Mandatory Eight Count: The Life and Death of Fight Plans

I noticed that myself.He had Mares v Perez as the only stand out fight of the year so far and as you say,ridiculously,failed to mention Kessler v Froch.

I noticed that myself.He had Mares v Perez as the only stand out fight of the year so far and as you say,ridiculously,failed to mention Kessler v Froch.

I’ve loved the Super Six and it’s been better than I expected it to be, and I had fairly high expectations. I was after the first four fights a bit concerned that almost every fight had SOME sort of minor controversy going on, but the way it’s turned out has been phenomenal. I can’t say enough good things about the Super Six, and if anything we could stand to have more tournaments like this.

I have no idea who Albert Sosnowski is (besides a joke). Where is he from? how does he fight? What are the knocks against him?

Sosnowski is a nice man from Poland who fights in an extremely basic style and has no obvious strengths whatsoever, particularly when matched against someone on Vitali Klitschko’s level. He has OKish power, subpar speed, no money punch, was too small to bother Vitali or get past his jab, and once was almost knocked out by Zuri Lawrence (24-15-4, 0 KO). Lawrence swept him on the cards over eight rounds. He was gifted a shot at the vacant European title in 2009 and beat Paolo Vidoz, who himself hadn’t done anything of note besides lose since 2006.

and if boxing match making is improving, where is the story about why/how?

It’s not actively improving anymore, which is why there’s no story about how it’s so much better. I’m not a sunshine and rainbows guy, admittedly, especially when there are massive and clear problems preventing boxing fans from seeing the best fights and the fights they want to see. If you’re a promoter, your job is to make people care about something, and then sell it to them. Sometimes promoters in boxing make people care, and then they try to sell them something they didn’t ask for. When you get to a level like Floyd or Manny, you can get away with selling consolation prizes for a while. But I think we might be hitting the point with those two where people are going to reject them, and thus boxing, because to most people, boxing is Floyd and Manny and then … some dudes.

It is better than it was eight years ago or so, when it was REALLY bad and when the sport REALLY started having its own problems with holding fan interest, back when WAY more “big fights” were on PPV than they are now. HBO backed off on PPV a bit and we started getting some good fights. But that improvement came to a halt last year — this year it has REALLY come to a halt, as the only really major, non-PPV fight HBO has broadcast has been Pavlik-Martinez. They’ve had other GOOD fights (like Maidana-Cayo) but they weren’t big fights really.

Boxing was eating its own tail long before UFC made any major strides. UFC has simply given people a somewhat similar alternative (a combat sport) that delivers. Boxing delivers to these same people very, very rarely. I think the “boxing is dead/dying” talk is dumb, because it mostly comes from people who don’t really watch boxing in the first place, so what do they really know? But boxing is definitely not a mainstream sport, and frankly neither is MMA. MMA is much closer and is a far hotter fad — that’s not a shot at MMA or me saying that they won’t have lasting power, because I think Dana White and UFC will have great lasting power. It’s just that eventually, you won’t be able to buy MMA Elite t-shirts at Wal-Mart, because the fascination will probably die down a little, and if it doesn’t, great. I wish MMA nothing but the best. I’m an MMA fan, too.

Also, I don’t know how to put this WITHOUT sounding smug, but keep in mind I don’t mean to sound smug. Boxing is not going to come to you as a consumer or fan. You have to go out and find it. You have to go out and learn about guys yourself. That’s my experience anyway. I get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to cover Japanese fights if I can find them, and watch a lot of UK boxing that features marginal fighters for the most part who will never be names outside of the UK or European circuits.

Our site is geared mostly toward people that are already hardcore fans and know at least a little about fights like Shumenov-Uzelkov tonight, for instance. I’m no educator, because I’m not good at that sort of thing. But Brick has some great stuff on boxing prospects and is better at breaking down fighters than I am, and Ted Sares offers a lot of great stuff on boxing history. Me, I’m a commentator mostly. I can see things, but I often find it difficult to put a breakdown of a fighter into words. We have a lot of users far, far better at that sort of thing than I am, and I’ve learned from them too (jrok, sonofapsycho, many others).

I doubt he gives two shits about saving the sport of boxing.

Well, like I said, you perceive boxing as dying because you’re a well-off white guy from the U.S. Other people from other backgrounds may have a different perspective. I’m not saying you should be happy about that state of affairs, but you need to recognize that just because things are a certain way from your own point of view doesn’t mean that things are that way for everyone.

So I think the solution is for you to move to Montreal. You’ll probably be able to find a non-dickish gym there without a problem. You’ll have to learn French and buy a lot of new winter clothes though.

I walked into the right gym, by pure luck, in Austin, TX. There are several other gyms that had I walked in to those, I would’ve walked out damaged.