most boxing fans have tma'ers mentality?

**Law** · Posted On: 10/20/2008 1:15pm

Originally Posted by Snake Plissken

That's because boxing fans may act like they LOVE the mystique of the undefeated champ but they really LOVE the come-down-ance and even more: LOVE making mention of the loss instead of the win.

Why is that? It's the Don King mentality. You lose, you're no longer the prized assest and flavour of the month. Time to find and support the next new kid on the block.

**Snake Plissken** · Posted On: 10/20/2008 1:44pm

Because like MMA, the casual fan doesn't go to the small shows and support the 4 rounders, they wait until they are told by the promoter they should care about this guy.

**Eddie Hardon** · Posted On: 10/21/2008 8:16am

Originally Posted by Snake Plissken

That's because boxing fans may act like they LOVE the mystique of the undefeated champ but they really LOVE the come-down-ance and even more: LOVE making mention of the loss instead of the win.

Every time that Ali fought after he lost the decision to Smokin' Joe, the BBC Commentator, Harry Carpenter, dropped that single fact into every fight - until Ali won the Re-Match.

It was sheer bloody laziness. Ali had lost the blinding foot speed so had to re-think his approach. This meant that he developed from the dazzling fleet of foot elusive brilliance - in which people criticised him for his refusal to 'take a punch' (Crazy logic or what??) into the Ring General of unquenchable spirit and Heart.

He effectively ended Frazier's ability to absorb a punch in their first fight. How did Ali get off the deck in Round 15? Astonishing.

Anyway, my point is that Ali demonstrated Breadth of Talent to the optimum degree. Despite the laziness of the BBC commentator, he was very much the standard bearer for Boxing during that whole period. If anything the losses made one consider what was lost during his years out of the Ring. Boredom, possibly 'cos only the casual viewer making the most noise would have wanted him to continue winning...sorry to ramble.

Final point. Consider the contrasts amongst Nigel Benn following his loss to the brilliant strategy of Michael Watson (his trainer insisted on the Ali-Foreman strategy) and, say, Audley Harrison. Nigel became ever more exciting to watch and Audley....didn't.

Cheers

**Kung-Fu Joe** · Posted On: 10/21/2008 9:58am

Originally Posted by v1y

Contrast this with jiujitsu and the ADCC. If someone gets to the ADCC and gets subbed in 2 mins by marcelo garcia -- does ANYONE say that this person can't grapple?

...

Boxing fans it seems do not share this mentality. If you get your ass kicked by a superior boxer (or just lose based on the style matchup), all of a sudden people are saying "x person can't box".

I think the primary cause for this is the simple fact that most Boxing fans do not, themselves, know how to box. Most boxing fans have never set foot in a boxing gym, never learned rudimentary strategy, and certainly never competed in the sport.

In contrast, how many fans of Submission Grappling are there who don't train in Submission Grappling?

It's much easier to understand and reconcile a fighter's loss when you understand the techniques and strategies that contributed to that loss. It's exceptionally difficult when you have little clue what's going on outside of "that guy hit the other one a whole bunch."

We do see the same thing in MMA. Here's a little experiment: after any UFC event, go on over to Sherdog's forums and have a look at some of the thread titles. There are invariably a ton of threads like "So-and-so sucks now" or "Is So-and-so's fifteen minutes up?" Meanwhile, the winners have thread titles like "So-and-so is better than Fedor!" and "So-and-so deserves a title shot."

Ignorance of the intricacies of any sport yield misunderstandings amongst its fans.

--Joe