[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
And I’m not pickin on English fighters, per se. As I said, Ricky Hatton is my favorite fighter out there. But as a whole, they’re not very good, and the refs and judges protect them way too much. [/quote]
Without wishing to be a pedant (and I appreciate you were generalising, FightingIrish), Calzaghe is Welsh (obviously with a little Italian thrown in), not English. RJJ is Canadian, right…?
Leaving aside the issue of Calzaghe not fighting top guys like RJJ in his prime, I can’t agree entirely with your generalisation - taking the super middleweight division as an example, over the last two decades British fighters have been at the very top of the food chain (admittedly along with some other nationalities, Americans obviously included). Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn, Steve Collins, Joe Calzaghe - now I’m not saying these boys were GOAT (great acroynym btw), but all of them were class fighters. I know your point was that “on the whole English fighters aren’t very good” but when you start looking at this from a ratio of world title holders* to total number of registered boxers, British fighters stack up pretty well.
*I accept that holding a world title does not necessarily automatically qualify you as a class fighter
Two other factors ought to be taken into consideration - the comparitively small size of British boxing’s talent pool and the national-centric focus of the media in each country. I’m generalising here so bear with me but the fact that ESPN etc may not always devote a significant amount of coverage or merit to a non-US fighter or a bout featuring two non-US fighters may be a fairly compelling reason as to why a lot of Americans (and I’m not pointing fingers) think that the rest of the world (barring a few undeniably gifted exemptions) aren’t all that great. This observation also applies to each and every other country and their national media - the BBC/Sky are similar in Britain. By way of example, I had hardly heard anything about Lacy before he fought Calzaghe and I couldn’t understand why all the US press were saying Calzaghe was a dead man walking - simply put, the British media hadn’t given Lacy’s burgeoning career any coverage so I had to trawl the internet to find out more about him.
[quote]MightyCivil wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
And I’m not pickin on English fighters, per se. As I said, Ricky Hatton is my favorite fighter out there. But as a whole, they’re not very good, and the refs and judges protect them way too much.
Without wishing to be a pedant (and I appreciate you were generalising, FightingIrish), Calzaghe is Welsh (obviously with a little Italian thrown in), not English. RJJ is Canadian, right…?
[/quote]
Oh stop. You’re all from the same tiny ass island. UK fighters… is that better?
That brings up another point- the super middleweight division sucks. Americans typically go for the middlweight or light heavy divisions, and those are the ones that have had the best fights in the past 20 years.
Cal’s nuthuggers (not saying you, but go on ESB and they’re everywhere) make a big deal out of his undefeated record, but he never went either up or down to chase the best out there. And the ones who were willing to fight in his division, RJJ and BHop- he didn’t fight them until they were a combined 82 years old. C’mon. Duran moved up from lightweight to do what he did, and as much as I don’t like Pac, he’s moved up from friggin flyweight.
Who? When? I love Ricky Hatton, but he’s the model for why English fighters don’t do well- they brawl instead of box, and don’t learn the basics. You can tell European fighters immediately by their style.
And I love the way they fight- they leave everything in the ring… but when they come against slick boxers from America, they get schooled.
I attribute this to more shitty trainers than shitty fighters… but unfortunately that’s what England has.
No, not these days. Don’t mean shit.
You’re forgetting one big thing- boxing is not all that popular in the US. Unless it’s a major, major fight, ESPN doesn’t do much coverage of it at all. Newspapers, aside from the LA Times (probably because of their heavy Latino population) don’t bother sending reporters to fights anymore. The sport isn’t covered at all by the major media outlets unless a big name is in there… and in the last 10 years, the lack of a strong American heavyweight has really hurt the sport here. So in Britain, you’ve actually got the advantage on that one.
[quote]
By way of example, I had hardly heard anything about Lacy before he fought Calzaghe and I couldn’t understand why all the US press were saying Calzaghe was a dead man walking - simply put, the British media hadn’t given Lacy’s burgeoning career any coverage so I had to trawl the internet to find out more about him. [/quote]
I hear you- but there’s plenty of coverage on Ricky Hatton. There was some on Calzaghe when he actually decided to come out of Europe. Lennox Lewis was very well covered and well received by the American media.
What the boxing writers in America tend to ignore, however, is a fighter who’s 23-0 but has fought in England his whole life against no notable competition. It’s not unreasonable to ask that they come here and fight the big names- if you don’t want to do that, don’t make a bid deal out of an undefeated record that came against a couple solid British fighters and a whole shitload of nobodies.
Look at BHop’s record, and who he’s fought, then look at Calzaghe’s. Which one means more?
[quote]duffyj2 wrote:
Oh stop. You’re all from the same tiny ass island. UK fighters… is that better?
The fuck it is. I’m still smarting from Steve Collins being called “British”.
[/quote]
Fair point, apologies. Was a slip of the keyboard. It doesn’t really look too good when I correct people for calling Calzaghe ‘English’ and then go and give Steve Collins the same treatment in the same post…! Wasn’t intentional, I meant British AND Irish fighters.
[quote]MightyCivil wrote:
duffyj2 wrote:
Oh stop. You’re all from the same tiny ass island. UK fighters… is that better?
