Boxing question

Are you allowed to be a professional boxer anymore? Or do you have to be a YouTuber/social media personality first nowadays?

 

The once great sport has gone to the dogs i'm afraid' back in the day there was a top 10 and the fighters had to climb the ladder to earn a shot at the title' now we have boxers fighting kickboxers and cage fighters' people offering each other out on social media etc' like everything else money has killed the sport...

 

Doesn't help having four belts in each division and boxers avoiding each other to keep their belts.

 

My comment was a bit of a flippant one. And I understand that the articles Google generate for me are based on my search history. What started it off was, I was awake early one morning, and I fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. I once had a customer in my old job who was a former professional boxer, and whilst he wasn't a household name, he has fought some very familiar names, including Tyson Fury. Before I knew it, I was watching knockout videos.

So then I began getting suggested articles about boxing, mainly reviews of fights which had just passed. That has transitioned into reviews for YouTuber boxing matches, call outs by Jake and Logan Paul, and whoever the Iranian Hulk is. I know this all started with KSI vs whichever of the Paul brothers, and I get there's probably demand for it. But it does seem to take away from the actual professionals, like the ones you mention, who spent years trying to get to that stage.

 

The Paul brothers are great. They have over 43 and a half million followers between them on Instagram alone which will get them and any brand that uses them massive publicity. They are a huge draw because of their personalities. People either tune in to see them win or be knocked out. Either way it's money. They have took to Boxing and Wrestling very quickly for amateurs.

 

The Iranian Hulk was meant to fight Martyn Ford (not sure who he is either), but that got canned, and now he's fighting some other non boxing strong man with a similarly hard sounding name.

I guess the Paul brothers are a bit of a bad example for me, as both do seem to put a lot of work into training, and growing both the sport as well as their brand. There's something I just dislike about them, but that's my issue.

I guess my beef is more with the YouTubers who call each other out, who aren't trained fighters, and have no intention of adding value to the sport and are purely in it for their own likes and subscribers. I'd give you examples, but I honestly don't know their names. Mainly middle aged dads fighting 20 year old video gamers.

 

He's an untrained (to a degree) fighter, and I think his people are piggybacking off the Eddie Hall Thor Bjornsson fight. I believe Martyn Ford who he was originally meant to fight, is good friends with Eddie Hall.

 

Here's my boxing question.

Why? At a time when sports like football are banning deliberate heading in junior games and Rugby is being dragged through the courts by former players suffering head-injury related dementia, Why? Just why is it even considered as a valid sport? Beats me.

 

I hate the Paul's in particular Jake just because he claims to be a boxer yet hasn't had a fight against a proper boxer yet. He has put in a lot of work and takes it seriously from what we see, but he has only had bouts against former UFC fighters and NFL stars etc.

If he is really serious about boxing, he needs to get more fights against actual active fighters from his weight class. To his credit, his next fight does appear to be that which will be interesting to see what happens.

 

Be good to see what he does against this Rahman JR guy as both him and his brother have a tendency to challenge fighters who are either a lot smaller than them, a lot older than them or both.

This Rahman JR guy is an active fighter who should provide a proper test for Jake.

 

Jake claimed he was going to be a champion once I am sure but of course it was probably just clever PR stuff. He will probably disappear again if he loses. He clearly is very clever as he has angered so many people around the globe from the world of UFC and boxing based on what he has said over the last few years. Man of who would love to get in the ring with him to try and shut him up but all it does is just keep his name relevant which is what he wants.

Logan has now moved into the WWE and a few mates of mine watch that stuff and apparently he looks a natural in that industry. Of course the results are scripted and that, but he looks impressive in that industry from what I have heard.

 

I watched a brief interview on this recently. The guy who deals with people with head injuries pointed out the risks and what can happen (from dementia, to vegetative states, to paralysis, to death). The boxing promoter defended the sport as something that teaches discipline, channels anger, helps young people to focus and gets young men off the street and into the gym; he also highlighted that the aforementioned risks are there, but in reality it rarely transpires from a boxing match that someone ends up paralysed for example. He stated that boxers aren't trained to knock people out per se, it is more about the art, the skill and scoring points.

As a relatively recent boxing enthusiast, I can see the arguments on both sides. As someone who has suffered head injuries from assault (being headbutted repeatedly while i was on the floor) and also going up for a header at football and the other guy heading me instead of the ball (just above the eye, 6 stitches), my first thought getting into the ring would be doing everything i can to avoid getting punched in the head, and if i did get punched in the head what would potentially happen immediately after, and what would the long-term effects be, which I believe are much harder to measure (a bit like football and heading the ball, we are only starting to learn about the link to dementia decades later, and even then is the risk now anywhere near as great as those heading the ball in the 60s, when they used a much heavier ball and didn't hold back when challenging in the air?).

I love boxing, I watch it every day pretty much, either live or re-runs of fights. It's something that's always there now. I think it is great at getting young people to engage in something other than drugs, gangs, the streets, and even just away from wasting time online at home. It absolutely teaches discipline, the rewards of hard work, and offers them a different life - particularly those from working class backgrounds - to the path that perhaps they would otherwise take. Tony Bellew has talked a lot about how boxing (and his wife) saved him from that life. But the dangers are very real, but every boxer who gets into the ring knows that. For me, it is entertaining as a sport, and the fighters have my full respect for the risks they take for others' entertainment.

 

Canelo is incredible, one of the best around but again isn't this someone that Jake is taller and heavier than? I am not the biggest boxing fan/expert around but sure Jake fights at a higher weight division to Canelo right?

That isn't me saying Jake would win by the way, Canelo should be far too good for him even if he is a bit smaller but it is just another fighter he is calling out that is smaller.