Why does the lighter divisions never get any credit

[jmbtandy]

Why does a bad heavyweight earn more than a world class Flyweight?

I myself admit I tend not to watch the lighter weights (Below Bantam) much but the few I have seen have been almost epic battles with the two little guys standing toe to toe for 12 rounds and throwing a thousand + punches

The last fight I saw down there involved 20 year old Roman Gonzalez, who is 18-0 (16KO's) he knocked his opponent down 7 times and cruised to a points win, but 99% of us has never heard of him. A Heavyweight who is 18-0 (16KO's) will have already been snapped up by a top promoter and be raking it in and everyone will know his name, why is that?

[Pavlik]

Actually now with the emergence of great small fighters and lack of good heavyweights the lighter weightclasses are getting it's respect. The big reason that heavyweights are much popular is because of the drama a heavyweight fight brings I mean with their sheer size and brute strength a single punch knockout comes more frequently, and that my friend is DRAMATIC.

[Deanrw]

In a very strange way, I think a lot of it is due to them being actually smaller than the average fan. The average fan sees a guy who is 5'4" tall and 112 lbs and they think, that is not awe inspiring. It does not make then awestruck. They actually think stuff like: "I can go in there and fling them around in the ring"

As you get bigger in size, the fan gets more taken back by their size and envisions them beating anyone. I think it is more of a psychological size comparison to themselves more than anything.

Back when I grew up, I never saw many of the smaller guys below featherweight as they were just not televised. Now with the internet and the heavyweight division in rough shape, the smaller guys are more appreciated than before here in North America as they always seemed popular more other places.

[Dark Lord Al]

Yes its about marketability , for example Ricardo Lopez who might be the most complete fighter in history , was on a Tyson undercard earning less money than Christy Martin. This is a disgrace , and as the real boxing fans know some of the lighter fights are much more fun to watch.
Personaly i loved to watch Khaosai Galaxy back in the late 80's early 90's.

[Violent Demise]

There's a lot of idiots out there. I find it funny when people claim to be boxing fans but don't follow certain division (the small ones paticular). How the fukk you going to claim to be a boxing fan and not know who the fukk Yutata Niida and Donnie Nietes are?

[Deanrw]

There's a lot of idiots out there. I find it funny when people claim to be boxing fans but don't follow certain division (the small ones paticular). How the fukk you going to claim to be a boxing fan and not know who the fukk Yutata Niida and Donnie Nietes are?

I'll be honest with you. I never even heard of Nietes before and never seen either of them fight.

[Violent Demise]

There's a lot of idiots out there. I find it funny when people claim to be boxing fans but don't follow certain division (the small ones paticular). How the fukk you going to claim to be a boxing fan and not know who the fukk Yutata Niida and Donnie Nietes are?

I'll be honest with you. I never even heard of Nietes before and never seen either of them fight.

Niida is the best Strawweight out there. As well as the WBA champion. He's top 3 in the list of the best Strawweight's ever. Nietes is the WBO Strawweight title holder. Decent fighter. Niida I really like.

[Deanrw]

There's a lot of idiots out there. I find it funny when people claim to be boxing fans but don't follow certain division (the small ones paticular). How the fukk you going to claim to be a boxing fan and not know who the fukk Yutata Niida and Donnie Nietes are?

I'll be honest with you. I never even heard of Nietes before and never seen either of them fight.

Niida is the best Strawweight out there. As well as the WBA champion. He's top 3 in the list of the best Strawweight's ever. Nietes is the WBO Strawweight title holder. Decent fighter. Niida I really like.

It is just really hard to get exposed to the really small guys over here. No networks carry them. I have heard about Niida before though.

[:::PSL:::]

There's a lot of idiots out there. I find it funny when people claim to be boxing fans but don't follow certain division (the small ones paticular). How the fukk you going to claim to be a boxing fan and not know who the fukk Yutata Niida and Donnie Nietes are?

I'll be honest with you. I never even heard of Nietes before and never seen either of them fight.

Niida is the best Strawweight out there. As well as the WBA champion. He's top 3 in the list of the best Strawweight's ever. Nietes is the WBO Strawweight title holder. Decent fighter. Niida I really like.

Latest word on Nietes...

