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As the world turns with Hatton, De La Hoya, Pacquiao, Mayweather, and Calzaghe
By Zach Arnold | January 22, 2009
So, Manny Pacquiao’s mouthpiece is challenging Ricky Hatton’s manhood in the Manila Bulletin. He claims that Richard Schaefer is at fault for not making the fight with Hatton happen. Ricky Hatton wants a re-match with Floyd Mayweather Jr., but apparently Mayweather sees that fight as a dead-ender and wants to fight Pacquiao instead. Hatton may end up being ‘stuck’ with fighting De La Hoya in the UK. The British media, meanwhile, has not given up hope on Pacquiao vs. Hatton happening in the near future.
Joe Calzaghe, in a separate boxing note, wants to fight Carl Froch.
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Holy Jesus, my head hurts! Seriously, has there been so much politics and quasi-diva activity in boxing in recent history? Jesus, they might as well just do a fatal four way match with De La Hoya, Pacquiao, Hatton, and Mayweather. Why the fuck not at this point?
Not that anyone asked for my insight, but here it is anyway:
All this crap almots makes me willing to watch Valuev again. I started watching US wrestling in 91, then Japanese wrestling in 2002, and MMA in 2003. Caught all the big fights in boxing last year, and 2009 is the year I have decided to really start following it. Now, Berto – Collazo was a good fight, but if that ends up being FOTY, the sport has a problem. And then we move right on to this crap. Hopefully the fight this Saturday can make life a little happier.
As a new fan of the sport I find it most frustrating to see how much potential is wasted, as well as the mandatory bs judge or two for each big fight.
I tried to really follow boxing around 2000 & 2001. Too many corrupt decisions and boring fights, and I was turned off by it. I still follow it casually, but I just can’t find a true passion for it due to the sports many issues.
If two fighters really want to fight each other, they would just ask for a 50/50 cut of revenue sharing. Each would make at least a few million.
I don’t want to turn this into a MMA vs. Boxing debate, but one of the things that helps the UFC with casual fans is that very seldomly do they hear about these issues. When Serra couldn’t fight Hughes in Dec ’07, GSP jumped right in.
A regular fan is likely going to be more turned off to a sport when they hear a fighter complaining about making $5 Million compared to $7 Million. Fans just want to see fights and the perception that the best are fighting the best without politics involved. While Zuffa isn’t perfect, they at least give the perception that this is occuring. Boxing does not, and they suffer because of it.
Come on man were only in January so lets stop with the if Berto v Collazo is FOTY talk. There are plenty great fights to be made in 09.
45,
Of course UFC fighters don’t bitch about pay nor turn down fights because they are under contract to Zuffa. If they turn down fights, especially high-profile fights, they could probably be sued for breach of contract, or released from their contracts if they are lucky. Hey, it almost happened to Randy Couture. You can say the same thing about other promotions. When KJ Noons turned down a rematch against Nick Diaz, he was dropped from EXC. It was what he wanted, but still. I’m sure Frank Mir can turn down a fight against someone like Junior Dos Santos with no repercussions, but if someone like, say, John Fitch decides to turn down a fight against someone like Marcus Davis then Zuffa can probably sue him for breach of contract. There’s VERY little flexibility for fighters to pick fights in that situation.
Some news reports are saying Manny v Hatton is back on and Manny has accepted 52-48 of the PPV cut.
http://philboxing.com/news/story-21927.html
The last couple of years boxing had its act together and made big fights with a minimal amount of Prima Donna politics. The current boxing drama is what turned off a lot people to boxing in the past. I don’t like where this is going, and it’s in boxing’s best interest to drop it.
Guys like GSP, Hughes, Alves, Koscheck, & Rampage can easily turn down fights on short notice without any backlash. Yet they still took those fights. That isn’t something that is contractually obligated.
I’m just hoping Hatton v DLH does not happen. I have no desire to see DLH in the ring ever again. This fight would be a nightmare over here as it would be hyped as some huge event when in reality it would be a BS fight.
Chuck,
Each fight requires a fight agreement to be signed. Plenty of fighters have turned down fights for various reasons.
Chuck reportedly turned down a proposed fight with Anderson Silva recently.
Rashad Evans was approached for the Ohio show and said no because he wanted more time to train for his next fight.
It does happen quite often.
If you are a brand new fighter, I agree you have less power. Jon the goof machine refused a fight because he felt the fighter was not a big enough name for him. That did not endear him to Joe Silva and co.
Ah, I see. Yeah, I do remember hearing that Lidell turned down a fight against Anderson Silva. Thanks for the clear-up.
“Come on man were only in January so lets stop with the if Berto v Collazo is FOTY talk. There are plenty great fights to be made in 09.”
– *I* wasn’t saying that – it came from the HBO commentators. “What a great fight”, “early candidate for FOTY”, “what a year it will be if this sets the pace”, etc; for a fight that was no more than ‘good’. Do these guys always shill like this?
Do these guys always shill like this?
Yes.
I think the commentators were just trying to say it was a great fight for so early in 09 and if continues in such vain 09 will be a great year.
mayweather – pound for pound big mouth. that’s all he is.