r/Boxing

Possibly controversial, but I am genuinely getting tired of the excuses I keep hearing about why Tank isn't fighting all the best guys in the division. For me, the guys that Tank always gets called to fight are Haney and Shakur at the moment. Below I want to set out the excuses that people use to defend Tank when these fights get called for and why I think those excuses are just stupid.

1. He's the A - Side, he doesn't need them.

This is one of the common arguments that is used to defend him. The problem with this argument is that if you're such an A - Side, you should be the one sending the contract and looking for the fight. You must not be that much of an A -Side if your promoter still gets to decide what your next fight is, because guys like Canelo, AJ or even Fury are real A - Sides, as they can in effect tell their promoter "this is who I'm fighting, make it happen and I want this much". If the other side are sending you contracts to fight, then you aren't the A - Side you want people to believe you are, and this A - Side conversation is a smoke screen.

2. Guys like Devin Haney are too big. Okay so Haney is too big (so you say) but you are willing to move all the way up to 147 for Connor Benn? It would have to be 147 because he has never fought below that weight, yet Haney at 140 is too big. This also comes back to the first point, as Hearn is the promoter that sent Tank (the apparent A - Side) the contract.

3. Shakur isn't a draw and he's boring to watch.

Granted in his last fight he was boring, but as horrible as it sounds, at the end of the day, of people are calling for you to fight this guy, you need to step up and fight him. Many people are acting like there is two sides to this and its not just Tanks fault, but Calvin Ford (Tanks own trainer) has literally gone on interview and said that they don't want to fight Shakur because he won't let Tank do what he does. If that's not as brazen an admission that they don't want to fight Shakur, I genuinely don't know what is.

At the end of the day, I just don't see how anyone can defend Tank. I like his style, but I also like Prograis' style and Teo's style when they're fighting the right kinds of opponents, but they have the same problems Tank will have against guys like Haney and Shakur.

They were raw, noisey, full of emotions and they all played their part in building a narrative. Sam Jones was the MVP for playing the part of the panto villian.

I've felt for a long time that boxing promotion, mostly from Matchroom because I follow them the most, is boring, stale, safe and sterile. Adding a crowd really changes things.

Even if promoters don't feel like they can have a crowd for a fight card presser that isn't big, why not do a big quarterly press conference and bring all the main events / other notable fights together? Do a UK & US one.

I feel Eddie is basically telling us that he doesn't think a fight card is worthy of watching if it doesn't have bells and whistles, like he's telling us there is no point putting extra effort in the promotion because no one will watch.

Also I wish promotions let the audience and the press ask questions because Eddie isn't a journalist and his questions are long and leading.

He obviously doesn't have a great resume of wins, Porter and a few other tough guys but not stars ( which is the resume of alot of welterweight, earn a hard fought close win over Porter and then whatever) a faded Khan after Khan finally took the fight. Anyways, because of that Kell likely won't be remembered as a great welterweight of his time. He won 2,3, or 4 rounds vs Spence depending on who you ask. He won one round and one even round vs Golovkin, really making Golovkin look human before anyone else did. Was doing well vs Crawford until Bing bang boom he got hurt.

Hypothetical time travel matches I think Brook is a problem for any of the ATG welterweights.

I've always wondered how this fight would have turned out. It's a shame it never happened, but how would you see this fight going down? Before running into Holyfield, Tyson went through the fighters before him like a hot knife through butter. Someone surely would have been on the canvas after all was said and done right?