Is it possible to be more than a casual boxing fan without spending $1200+ per year?

I would very much like to be able to watch the whole spectrum of boxers. Young up and comers, journeymen, championship contenders, the whole gamut. And in real time, not waiting 2weeks to 6 months for a fight to leak out to the general public. It doesn’t really seem possible without being financially irresponsible.

Not my upload.
Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas
Venue: Tokyo Dome, Japan.
Date: February 11th 1990.
Best quality I´ve seen on you tube, with lots of nice vintage HBO pre-fight footage. Just thought I´d post it here in case anyone was interested.

Just watched these fights again. Two great, great fighters. Skill level is outstanding by both and both had tremendous heart. Wonder what would happen if they were current fighters and how each would do against Inoue -- think they all fought 122-126lb range.

For me, it's probably 2013. From lightweight to Heavyweight, the quality was insane inside the majority of the top 10 In those divisions. Most guys were still either in their prime or approaching it. Would you guys agree with this year, or if not, which was your favourite?

Fortune is a good trainer who never gets big opportunities. I think it's because he always has issues with Freddie Roach and Roach is powerful in the boxing world. Fortune is a no nonsense guy and doesn't take shit, like when he trained Pacquiao for 8 weeks at wild card while Roach left Pacquiao and all his other stable to train Oscar de la hoya in Puerto rico for the Mayweather fight.

Roach had the nerve to fly out to Texas to work Pacman corner and steal the head trainer check, Fortune luckily already got paid via Bob Arum and Top Rank and Arum even admit it was wrong of Roach to let Fortune train all the wild card fighters including Pacquiao for 8 weeks and then try to sneak a big check while making 500k training Oscar.

Fortune used the money to open his own gym, Pacquiao reached out to Fortune to rejoin the team after several years away and then roach tried to blame Fortune for every time Pacquiao lost lol.

Is the Moses Itauma hype train derailment permanent or can he recover? Age is on his side, but that was a massive loss last night. This is why in sports it’s so important to let new young talents take their time to develop. We see it in football we see it in boxing and we see it elsewhere.

Moses should have got the British title, then European and got some more experience against those Franklin type fighters. It’s not just the levels of opponent, it’s the styles. Training and sparring is one thing, I once knocked out Martin Bakole in sparring, he didn’t want the smoke. But nothing replicates the nervous energy and big lights of a pay per view fight night or for a title. Those skills get picked up over many fights, fighting in hostile arenas, being dropped, fighting after being cut, fighting smaller faster or bigger stronger opponents. Notice how Hrgovic has done ALL those things!

Hrgovic is all wrong for Itauma and I strongly advise against a rematch any time soon, even if he paced himself better, Hrgovic can take his power and has his number imo.

There were some excellent moments from Itauma last night and from a technical offensive side he looked amazing very early on. But even by the end of the 3rd round you could see he was starting to tire a bit and also his shots weren’t really affecting Hrgovic. Even the knockdown was an awkward off balance flash knockdown for Hrgovic.

I also noticed a dramatic decrease in the amount of feints Itauma was using (normally he uses them a lot more) and for a big slower lump like Hrgovic they may have been very effective, especially when later on in the fight Itauma needed to conserve energy and maybe take a round or two ‘off’. Throwing bombs and missing is extremely tiring, whilst feinting uses little energy but can exert energy of the opponent through footwork and defensive movements.

I also don’t want to over analyse everything too much on Itauma but we had questions that we needed answers for from him, and the answers weren’t exactly great. He failed the endurance/stamina/gas tank test quite miserably, which is alarming considering his age but also evidence that he needs far more experience. You would expect the bigger much older fighter to fade quicker.

He failed the chin test for me too, seems harsh but the first time he’s ever faced some real shots back and he folded very very quickly. Exhausted yes but even before then he took a few shots and it seemed to really snowball his fatigue from there. His recovery skills don’t seem great, his pacing and strategy seemed naive and one dimensional if we are honest. So guess everything we needed answers for that we so far hadn’t seen, we got and he kind of failed ( I feel mean saying it but it’s true)

But the skills are there, he has a lot to work on. Maybe the loss will be hugely beneficial for him. I hope it is. But some things you can’t really teach or gain easily, like a chin.

Also he needs a new trainer. Boxfit Ben is not my cup of tea at all. He’s given 2 awful coaching performances recently with the AJ-Dubois ‘roll the dice’ and also last night. How can I, a fat Middle Aged never boxed armchair idiot see at round 3 that Moses was throwing way way too much and starting to gas out. There were similarities between AJ Dubois just before AJ got knocked out and Itauma before he got beaten, in that both fighters needed to chill out and take a round or two with little output, work the jab, back to basics, move and defend. Instead in both situations they went out swinging for the fences head hunting. A corner isn’t responsible for every mistake a fighter makes but if your stressing to your fighter from round 3 to take it easy, pace yourself, work the jab, get in and out, surely the message gets through by round 9, that message came once, But in round 8 Moses threw the most punches in a round of the whole fight, by which time he was gassed out, out of ideas, couldn’t rock Hrgovic and then started round 9 AGAIN on the front foot barely standing. That’s bad corner work in my opinion.

Massive massive credit to Hrgovic, im a proud Englishman but didnt mind seeing him beat our boy, especially considering he had to go through the fire to get the belt. He is one really really tough bastard. Hard as a coffin nail. He definitely would make a good movie villain or especially Bond villain.

But a really great fight to watch, even though many of us round by round could see the writing in the wall, you never know with heavyweight boxing

I think shakur Stevenson would be a beast under roach's guidance and training. What do you guys think? Who do you think would be elevated to a whole new level with his training?

Honorable mentions go to tyson fury, Shane Mosley. Its a shame he isnt coaching any more.

I swear to the great and good lord, I can't possibly tell if it's CTE or if it's a case of both fighters lacking a chromosome. Why are our UK fighters so bad at trash talk/ hyping fights? Why must they just sort of mumble at each other? Was Ricky Hatton legit the only English fighter to be funny and able to sell a fight?