Boxing At The Weekend...

[chartpolski 28,921]

15 hours ago, gnasher16 said:

Yes definitely mate look back through different era's elite fighters have always been popular world icons if you like.....Ali was seen as a hero through compassion as well as skills....before that Braddock,Louis etc seen as hero's for a different reason fighting through the Great Depression and World Wars.......now " hero's " are being made without any actual achievement just through being popular on Youtube and suchlike......its a popularity contest playing out in a sport that has been hijacked on a different financial level than whatever corruption Don King might have brought along......today literally any half talented fighter should really forget about perfecting his craft in the gym and just get working on his social media profile.....and yes the Saudis who know and understand nothing about the traditions and history of boxing are offering the sport up as something it never was.....ive said for a while now the governing bodies are there to protect the sport and as much blame as we want to shove on the Saudis ultimately its our own boxing people who have sold the sport out.

Ali visited Saudi a few times, to perform the Haj and to visit schools , etc.

He visited my daughter’s school twice and chatted with the kids and parents and had photos taken.

Its to my great regret that I was out of the country both times and never got to meet him.

Cheers.

[pesky1972 5,772]

Some good points there. My view is that sport always will evolve and change. More often the drivers of change will be greed, but some visionaries have elevated sport to different levels and brought good things. Barry Hearn taking darts from relatively small dark halls to indoor arenas, and from the ‘best of order please’ silence on the throw, broken only by the coughs from the audience choking on cigarette smoke, to the raucous technicolour atmosphere that puts many a top flight football crowd to shame.

Arab money though is different in my opinion. They have sh!t tons of it and virtually everyone and everything seems to have a price. As been said they have no regard for heritage and tradition. Take golf and the LIV (Saudi backed tour) making offers too good to refuse to some of the games biggest stars to leave the main PGA tour, starting a civil war and lots of bad blood within the game. That’s where I have the utmost respect for McIlroy who put tradition and the prestige of winning his sports blue ribbon events over a reported offer of $850m+ just for turning up on the LIV tour…, especially when a few other big names turned coat and took the money after initially slating the Saudis. 

The world has changed so much recently, I forget that a 40 year old man has really only known wall to wall live games on Sky, all seated stadia, grass on the pitch year round, no pass backs to the keeper, even women playing the game ffs. Lots has changed for the better no doubt, but with that for me the real fans, without whom “football is nothing” have been disenfranchised. Look at the rinsing fans are getting for the 2026 world cup, or the arab money that bought two world cups in 12 years. Why haven’t we seen a UK world cup, or a final at Wembley since 1966!

I hope in the fullness of time boxing will get back on track, but fear there’s a generation being brought up to see these pantomimes as what the sport actually is. And as Gnasher pointed out, if you want to succeed then playing the media game is now key. Every panto needs a villain and Paul is obviously one of the best, and made an absolute fortune at it so there’ll sure as sh!t be a generation inspired to be like him now. And like Gnasher part of me wanted to see Jake Paul killed or crippled so that we’d see an end to all this garbage, although I’m not even convinced that would save boxing now. I reckon the likes of fast Eddie would cry a few crocodile tears, the Saudis would just chuck another $200m at it and we’d see Joshua v Logan Paul ‘The Avengeance’. One things for sure, things are only going to get worse for those that remember better times and the sports we grew up loving.