
Boxing journeymen: sport's biggest losers or unappreciated artists? - yitchelle
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/boxing/29520846
======
omegaham
It makes me think of the typical "mooks" that you see in TV shows and movies.
They're not there to pose any serious challenge to the protagonist; they're
there to make the protagonist look good. He gets to show off, get the crowd on
his side, and win. Later on, once their reputations are higher, they'll go up
against serious contenders. The journeymen, of course, will go up against the
next crop of up-and-comers.

Still, the fact that this exists means that boxing has a serious problem -
their version of the minor leagues has such a dearth of talent that they have
to resort to this WWE-style entertainment to make a name for themselves. You
don't see this with MMA; there are enough people willing to fight earnestly
that they don't need it.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
> has such a dearth of talent that they have to resort to this WWE-style
> entertainment to make a name for themselves

Nah that's not true. Boxing has a ton of talent, the problem is that it's a
prize fighting game. Each boxer is an individual entrepreneur, they don't get
a salary, they essentially get jobs like any freelancer in tech does. What
that means is that they carefully try to build a record, a story, a brand.
Look at Pacquiao, he won $50k for his second divisional world champion title.
He fights maybe 2-3 times a year, and out of that $50k he has to fly his
trainer, cutman, strength coach etc to the fight, rent a gym for a 10 week
training camp and pay them for months, and pay prize fighting taxes. He may be
left with a few thousand dollars a month. But after carefully building a
brand, a story etc, he took another title fight earlier this year, he lost,
and made more than $100 million.

This means each fighter avoids difficult fights because a record with multiple
losses is like being a freelancer with a PUBLIC record of having failed to
deliver multiple projects. Instead, you take smaller, easier projects with
less risk, where you can overdeliver (KOs) and build a portfolio of 20-30
excellent performances. And then you cash out by making lots of money on
difficult projects.

MMA or most sports for that matter aren't like that. In MMA you have a league
system and you . You basically get a random draw in a cup and get ranked ahead
if you win, and have to do mandatory matches against guys at your level. Or
you get a random draw in a league and you end up matching everyone and the guy
with the most points wins.

That exists in amateur boxing, and it's the reason why you see a lot of really
great fighters fighting other great fighters. e.g. Mosley and Forrest didn't
meet eachother as a pro for many years until they were both established. But
as amateurs they fought each other long before.

That's why in MMA most guys get 20k to 500k. In boxing, most guys get next to
nothing, even a top 20 p4p boxer in the world like Kell Brook makes just $200k
fighting his best opponent yet in Shawn Porter, while two guys gross more than
half a billion dollars in one night. Boxing is crazy like that. Most sports
have one federation (e.g. Fifa, or the NBA, or NFL), boxing has tens of
sanctioning bodies, and 4 major ones, each have multiple titles, even world
titles (e.g. super world champ, champ, interim champ) per division, and there
are 17 divisions. It's a crazy system and there's no way to bring financial
sensibility into it like in amateur boxing, or professional sports outside of
boxing. (e.g. the nr 1 football player in the world makes a 15m salary, but
the average premier league player makes 3m a year. In boxing it's more like
200m vs 0.2m a year.)

That's why journeymen exist. To make money you need a promoter to organise the
fight. And the promoter will never pit one talent in his stable against
another talent in his stable because one has to lose which lowers the stock
(and future earnings) of one of the talents. He also won't pit him against
talent from another promoter, that's like one consultancy agency calling up
another to cooperate and split the revenue, in reality that almost never
happens as each agency wants to keep the money in house, especially when 1
agency has to lose. That's why journeymen exist, not because there is no
talent, but because the only way to make money in boxing is to create records
with few losses and overpowering performances, because boxers are prize
fighters, not salaried, and they fight not under 1 federation, but for one of
many different sanctioning bodies, whoever pays the most.

In short, it's not a lack of talent that causes journey men, not at all, it's
the nature of pro boxing's prize fighting, which has matchmaking politics &
economics completely different from most sports. MMA is not the exception,
it's very much like all other sports in the world. Boxing is.

~~~
bkeroack
> That's why in MMA most guys get 20k to 500k.

Most MMA guys get a few hundred dollars for local/regional pro fights. UFC
undercard fighters typically get a few thousand guaranteed (subtract out taxes
and 3+ months of training expenses). Only at the very top of the sport do you
see substantial purses. Professional MMA in the US is essentially a monopoly
(UFC) with a huge population of aspiring fighters--it should be no surprise
that payouts are kept just (barely) high enough to attract participants. The
number of guys making real money at any given time probably don't number more
than 100 or so. You'll see lots of semi-retired fighters doing ancillary
things like opening gyms or traveling around doing fighting
workshops/seminars.

------
yitchelle
Just some context why I submitted this.

"Winning wouldn't have paid my bills for long and it's better to lose and go
home to your house knowing your gas and electric bills have been paid."

------
noelwelsh
Like all entertainment, there is a power law distribution to income. If
you're, say, the 20th best in the world in a solo sport you probably do ok but
earn orders of magnitude less than the best player. It makes better financial
sense to participate in team sports if you can, for this reason. Or just get a
job in something like tech where the distribution is much more equitable.

~~~
wehadfun
You would probably have to be well below 20th in the world for tech would make
more financial since.

~~~
Epenthesis
The 20th most successful technologist is probably a billionaire. The 20th most
successful professional athlete isn't.

~~~
TylerE
It's not THAT far off though.

This like has A-Rod at #20, at a cool $300 million.

