This question puzzles me.

It's always said, both in the case of Margarito fighting Floyd, Kessler fighting Calzaghe and countless other examples that these fights won't sell because the likes of Margarito and Kessler arn't big enough names to sell a pay per view.

I'm always puzzled by these statements because if you reflect on them it's kind of an absurd viewpoint.

My belief is that all real boxing fans know the names of Margarito and Kessler and would love to see these fighters get involved in the big fights, so presumably this cliche isn't targeting real fightfans.

So who is it aimed at then? I'm guessing it's the general public and the casual fightfans.

Well lets examine.....

First I should say that I'm English so the situation may be different in the US but over here the Calzaghe Lacy fight was huge, even my non boxing fan friends watched the fight.

Now what is interesting is though, that despite Lacy being a supposed big name, NONE of my casual boxing fan friends had ever heard of him before this fight with Calzaghe was announced.

They tuned in because they heard Lacy was supposed to be a badass and were expecting to see a very entertaining fight.

I remember 15 years or so ago watching Nigel Benn take on Gerald McClellen. There was a huge attraction to that fight because the papers and media were reporting that McClellen was a huge puncher and this was going to be a war.

Whats interesting though is that before the fight I, along with all my friends and I guess almost the entire British public had never heard of McClellan! It was hyped as a big fight before hand so people tuned in.

I know that my casual fight fans all tuned to watch Ricky Hatton fight Kosta Tyszu without having any idea who even Kosta Tyszyu was, once again they just heard in the media that he was a great fighter and so wanted to watch the fight.

Now fast forward to today and we have people constantly saying things like Kessler is not a big enough name to fight Joe or Margarito is not a big enough name to fight Floyd and it just makes no sense.

We know that these fighters are well enough known to real boxing fans so once again we must assume that they are talking about the casual fan.

But the casual fan, and the general public at least over here in the UK had never heard of Jeff Lacy, Kosta Tyszu, even Floyd Mayweather.

In fact I could be reasonably confident that less than 10% of my mates have heard of even Oscar De La Hoya, or if they have it's just a name that they couldn't put a face to.

The idea of Lacy being a big name whilst Kessler is not would be lost on them as they wouldnt have heard of either!

My point is this, it's not the fame of a fighter that attracts but rather reports of his ability and especially knockout power.

If Kessler fought Calzaghe in the UK it would be huge, bigger than Lacy Calzaghe as Kessler would be hyped as an ubeaten double world champ like Calzaghe and people would want to watch the fight.

The idea, over here at least, that Peter Manfredo is a bigger name is just laughable. Most people dont know who either fight is and the ones that do vaguely know Manfredo from a reaility tv show would likely see that as off putting if anything.

Anyways I'd like to hear your opinions. It's long been one of the things that really bugs me, tired old cliches that the sport of boxing is filled with