The fuck it is. I’m still smarting from Steve Collins being called “British”.
Fair point, apologies. Was a slip of the keyboard. It doesn’t really look too good when I correct people for calling Calzaghe ‘English’ and then go and give Steve Collins the same treatment in the same post…! Wasn’t intentional, I meant British AND Irish fighters.
[/quote]
Hey now… don’t you go lumping the Irish fighters with the goddamned limeys
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
MightyCivil wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
And I’m not pickin on English fighters, per se. As I said, Ricky Hatton is my favorite fighter out there. But as a whole, they’re not very good, and the refs and judges protect them way too much.
Without wishing to be a pedant (and I appreciate you were generalising, FightingIrish), Calzaghe is Welsh (obviously with a little Italian thrown in), not English. RJJ is Canadian, right…?
Oh stop. You’re all from the same tiny ass island. UK fighters… is that better?[/quote]
ha ha, yes, infinitely better.
[quote]Leaving aside the issue of Calzaghe not fighting top guys like RJJ in his prime, I can’t agree entirely with your generalisation - taking the super middleweight division as an example, over the last two decades British fighters have been at the very top of the food chain (admittedly along with some other nationalities, Americans obviously included). Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn, Steve Collins, Joe Calzaghe - now I’m not saying these boys were GOAT (great acroynym btw), but all of them were class fighters.
That brings up another point- the super middleweight division sucks. Americans typically go for the middlweight or light heavy divisions, and those are the ones that have had the best fights in the past 20 years.[/quote]
Again, this is a matter (to a certain degree at least) of national conception - in Britain we’ve come to view the super middleweight division as one of the more noteworthy/prestigious ones to follow, no doubt due to the perceived quality and number of British and Irish fighters in this division.
As for great fights, whilst I recognise this is a highly subjective area I grew up on fantastic bouts in this division, Eubank v Watson, Benn v McLennan, Eubank v Benn, Benn v Collins, Eubank v Calzaghe…now I readily accept these are British Isles-centric with the exception of the McLennan fight but they were crackers nonetheless.
This is a fair point. I would have loved to have seen Calzaghe chase more of these fights.
[quote]I know your point was that “on the whole English fighters aren’t very good” but when you start looking at this from a ratio of world title holders* to total number of registered boxers, British fighters stack up pretty well.
Who? When? I love Ricky Hatton, but he’s the model for why English fighters don’t do well- they brawl instead of box, and don’t learn the basics. You can tell European fighters immediately by their style.
And I love the way they fight- they leave everything in the ring… but when they come against slick boxers from America, they get schooled. [/quote]
If someone comes up against a slick boxer from anywhere, not just America, they’ll get schooled.
Thank god Wales has Enzo Calzaghe
[quote]*I accept that holding a world title does not necessarily automatically qualify you as a class fighter
No, not these days. Don’t mean shit.
Two other factors ought to be taken into consideration - the comparitively small size of British boxing’s talent pool and the national-centric focus of the media in each country. I’m generalising here so bear with me but the fact that ESPN etc may not always devote a significant amount of coverage or merit to a non-US fighter or a bout featuring two non-US fighters may be a fairly compelling reason as to why a lot of Americans (and I’m not pointing fingers) think that the rest of the world (barring a few undeniably gifted exemptions) aren’t all that great.
This observation also applies to each and every other country and their national media - the BBC/Sky are similar in Britain.
You’re forgetting one big thing- boxing is not all that popular in the US. Unless it’s a major, major fight, ESPN doesn’t do much coverage of it at all. Newspapers, aside from the LA Times (probably because of their heavy Latino population) don’t bother sending reporters to fights anymore.
The sport isn’t covered at all by the major media outlets unless a big name is in there… and in the last 10 years, the lack of a strong American heavyweight has really hurt the sport here. So in Britain, you’ve actually got the advantage on that one.[/quote]
To be fair, ditto - only recently with the emergence of David Haye has the press volume amplified. Otherwise they’re not interested unless it’s Joe or Ricky.
[quote]By way of example, I had hardly heard anything about Lacy before he fought Calzaghe and I couldn’t understand why all the US press were saying Calzaghe was a dead man walking - simply put, the British media hadn’t given Lacy’s burgeoning career any coverage so I had to trawl the internet to find out more about him.
I hear you- but there’s plenty of coverage on Ricky Hatton. There was some on Calzaghe when he actually decided to come out of Europe. Lennox Lewis was very well covered and well received by the American media.
What the boxing writers in America tend to ignore, however, is a fighter who’s 23-0 but has fought in England his whole life against no notable competition. It’s not unreasonable to ask that they come here and fight the big names- if you don’t want to do that, don’t make a bid deal out of an undefeated record that came against a couple solid British fighters and a whole shitload of nobodies. [/quote]
On the face of it your statement presupposes that the best fighters (or at least the ones that a British (or Irish - apologies!) fighter must measure himself against) are all American which is not always the case - regardless of what the press may have us believe.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
MightyCivil wrote:
duffyj2 wrote:
Oh stop. You’re all from the same tiny ass island. UK fighters… is that better?
