw ).

 

I wish I could follow those weights more, but they hardly televise their fights, so I have to read about them or watch some downloads.

 

but if you look at it objectively, and in terms of skill alone, you must admit that some of the WORST boxers in the world are heavyweights. take McCline for example. did you see him fight on Saturday? he's AWFUL !!! he fights like he's got two left arms (and feet). he can't fight inside. he makes a gay-azz "pow" sound everytime he jabs, and he's gassed from throwing one combination. and yet, he's a top 10 type guy in the division !!! and been on TV a half a dozen times !!!

 

exactly.

if anything, i've lost interest in watching fights that already happened. i was all about getting tapes (before downloading) and then i got into watching fights on the internet, but recently, i've settled for youtube clips if available or just reading the results online.

the only midget fights i've seen as of late were wonjongkam/naito 3, calderon/cazares, sakata/vasquez II and i fast forwarded through most of them

 

seems like more than any other weight classes, the best straw, junior-fly and flyweights are reluctant to face each other. this has caused me to be less interested in them than i might be otherwise.

 

they get paid so little that they have to rely on their belts to at least get a decent payday. They get paid like UFC fighters, and not the main event fighters, the others. So unification means losing their belts, and losing a lot of money considering what they get paid.

 

yeah. i'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation as to "why" they wouldn't face each other. but nevertheless. they tend not to. therefore, i find myself less interested in their fights.

 

I think this is the biggest problem. Maybe because there's very little money in it for them the best guys rarely fight each other unless they're already in each others backyards. The Asian guys stay in Asia, the North American guys stay in North America and the Euro's stay in Europe. There's exceptions but this usually seems to be the case.

Plus Don King, Bob Arum, etc... aren't going to spend the money to bring these guys over, away from their drawing areas and then bury them deep on one of their undercards.

I like the midgets but we very rarely get any compelling match-ups here in the States................and to be honest I probably wouldn't know a compelling match-up if one did show up because of the little coverage they get.

Unless of course someone here on FightBeat points it out ahead of time. :bears:

 

The smaller guys don't interest me as much as lightweight and above with the exceptions of MAB, Marquez, Pacquaio, Hamed and Morales (and Mayweather when he was down there).

Also I think that it is a myth that the smallest fighters are the most skilled. The most skillful fighters in history tend to be between 147 and 160 lbs. When I watch "diaperweights" I see very mediocre defense, millions of punches thrown and landed, very little drama...and I just can't take them too seriously because they're so small.

Like I said before, the Middle divisions are the best in terms of overall skill and power drama mix...but if I had to choose between the extremes....

Gimme a good heavyweight fight over a good flyweight fight ANY DAY OF THE WEEK!

 

I (will) watch the big fights of Eagle Kyowa, Katsunari Takayama, Ulises Solis, Rodel Mayol, Ivan Calderon, Roberto Vasquez, Takefumi Sakata, Nonito Donaire, Vic Darchinyan, Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Lorenzo Parra, Alex Munoz, Cristian Mijares, Martin Castillo, Fernando Montiel, Hozumi Hasegawa, Jorge Arce, Wladimir Sidorenko, Jospeh Agbeko.

I guess that alone makes me a fan of midgets, since I like good fights regardless of weight. On the other hand I don´t go out of my way to find new flyweight prospect. I´ll just check out some world title fights and if somebody entertains or impresses me, I´ll keep them on my radar like Donaire recently.

 

Sure I do. I'm a fan of boxing and that means all of it to me....so I follow pretty much all the weight classes.

Like in the other divisions, there is a mix of quality, talent, skill, compelling match-ups, "boring" match-ups, etc.

Peace.

 

:laughing: :laughing:

Classic.

BTW...it's a grunt; I don't think he's doing the Batman "POW!" every time he throws a jab.

But damn, that would be funny....can you imagine a boxer that DID do that? He throws a jab/right cross/left hook combo and says "POW! BLAM! KAPOW!" in order? ::

 

..but only in the first round, then he is too gassed. ::

 

Boxers with massive heads/tiny bodies who throw millions of punches?
Fuck that.

 

I think you need to calm down a bit....

 

i've seen calderon in person and literally looks like he's 12. takayama used to train at this gym i used to go to and he was also tiny.

when i saw jmm in vegas few months ago, i didnt recognize him at first because not only was he small but he was also sporting some faggy bandana.

 

Same here.

 

I have beat this drum before and I will say it again. The lightest weightclass should be 110 pounds and thats pushing it. If I had my way it would be 120, but then all the asians would scream.:: Its complete over saturation to have 5 weightclasses before you even get to 120 pounds. No one gives a shit about them. Think about it 4 belts and 5 weightclasses under 120 pounds. Its just plain stupid.:doh:

 

::

 

I take the topic more as whether or not we care about the divisions in general, to which I echo Donnybrook's sentiments - boxing is boxing, and if a fight is on, regardless of weight class, more often than not I will tune in.

I agree with those who say it's tough to care about divisions that aren't showcased as often. But to me, not caring about the lower weight classes would mean you'd pass on a fight between two flyweight contenders in favor of an 8 or 10 round heavyweight fight between two journeyman if both were on at the same time.

Calderon-Cazares seemed to have been a good litmus test for where most of the media stands on lower-weight fights - those interested found a way to watch it (I watched it online via live stream). Others settled for line results. The latter seems to be the majority opinion, which is why so often that less attention is paid, which means less access for the fans, which of course results in waning interest.

 

KABLAM! SPLAT! BOOM!

::

 

126 is as low as i'll go and even then i only know the big stars such as barrera morales hamed pacman...anything under 126 is sad to watch..they should be eating instead of fighting

 

Yes, they are smaller men.

If they wanna box....then let 'em.

Some guys just boil down to those weights when they could easily be 122 or 26....

But the majority have simply a smaller natural size.

They wanna fight? Let 'em, I say.

Peace.

 

I don't follow the really low divisions well, but I'll watch a fight if it's on.

There have been some great fights with "midgets", such as Michael Carbajal-Humberto Gonzalez I, Jorge Arce-Hussein Hussein I, Robert Quiroga-Kid Akeem Anifowoshe

 

and many, many more....

 

I don't really follow them.

 

My problem with midget fights is that their fighting doesn't look like actual boxing very much. They throw millions of punches that have no effect and because they have no power, they don't have to protect themselves. Even in poor heavyweight fights there is always te "threat" in the air that if one guy makes a big mistake, he gets KOed. Among midgets it doesn't happen