From aceknighthigh:
Any early thoughts on a potential Fundora-Boots fight?
From Tyler Neves:
What’s your opinion on the 154/160 lb triangle of Fundora, Boots and Ortiz? How do you see each of those respective fights going? Who is the king of that weight, ignoring for a moment that Ortiz has moved up?
I love Boots vs Fundora. Boots is so skilled and talented, especially offensively, but he’s not perfect; he gets hit more than you’d probably like, although not more than I’d like, as that makes for some
vulnerability in his game, and that makes for drama in a fight if he’s facing someone good. Fundora is also flawed, but he’s such a specific challenge for anyone at these weights, and as he’s gotten better, the challenge has become more challenging.
I think you’ll get good action, I think you’ll get some drama, I think you’ll have a really good fight if it gets signed. I know this is kind of corny, but I truly think the key difference in the fight might be that Boots is a little bit meaner.
I think Vergil Ortiz is kind of out of the conversation at this point, at least through the end of 2026. Fighting Keith Thurman at 160 isn’t moving the needle for me. But Vergil is really good, and you only hope the various stalled periods of his career don’t mean we missed seeing the absolute best Ortiz in a fight that would have been more interesting for him.
From VicTheGoat2023:
With Shakur Stevenson reportedly being released by Zuffa Boxing, who comes out of this situation looking worse?
Shakur clearly signed for a big bag expecting the major fights he wanted, but those fights never materialized. At the same time, he was calling out 147-pounders without seemingly wanting to fight at welterweight, instead negotiating catchweights and rehydration clauses. If Zuffa felt he was making fights unnecessarily difficult, can you blame them for moving on?
On the other hand, Zuffa managed to work with Golden Boy to make Conor Benn vs. Ryan Garcia happen, so why couldn’t they get the job done with Shakur? Does this expose Zuffa’s limitations when negotiating with outside promoters, or is Shakur ultimately his own worst enemy when it comes to making fights?
You’re hitting the nail on the head here: Neither side looks good. Shakur coudl have looked at that roster and knew there was nobody for him to fight. On the other hand, Dana White keeps smirking and telling us that it’s going to happen, all the fighters will be there. But he also smirked and told us that he was promoting Fury vs Joshua for months. He wasn’t. He isn’t.
I think Dana White is finding boxing a little bit tougher of a go than he anticipated, and it’s all predictable stuff. “Zuffa Boxing” does not have the brand name allure that UFC does for MMA fighters, I don’t think he’s finding it nearly as easy to convince stars to sign as he expected. But I said this years and years ago, it was going to be hard for him to get into boxing. It is very hard to come into boxing and promote successfully. These veteran promoters are sharks, and they’re established. And it’s a weird, stupid business. Dana might still make it, but if they do, it’s either a complete bully buy-out, basically (B-B-B-B!), just brute force and no “skill” involved, or it’s going to take longer than he may have thought. These other promoters still have teeth, and White isn’t used to fighting off the back foot, as it were.
From Blood:
What the chuff is the point of Zuffa boxing, please? I thought they were supposed to splash oil money, build a roster of talented fighters and produce inhouse fights all of the time with the Zuffa belt the whole goal, leading to world wide domination. None of this is happening. They spent squillions of dollars on Benn and received very little in return, with Jai Opetaia their other landmark battler. Am I being too harsh or did Zuffa just exaggerate everything? Thank you.
They exaggerated a lot, in a lot of ways. It’s what Dana does. His claims have always been pretty sensational, but people just take his word for it because people like just taking someone’s word for it, first of all, and also it’s MMA, nobody had any reference point prior to UFC gaining momentum. There was nothing really to compare it to, and that includes boxing, which is why for 20+ years I have tried to avoid doing “Boxing vs MMA” comparisons. The audiences are not the same and never have been, and the crossover is not as deep as a lot of people think.
From Badleftgoom:
What are the chances in a year, or two, or five that Zuffa has taken over the game in any meaningful way? How close did PBC get? Out of the traditional promoters who would you prefer win?
- Whatever else I might say, or whatever I may personally feel or believe will happen, Zuffa is still a work in progress and if they adjust, which you have to assume they will, they’ll be a player as long as the money is there to back them. If that backing were to dry up, even if it were just, “Eh, we’re not that concerned about boxing going forward,” then Zuffa Boxing probably just ends instead of continuing to exist the way PBC has. Those folks have other things to focus on, which is another problem they have with the boxing.
- I don’t think PBC got anywhere near “close.” It would be hard to tell the story of PBC and spin it in such a way that the venture wasn’t ultimately a total failure in that regard.