BREAKING NEWS: NIETES TO DEFEND WBO CROWN IN MEXICO!
By Salven L. Lagumbay, PhilBoxing.com, 19 May 2008
World Boxing Organization (WBO) minimumweight kingpin Donnie Nietes will defend his crown for the first time on July 5 against Mexican Erik Ramirez at the Estadio Huracán in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico. This was announced today by Nietes' manager Michael Aldeguer during the formal announcement of th Read Full Story >>> BREAKING NEWS: NIETES TO DEFEND WBO CROWN IN MEXICO!

[HattonTheHammer]

There's a lot of idiots out there. I find it funny when people claim to be boxing fans but don't follow certain division (the small ones paticular). How the fukk you going to claim to be a boxing fan and not know who the fukk Yutata Niida and Donnie Nietes are?

Never heard of either

strawweight!! isnt that like 100 pounds

who the hell weighs a 100 pounds apart from anorexic teenage girls and midgets anyway??

deanrw - has it summed perfectly. The whole reason the heavyweight division has always been recognised as the premiere division within the sport is because it contains the biggest guys, throwing the hardest punches in the toughest of battles.

I personally grew up having no affiliating with anything below lightweight until your barreras/morales/hameds/pacquiaos came along and completely blew away all your evident stereotypes of little men who probably wouldnt be able to take a good solid punch.

Think in the UK and US in particular these type of divisions are regularly overlooked because we dont often get too many hometown fighters in them.

Its no myth that the further down the divisions you go the more evident you find south american and asian fighters plying their trades. Why that is? i have no idea whatsoever.

[Dizaster]

It's just human nature to want to see the "bigger/better" things..

Going back hundreds of years with the gladiators, they would pick the big warrior type men and they were championed by the people... Back in boxings early days, it would have been one thing to see men like yourself fighting in the ring against another guy... What a sport... But seeing 2 really big genetically gifted guys going at it would have been a real treat... It's definetely more marketable, and just our nature in general is to want to observe things that are bigger and better than us..

Think of like a pub fight where 2 little skinny dweebs started grabbing at each other and maybe throwing a punch.. It would sort of be classed as entertaining (not that i'm at all a fan of pub fights)... But if the 2 biggest dudes in the ENTIRE pub start grabbing at each other and were about to fight, it would definetely create a different atmosphere in there..
We are still animals by nature, so with a fight between bigger heavier humans, we would perceive there to be more at stake than if 2 little skinny guys are fighting.... TSo bigger people fighting is more interesting and has more value to us...

I guess that's a part of it... I'm sure there are more reasons..

Another might be that 99% of their names are impossible to pronounce.. Heavier guys have easier names I find..

[TommyGunn_]

Boxing is boxing, the lil guys entertain just as much as the bigger guys.

[CutMeMick]

Whoever doesn't follow the little guys, is lacking MAJOR shit...
The little guys is where the skills are at.



VD, that's a pretty bold statement there on Niida.
Top 3 all time.

I don't the quality of his opposition merits that but his continous success does. You gotta consider fighters like Rosendo Alvarez, Nene Sanchez and Chana Porpaion who all fought during argueably the best era of the division.

[aburwell89]

There's a lot of idiots out there. I find it funny when people claim to be boxing fans but don't follow certain division (the small ones paticular). How the fukk you going to claim to be a boxing fan and not know who the fukk Yutata Niida and Donnie Nietes are?

I think that's taking it a bit far, really. Different people have different tastes and tend to direct their focus on what they like most. For instance, one of my good friends is just as much of a college football fan as I am, but given the fact that we root for different teams from different conferences, there's a lot that he doesn't know about my team/conference and vice versa.

[p4pking]

There's a lot of idiots out there. I find it funny when people claim to be boxing fans but don't follow certain division (the small ones paticular). How the fukk you going to claim to be a boxing fan and not know who the fukk Yutata Niida and Donnie Nietes are?

Guilty.... I've never followed strawweight, don't think it says anything about me not being a boxing fan though. It's just about what's available. I live in Canada, so seeing any decent live fights is tough enough.. I have to try and download or watch on youtube basically most signifigant fights. If there were ever a good strawweight fight on the undercard you can bet I'd watch... But I'm not going to go out of my way to find strawweight matches online that receive such little press in the first place. I've seen quite a lot of Ivan Calderon now, simply because he has garnered attention in the ring, people talk about him. I just can't sit down and look at strawweight titleholders and think, hmmm, think I'm going to look up some of his fights. If I had all day to sit on the computer sure, but as it is I don't have enough time to see all the classic fights I'd like to, much less current.