When I first began following boxing in the 80’s, I of course had fighters I always rooted for and that’s fine I still do it now. Manny Pacquiao, David Haye, Miguel Cotto and many more. This isn’t always due to them been the best it has more to do with personal preference.
Floyd Mayweather is without a doubt a tremendous boxer, but not a fighter. He’s a boxer and his mind for the ring is second to none. Do I like him? No. I would love to see him sat on his backside looking humbled as the ref counts ten in his fight against Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero on May 4th. That is more of a reflection of how his personality rubs me the wrong way, not on his boxing skill.
As a fan of boxing, I can give my opinion to anyone who is willing to listen or in this case read it. However, it does not give me the right to harp on about a fighter I do or don’t like. If Floyd and Manny ever step into the ring, yes, I will want to see Manny retire with the biggest name in boxing as his final hide on the wall. If he lost, I would not suddenly turn on Manny and sing Floyd’s praises.
There seems to be a growing trend on here and many other sites of fickle fans jumping from one fighter to the next after one loss or win to the point. It’s nearly as big a joke as how many Man Utd fans appeared in the mid 90’s who had never worn a red shirt till that point.
David Haye performed poorly against the big Wladimir Klitschko does that mean I no longer like his style? No. It means he had an off night and paid the price. The price was a personal loss when he could of won or at least gone out with his head held high. The price should not of been racist, cruel comments written in most part by people who would not last two rounds in a ring. I am just glad that such fickle fans didn’t exist during the times of Hagler, Hearns, Duran, Tyson, Leonard, Gatti and others as some great fights featuring such names would be lost in the mess of senseless insults and general ignorance.
As detrimental to boxing as fickle fans are the many people who sing praises of fighters as though they are the salvation of mankind and use this idolization as a platform to insult others and show there own vile traits. I can think of one writer who believes that his favourite fighter (despite been untested) is the next big thing. Fine, anyone can offer support to anyone they choose but to use that support as a conduit to channel racist or hate fueled feelings towards others is as damaging to the sport as say biting an ear, PEDS or unethical judges. With some interesting fights over the next month, win or lose it would be nice to see some decent pro and con writing on the fights, what went wrong theories on what will come next without what comes across as no more than suck up gutter writing creeping in. The image of boxing has taken some flack lately but the real damage is done by the fans and supporters who shame themselves, the fighters and the sport by being hate filled suck ups and fickle fools.
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