Boxing Discussion

GGG knocked him out in the 2nd.

I tuned in late, unfortunately, a few minutes after it ended. Based on the few highlights I saw, GGG looked good and aggressive. Will have to catch it on replay

Now that Pacquiao and Mayweather are no longer in the picture, who really is that NAME that brings in the fans for a boxing event. Are there any current boxers that are able to bring in the causal fan ? And I"m not talking about doing a PPV against a MMA artist. An actual boxing match that the world would care about ?

^theres not many but i think joshua v wilder could be huge.

It depends how "casual" you mean. Canelo is a genuine star who otherwise brings in loads of folks who aren't fans, at least in the latin community (who tend to disproportionately be boxing fans, anyway). Obviously, he's not as big as Pacquiao or Mayweather, but historically I don't think there's always someone that big

@ chessmaster

I thought Martirosyan looked pretty good that first round, but it was curtains in the 2nd. If I'm Golovkin this is the schedule for the rest of my career: rematch Canelo, then Billy Joe Saunders, Charlo, and Derevychenko in no particular order, then maybe a big money fight against Ryota Murata in Japan for money, and cap the career with either a rubber match against Canelo, a rematch against Danny Jacobs, or maybe a fun farewell action fight with Jarrett Hurd if he chooses to move up to middleweight.

@ Warrior15

There are currently no worldwide popular stars in boxing. Mayweather is probably retired, and Pacquiao is faded. Adrien Broner may be the closest thing we have to an American-born boxing star, which is kind of sad. That said there are boxers who are extremely popular in a certain country or region. Canelo is hugely popular in Mexico and amongst Mexican-Americans. Golovkin has a pretty sizable Mexican fanbase and is a national hero in Kazakhstan. Joshua is a huge star in Britain, but isn't close to being a household name outside of the isles. The World Boxing Super Series going on has made almost zero impact here in the States, but supposedly is doing pretty solid numbers in Europe. Lomachenko is starting to build up a decent fan base, as are Murata and Inouye in Japan. The Charlo brothers, Eroll Spence, Daniel Dubois, Josh Kelly, and Gervonta Davis could potentially be future stars, and Eastern Europe keeps churning out really, really good boxers.

To be fair, boxing has had fairly few globally known mainstream stars in its history. Before Pacquiao and Mayweather, who could be considered a world star? The Klitschkos were big in Germany and Eastern Europe, but even dating Hayden Panetierre did not make Wladimir Klithscko a household name. Lennox Lewis maybe? Tyson definitely. Many All Time Greats like Ray Robinson and Joe Louis were very popular in the States, but were they popular outside of the English-speaking world? I think Ali may have been the first truly globally popular boxer. That's probably why he ended up becoming so overrated.

Anyways, Cinco de Mayo was underwhelming but the rest of May is going to bring us some really good bouts. Lomachenko-Linares is going to be great, but the fight I'm really looking forward to is Badou Jack-Adonis Stevenson.

To use the old used phrase pound for pound the best boxer out there right now is probably Terence Crawford. He's currently a Welterweight and the face nobody has mentioned him on here speaks to the overall downward turn boxing has taken with the general public.

In my younger days I was very much a boxing fan, actually I knew a couple of fighters on a first name basis and would attend professional fights whenever I could get tickets. One of the reasons I know the old Vegas but until recently had not been there for some time.

When boxing gets back to having a Leonard vs Hagler match someone let me know.........

Brief recap of the past couple of weeks of boxing action:

Lomachenko-Linares is so far my Fight of the Year. Rungvisai-Estrada, Usyk-Briedis, and Gassiev-Dorticos are up there as well, but with Lomachenko-Linares we had my personal P4P #1 fighting the consensus #1 lightweight in the world. Lomachenko is a natural featherweight, and I'm convinced lightweight is the upper limit for him in terms of weight. He landed a lot of leather on Linares, but until he landed the liver shot he wasn't really hurting Linares very much. I still favor Lomachenko over any other lightweight including Mikey Garcia, but I actually think Gervonta may give him more trouble than I used to think.

Yesterday, we had Russell-Diaz & Stevenson-Jack. Russell won comfortably, and it puts Lomachenko's easy victory over him in a very good light. Stevenson-Jack was a huge disappointment. Jack should have been penalized for all his ridiculous low blows, and Stevenson should have been penalized for all of his clinches. Jack wins the rematch in my opinion. Stevenson will only be even older, and he doesn't have the versatility to bring new wrinkles if he fights Jack again. The referee overall did an awful job. People complain rightfully about all the issues with boxing, but poor refereeing in my opinion is the #1 reason a fight can degrade into an awful and boring clinchfest.

@ Warrenboy75

Terence Crawford is very good, but I put Lomachenko and a couple of others ahead of him in my pound-for-pound list of active boxers.

I agree boxing is past its heyday in America, but overall the popularity and participation rate of boxing remains the same in a global sense. It's very popular in Mexico, and has had a total resurgence in Britain. With the fall of the Iron Curtain you are seeing so many talented boxers coming from Eastern and Central Europe, but very few speak English and in my personal observation Slavs don't have that flamboyant personality that the American public likes so much.

By the way, who did you have winning Leonard vs Hagler? I had Hagler winning comfortably.