By Gerardo Granados: A friend of mine asked me a boxing question that I was not able to respond properly, he told me that I should learn more before calling my self a boxing expert, I reply to him saying that I was only a boxing fan who tries to keep up with the latest news and I certainly clear him that I have never considered my self as a boxing expert; I have few amateur experience and my articles are based on that. My friend told me: “then you are just a casual fan”.
What is a casual fan? Is it the guy that enjoys a street brawl? Or the guy that gathers with his friends to drink beer and have a good meal while watching a boxing match on television? I wonder if the casual fan is the guy that enjoys boxing but that doesn’t care to keep up to date with the latest boxing news, the one that knows a few names of famous boxers, but doesn’t know on what weight division did his favorite fighters campaigned at; he must be the guy that asks the name of the rival and general info about him – Hey who is he? Is he good? I thought he was Chinese? Why doesn’t he fight against Pacquiao? He is too heavy to fight him? Pacman is a lightweight?
Unarguably casual fans keep boxing alive, they are the ones that purchase the pay per view on weekends, they might not be experts to notice if a fighter blocked most of the punches that his rival throw at him and will believe that the fighter that throws more punches must come out victorious. No matter what you might think about casual fans these guys enjoy boxing a lot more than the average fan or the boxing experts, they just like to watch fighters swinging at each other, they love fighters like Duran, Hearns, Tyson, Chavez, Hatton, Pacquiao or Morales who enter the ring to beat their rival. Casual fans don’t do much thinking about match making and aren’t too serious about professional boxing, they just enjoy and don’t waste time arguing about boxing politics, boxing governing bodies – must casual fans don’t know how many weight divisions exist or the name of the WBA, WBC, IBF or WBO. They won’t be interested if determined boxing governing bodied allowed these fighters to dispute the vacant title without have enough merits, they won’t argue if the decision was made due to satisfied economical interest or because the promoter has big influences to do so.
It seems to me that casual fans have a good time while watching a boxing fight on television, they will never get tired about boxing and still will be interested in other contact sports such as UFC or MMA, they are fans of soccer, foot ball, base ball, tennis, etc. Do you remember when you were just a casual fan? It was great just to watch the fight and have a good time with your friends.
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