Have we mistaken the bravery of a fighter with the lack of boxing technique?

By Boxing News - 09/15/2015 - Comments

Jose CayetanoBy Gerardo Granados: A week ago or so I replied to an ESPN Golpe a Golpe boxing analyst Jorge Eduardo Sanchez tweet that stated “I think that in Mexico we have mistaken the bravery of an Aztec warrior with the lack of technique. It is not all about moving forward without a tactic reason”.

I replied: either is all about running and not taking a risk, if you want to see pure boxing go to the amateurs, this is prizefighting. He responded “Neither my friend. It’s not like that. You don’t understand”.

I replied: why is it that purists like you feel like you have all the reason and dismissed the opinion of the rest of the fans? *translated. So instead of talk about the subject making valid arguments I got blocked.

Yesterday as the reader already must know Peter Quillin got one more opportunity this year to win a world title against WBA “regular” middleweight belt holder Daniel Jacobs. Why is it that he is able to get endless shots at the belts isn’t a big mystery to hard core fight fans and the casuals couldn’t care less about boxing politics.

Quilling vacated his WBO middleweight strap to avoid mandatory challenger Matt Korovov then referred to a million notes purse split as crumbs; on his next fight got a direct shot against Andy Lee who beat Korovov but failed to make weight so the belt was not at stake. Last Saturday night Quillin headed a televised event and beat up club fighter Michael Zefara in an ugly mismatch and now gets to fight for a bogus title.

The best boxer who ever came out of the beautiful island of Cuba, Guillermo Chacal Rigondeaux has been avoided by the so called big names since he soundly beat Nonito Donaire; Chacal fought for the last time back in December 31 of 2014 in Japan against Hisashi Amagasa. His former promoter Top Rank Promotions didn’t show a big effort to promote him and his current promoter Caribe Promotions has not been able to get him a single fight this year. There was buzz about him fighting against Vasyl Lomachenko but it never came to fruition.

Cuban Erislandy Lara once fought on the main event in Las Vegas against Saul Alvarez, not before trash talked, begged and hustled a well deserved shot at Canelo but now appears on Friday night boxing. His style must be a pleasure for boxing purist but isn’t attractive to be sold on Pay Per View.

Well in prize fighting there are many thing that we´ll never fully understand, like local judge decision, weird ranking systems, mandatory challengers who are able to take step aside agreements, referees who simply won’t allow an inside fighter to work on the inside, boxers who believe that clinching is a defensive skill, boxing organizations which lack the power to force their champions to fight their mandatory, the overprice of pay per view, how can a boxer squander five hundred million notes, ETC.

But one thing is clear to the one who wants to see it; it is that this is prize fighting which involves the boxing technique in his participants and its main goal is to have big revenues for all the involved. If you want to earn a million dollars purse you better convince fight fans to pay to watch you fight and if you are a pure boxer chances that you´ll become the next cash cow are little to none if fight fans find you boring.

Quillin isn’t an elite boxer but he is able to sell his persona, also has the fortune to have an influential promoter behind him but if fight fans didn’t have any interest in watching him fight by now he would be fighting next to Lara on Friday nights.

Many Mexican boxers are known for their fan friendly fighting style, most of them are brawlers and a select group is integrated by elite boxer punchers. Mexican fighters are liked by most fight fans because they´ll never back down and will use the tools they have to win, maybe they don’t have great footwork or punching technique and often take two punches to land their own but they will hit as hard as they can and they never will be afraid to get hit. Maybe a number of them don’t know how to create openings or use angles but all of them have the heart of a warrior and that can’t be thought to any boxer.

You might think that many of them aren’t good boxers but they got into prize fighting to earn money. If you have felt hunger for days then you might understand them but if you have always have more than enough to live then you´ll think that they mistaken bravery with lack of boxing technique.

I have a huge respect for all prize fighters, many brawlers might be boxing skill limited but to climb into the ring against a more skillful boxer requires not only to be brave but to be in a situation that most of the people could not understand.

I might not understand. Perhaps boxing and prizefighting are the same. Maybe boxing purists have all the answers. But I will never mistake the lack of boxing technique with the need to earn a living. But, what about the readers do you agree?



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