The fuck it is. I’m still smarting from Steve Collins being called “British”.
Fair point, apologies. Was a slip of the keyboard. It doesn’t really look too good when I correct people for calling Calzaghe ‘English’ and then go and give Steve Collins the same treatment in the same post…! Wasn’t intentional, I meant British AND Irish fighters.
Hey now… don’t you go lumping the Irish fighters with the goddamned limeys [/quote]
Fuck…I can’t win…two small islands and we all hate each other, haha
[quote]MightyCivil wrote:
Apologies for the lack of text highlighting in my previous post, clearly epic fail on the adding text between the comments…[/quote]
[quote]MightyCivil wrote:
Again, this is a matter (to a certain degree at least) of national conception - in Britain we’ve come to view the super middleweight division as one of the more noteworthy/prestigious ones to follow, no doubt due to the perceived quality and number of British and Irish fighters in this division.
As for great fights, whilst I recognise this is a highly subjective area I grew up on fantastic bouts in this division, Eubank v Watson, Benn v McLennan, Eubank v Benn, Benn v Collins, Eubank v Calzaghe…now I readily accept these are British Isles-centric with the exception of the McLennan fight but they were crackers nonetheless.
[/quote]
That’s fair. In America no one pays attention to that division.
For the big divisions, and the big belts- the Welterweight titles, the Middleweight titles, etc.- yes, you’re going to have to measure yourself against fighters from North America (Not only America, because so many tough Mexicans are out there it would be unfair to leave them out).
But calling yourself a champion of anything if you’ve never come here and fought a real fighter is nonsensical to me. The lack of Americans at 168 is just something that cleared the way for the UK fighters- if that was a division that more Americans tried to fight at, the UK would barely be visible there too.
That’s what I’m saying- yes, America is the standard. We made boxing the money sport, and we’ve got the best trainers and fighters. Aside from the heavyweight division, which is dominated by super sized Russians, North American fighters are what all others are measured by.
And by the way- I would have been pulling for Haye against Klitscho. He’d have got his ass kicked, but I still would like to have seen it.
[quote]Reef wrote:
Big_Boss wrote:
Reef wrote:
Ward-Kessler tomorrow! Any predictions? Kessler should take it but Ward’s speed could cause some problems for him.
I’m pulling for Ward…I really don’t know much about Kessler,but these European guys are bringing it.
Me too. I hope Ward can shock the world, but Kessler’s a beast. At least Ward will have the hometown advantage like Froch did.[/quote]
No, Kessler actually made them change 2 judges so it’d be neutral. Only one judge and the ref is Californian.
I don’t really know what to think of Ward. I know he’s a good fighter, but I think he should be farther in his career than he’s. It’s hard to say how he’ll do.
[quote]goldengloves wrote:
Reef wrote:
Big_Boss wrote:
Reef wrote:
Ward-Kessler tomorrow! Any predictions? Kessler should take it but Ward’s speed could cause some problems for him.
I’m pulling for Ward…I really don’t know much about Kessler,but these European guys are bringing it.
Me too. I hope Ward can shock the world, but Kessler’s a beast. At least Ward will have the hometown advantage like Froch did.
No, Kessler actually made them change 2 judges so it’d be neutral. Only one judge and the ref is Californian.
I don’t really know what to think of Ward. I know he’s a good fighter, but I think he should be farther in his career than he’s. It’s hard to say how he’ll do.[/quote]
True, but the crowd can always influence things. Also, the ref in the Dirrell-Froch fight took a point away from Dirrell without even giving him a formal warning. Froch just as easily could’ve lost a point for his rabbit punching in the holds, but didn’t, so the ref could make an impact.
Hopefully, the fight isn’t put in the hands of the ref or judges though.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Not for anything, but Kessler is another prototypical European fighter who’s called the best but hasn’t fought anyone.
I’m expecting Ward to outpoint him. Andre Ward is the next big thing I think. [/quote]
Good point. Kessler’s only beat Andrade and lost to Calzaghe, in terms of mainstream guys. Ward’s only beat Miranda.
That’s why this fight’s so hard to predict. Ward can definitely take it in a UD (his only real weakness is his power isn’t anything special). The only thing is that I’m not sure how good his chin is, but he’s got good defense so he might be able to avoid the big shots from Kessler.
In the next round, Ward vs. Dirrell should be awesome. They fight in very similar styles.
[quote]Reef wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Not for anything, but Kessler is another prototypical European fighter who’s called the best but hasn’t fought anyone.
I’m expecting Ward to outpoint him. Andre Ward is the next big thing I think.
Good point. Kessler’s only beat Andrade and lost to Calzaghe, in terms of mainstream guys. Ward’s only beat Miranda.
That’s why this fight’s so hard to predict. Ward can definitely take it in a UD (his only real weakness is his power isn’t anything special). The only thing is that I’m not sure how good his chin is, but he’s got good defense so he might be able to avoid the big shots from Kessler.
In the next round, Ward vs. Dirrell should be awesome. They fight in very similar styles.[/quote]
yeah i really like ward and think h’s the darkhorse in this round round robbin. i feel he can win a dicision against kessler. werent ward and dirrell in the olympics together???