- I think Frank Warren is genuinely the best promoter in the game right now, but Frank’s also 74 and even more than him retiring from the sport, sooner than later he just won’t be that involved. But he’s probably ceded plenty of ground already in-house, and I think Queensberry seem set up for long-term success in a way Top Rank just wasn’t, for that sort of case we’ve seen play out. (I don’t think Todd duBoef was ever quite in the spot to take over that we thought he would be once upon a time.) Other than Warren, it’s Eddie Hearn, who is youthful and has the sand to take on any rival promoter, he’s made a career of it, from going head-to-head with Warren in the UK to expanding and pissing off Arum and Golden Boy, to now staring down Dana White. He isn’t always successful, everything doesn’t always work as planned, but he has the guts you need. (In a different world, and we kinda flirted with that world years ago, Dana White and Eddie Hearn likely get along very well, so long as they stay out of each others business.)
From Phil76:
Who should vanquished Fabio Wardley fight next? Johnny Fisher? Guido Vianello? Otto Wallin? Do you agree that people saying Wardley should quit are jumping the gun a bit? He’s not old for a Heavyweight!
I generally think everyone who starts shouting for athletes to retire when they’re, in this case, 31 years old is “jumping the gun.” Sports fans, I think, are largely concerned with their own perception of someone and their own memories of someone else’s legacy.
But Wardley is sort of a different case. Pro athletes have pretty much all spent their lives consumed by this thing that they do. You don’t get professional-level good — or in the case of boxing, “professional and anyone knows who you are” good — if that’s not how you are, even if you’re incredibly talented. There are a lot of playground legends who would get absolutely dog-walked one-on-one by the worst player in the G-League, it’s just a different mindset and drive.
Wardley seems to have gained a passion for boxing, but this was not his lifelong focus. He took it up late. And often when you see that, you do see a short prime (if a prime at all) and a pretty fast fall off the cliff, because that lack of having it drilled into your head from a young age does catch up.
I like Fabio. I think he’s handled defeat with class, and he’s gone miles further than most anyone suspected he would. My dominant thought is that it’s his life, his career, and his call. I’m never going to be someone who cries out for a retirement. But I do think his is a specific case where you have to weigh the pros and cons a lot more than normal. He probably has something he can do other than this, and this gets real dangerous at the top levels, and it’s very hard to convince a boxer who’s been at the top level that they’re not going to get back there.
Either way I wish him the best of luck, though. Maybe he defies the odds again and has a second run at a belt.
From Ingos_hammer:
If you hade a time machine, which fight would you go back and see live?
Ooh, so many possible choices here and I’d love to hear everyone’s answer for this one. Mayweather vs Hatton jumps to mind because I would have just loved to be part of that atmosphere, it was wild even on TV. But then there’s Tszyu vs Hatton, too! Pacquiao vs Marquez IV.
Barry McGuigan vs Steve Cruz came to me pretty quickly as a potential pick here, too. Hagler vs Hearns. Hagler vs Leonard. Liston vs Ali, and also Ali vs Liston 2, which was a two-minute fight but the fact that that was in front of 2,400 people in Lewiston, Maine, is such a weird little quirk. Ali vs Harry Cooper might be a fun pick, too.
It’s so hard to settle on one, but I’m going with the first Holyfield-Bowe fight from ‘92. That was the first heavyweight title fight that I felt, like, plugged into, like I’d known these guys and their reputations for a while, had read articles about them and stuff like that. I’d watched boxing before, I was obviously super aware of Tyson because he was a massive celebrity, but I was 10 when Holyfield-Bowe I happened and that felt different to me then. I think I’d go to that one. And it’s a great fight, too, obviously.
From CRUCIFILTH:
Daniel Dubois fighting against 20 middle aged Dads at a BBQ. Who you got?
If they come one at a time like a normal video game, Dubois. If it’s like The Sopranos: Road to Respect, and 11 guys can hit you at once, I gotta be realistic and go with the Dads, but there’s always the chance that he knocks the first Dad out so bad that the other 19 decide they’d rather not.
From Hahahawhatever:
Why do Netflix televised boxing events seem to have a much more successful push into the mainstream than say the FOX, ESPN, or TNT events we’ve seen in recent years? Is it just selection of fights? Is it possible it could continue without Saudi investment?
I think Netflix is just easy. Almost everyone who’s going to have interest has it at this point, which you cannot say about cable or streaming “traditional” TV packages like YouTube TV or whatever. Someone in the house has a Netflix account for some reason. And if you don’t, you can get a cheap subscription and watch the fight.
But yes, they also run only events that have built-in (closer to) mainstream appeal. If they put on Sebastian Fundora vs Ermal Hadribeaj, I suppose more people might sample it for 12 minutes, but it wouldn’t do Canelo or Fury-Joshua or Jake Paul-Mike Tyson numbers or even close.