[http://www.celebritynetworth.com/list/top-50-richest-
athlete...](http://www.celebritynetworth.com/list/top-50-richest-athletes/)

~~~
Retric
Most of those are not professional athletes, a few where business men who got
seed money or connections from sports. But also an Actor, Coach, Announcer,
Commissioner, etc.

I mean there are a lot of billionaires who used to be cooks, but that's not
how they became billionaires.

------
gadders
I think a lot of people that have never boxed will look at these guys and
think "What a loser."

However, they are still much, much better than the vast majority of people
that have ever boxed.

~~~
maxxxxx
Anybody who can survive a few fights and keep going is a tough dude. the
problem with boxing is that losing has a much higher price than other sports.
I can challenge the No 1 tennis player every day and get only my ego hurt. In
boxing every loss (and often even a win) comes with brain damage.

~~~
gadders
The reason these guys can take 300 fights, though, is they can get through it,
look credible, and not get hurt. I'd say you'd be more likely to get brain
damage during a title or truly competitive fight, not amongst an up-and-coming
fighter and a professional "opponent".

------
xyzzy123
What a wonderful bunch of silly (sensible) f*cking people. Just getting out
there and getting the job done and wanting to be recognised but mainly doing
the stuff. There are some at your work too. We all know who the workers are,
really.

------
salimmadjd
Boxing as a business (even more in US) is rotten to the core. From Don King
[1] to Bob Arum [2] and many of the lesser known characters.

The most prominent outspoken person I've seen is the trainer and TV announcer,
Teddy Atlas [3] who called the ESPN's "Friday Night Fight" till its end
recently.

Unlike HBO announcers who never say anything that might be remotely
controversial (in case it alienates powerful promoters like Bob Arum), Teddy
calls out bad decision. Not only that he screams it out and has been
constantly outspoken about "corrupt" judging [4]. I have watched him go off on
this exact topic. How an "up and coming" fighter with a big name promoter seem
to always get a favorable decision.

The problem with boxing (especially since PPV or HBO or Showtime is the main
revenue stream for boxing) is, it's a bit like movie business. Stars sell
tickets and they may not alway be the best actors or boxers in this case.

Just this past Saturday. There was a big ticket fight on HBO between Cotto and
Geale. Cotto won with a TKO that was started with a head-butt to the face of
Geal. It was very obvious[6]. Yet, not one HBO announcer said one thing about
it while they were raving about the punching power of Cotto.

Audience is another problem. Take GGG (Gennady Golovkin) [5] he has to speak
Spanish to appeal to the Spanish speaking population in order to get a decent
paying fight. And no big name is going to fight him, because there is no
upside. The names are ticket sellers and there is a big risk of losing to GGG.
So instead they just fight a lesser fighter. Cash in a nice purse, and keep
their boxing records high. And everyone is blabbering about "and...still the
champion" of this and that title, which is really meaningless. While the
viewers pay happily for a make-believe sports world which is only half-
entertainment and half-sports.

Even UFC (which is a tad better) needs big finishers. So a fighters can win on
points buy winning smartly, but those guys will never get a real shot unless
they can knockout (preferably) or submit the opponent.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_King_(boxing_promoter)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_King_\(boxing_promoter\))

[2] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Arum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Arum)

[3] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Atlas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Atlas)

[4] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmSlMZ5zUbI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmSlMZ5zUbI)

[5] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennady_Golovkin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennady_Golovkin)

[6] - [http://www.boxingnews24.com/2015/06/roach-cottos-big-
power-w...](http://www.boxingnews24.com/2015/06/roach-cottos-big-power-will-
win-the-canelo-fight/)

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Commentators in boxing are actually pretty solid and have spoken millions of
words about robberies, about corruption, about bad judging etc. It's an insult
to imply only Teddy Atlas does this. Especially when Teddy is considered
controversially within the sport, as both a guy who's been in boxing for a
long time and respected for it, but also as a guy who is a complete idiot. I
stopped taking his comments seriously quite a while ago.

In the Geale fight I saw the headbutt, too and I agree they should've
mentioned it. I actually rewinded the video the same day to see if it was a
headbutt and it was. But it's not controversial or corrupt because Geale was
getting a total annihilation. Geale didn't even mention it, hell he quit, a
sign that the headbutt wasn't at all a factor but that he simply wasn't able
to do anything in the last 3 rounds and kept eating the left hand.

But yeah the point on viewership being nr 1 priority in boxing is completely
true. Boxing has no league system, no rankings, no single federation. Its
matchmaking politics behind closed doors, and those are based on viewership
because that brings in the money, which often has nothing to do with making
the most competitive matchup. And that indeed means people dodge GGG, a Kazakh
who lives in Germany, fights the US, and who's got a 90% chance of knocking
you out, is not a fight anyone wants to take because it's little money for
lots of risk.

Lara's been talking about moving up to meet GGG though, that'd be interesting.
And Froch in the UK, perhaps in Wembley again, that'd be interesting (and not
easy for GGG either). After one of these fights GGG will probably have a big
enough name to fight some big fights. Canelo's the next goldenboy, he makes
money whoever he fights, and he weighs more than GGG even at SWW, so a GGG
Canelo fight is likely for late 2016 or early 2017. Golovkin's biggest problem
though is that 160 is just a really thin division right now and all the big
opponents and money is below and above him. Even the nr 2 and 3 (ignoring
Cotto) in Quillin and Lee are a joke, and ignoring them as they're dodging GGG
and aren't special boxers anyway, GGG cleaned out the entire 160 division.
There's nothing really left for him there, but without guys like Froch/Ward at
168, moving up isn't a great move either. And moving down to 154 makes little
sense as SWW guys like Canelo weigh 174 for his 154 fight, while Golovkin
weighs just 170 for his 160 fights. It's really hard for him.

About your Don King note, replace him with Al Haymon and you've got your list
of 2 guys running boxing this day and age, Arum and Haymon. It's pretty
insane.

------
anti-shill
And he carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down.

