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Glenn McCrory: "British passion should be rewarded with big fights"

374 Views 6 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Chatty
Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer told Ringside a few months ago that he wants to bring the best American fighters over to Britain to fight - and I believe him.

Schaefer and some of the other major US promoters are cottoning on to how passionate us Brits are about our boxing and the men that set foot in the ring, and realising that there is plenty of money to be made on this side of the Atlantic.

We prove our passion weekly on the terraces at football matches and at PDC darts events, while there is always plenty of excitement when big franchises from the NBA and NFL come over to England to play games, too.

But big fight nights are something else; I've been to shows in New Jersey, New York and Las Vegas, but the atmosphere over there is nothing compared to what we get in England when the best fans in the world, most of whom are colourful and some of whom are crazy, are in attendance.

Brits have a genuine affection for fighters - no-one supports Mike Tyson like we do, no-one supports Floyd Mayweather like we do - and will shell out their hard-earned cash to watch them fight anywhere, but even more so if they are on our doorstep.

Boxing has been starved of some enormous fights recently - Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao is the one that immediately springs to mind - because politics is having more influence than ever in the sport.

But in Britain we have been particularly famished, with world title fights and big names facing off too infrequently here, and without Carl Froch's matches that number would have dropped even more dramatically.

However, I get the sense that things will soon change.
You can read Glenn McCrory's full blog here as he also looks ahead to Amir Khan's UK return and recent disappointment outside of the ring for Kell Brook - http://www.skysports.com/opinion/story/0,,13275_8669296,00.html
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No way do they send the big names over unless they are guaranteed to make more money than they would in the US. As if Schaefer has just suddenly decided that he wants the Brits to get bigger fights without an agenda.

His agenda will be getting as much out of Amir Khan as he can before he is brutally destroyed by matthysse and thats what I believe.
I don't think Froch has brought that much to the table in that regard either. he's basically had a solo big fight with Bute. he was hardly know when he fought Pascal and Dirrell and his other big fights against Taylor, Abraham, Johnson and ward were all abroad. Kessler will be his biggest fight on home soil.

What else have we had - Khan hasn't had any big fights at home.

A foreigner in Katsidis has probably had the most in Mitchell and Burns.

Haye v Ruiz wasn't a big deal and Harrison was a farce - other than that he had the Macaranelli fight and the rest of his big fights (Mormeck, Valuev, Wlad) were all abroad.

We've never had big selling stars who box at home since Hatton and Calzaghe and even they fucked off abroad in the end.
Theirs too many factors eeping big fights away from Britain. We don't have the casino revenue, we don't have near the advertising revenue, we can't match their PPV revenue which is about $50-70 over there.

We would have to put the fight on at 5am to match there audience, I imagine ticket revenue would be higher over there.

They would have to do a stadium over here, how many fights could sell a stadium over here:

Mayweather, Pacquaio, Marquez and the K bros - I doubt any generals have heard of many others so other than them they would need a Brit fighter so we can either do:

Haye v Wlad again
Khan V Mayweather/Pacquaio

I think they the only stadium fillers.
Maybes Froch v Ward but Ward has no fans and i think the Brits know Kessler better than him plus he's dull as hell.

Problem is GBP has none of those foreign fighters.

So Khan v Mayweather is the only fight they could broker over here and it wouldn't match the US revenue - not even close.

Other than that they can send their boxer wth no fan base to fight on undercards I suppose.
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