One missed fight does not tarnish an entire legacy

By Boxing News - 10/22/2014 - Comments

By Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: Some boxing fans crack me up when they post something that reads “if fighter A does not fight fighter C then fighter A legacy is tarnished”. Really? Since when did this rule come into effect? If this is this case then boxing is full of tarnished legacies.

Fans have cried that we aren’t getting the big fights. I totally disagree. We haven’t gotten the big fight that this generation wants to see (Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao), but we have gotten our share. I understand where the older generation of boxing are coming from are coming from when they talk about how there were big fights during their time. But even back then, fighters didn’t have big fight after big fight, after big fight. And that’s what this generation wants. But even when there were big fights, they didn’t happen in the same division back to back.

One big fight might happen at heavyweight in one month; then another at welterweight and so on. For example, on September 16th 1981, Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns fought in a unification welterweight bout. Nine months later on June 11th 1982 at heavyweight, Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney would battle it out for Holmes’s WBA crown. Five months later of that same year on November 12th at junior welterweight, Aaron Pryor and Alex Arguello took place. Notice how these bouts were big, but in separate weight classes. And the fights were so big that fans probably were okay until the next big fight.

Another reason why fans may not get the big fight is because there aren’t enough TV dates to accommodate every promoters needs (for whatever reason). What hurt the sport is when they pulled boxing matches of regular TV. ABC had a show called Wide World of Sports and this helped give boxers more exposure. CBS also had their hand in that pot. But the cool part was, they were title fights; major title fights taking place on TV.

I remember seeing Donald Curry defend his titles against Eduardo Rodriguez on CBS (I have this fight on VHS). Thomas Hearns fought Dennis Andries for the WBC light heavyweight crown on Wide World of Sports (Also have this fight on VHS). There was also this show called Tuesday Night Fights that ran from 1982 until 1988. This was the fighter’s spring board to HBO or Showtime back in the day.

Consequently because these avenues on regular TV have been taken away, the unknown fighter only becomes known when a top rated fighter gives him a spotlight. The unknown fighter could have been wreaking havoc at his weight class and the casual fans wouldn’t know about it.
What is not hard for me to accept is that certain fights has not/and will not happen.

I’m not disappointed because as I’ve stated above, we’ve enjoyed our share. Here’s a list of fights that didn’t happen. Roy Jones/Thomas Hearns; Aaron Pryor/Ray Leonard; Ray Robinson/Charles Burley; Ken Norton/Joe Frazier; Riddick Bowe/Lennox Lewis; Nate Campbell/Manny Pacquiao; Floyd Mayweather/Antonio Margarito. Are these legacies tarnished?



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