The WORST rivalries

[El Kabong]

I think to have a good rivalry in the true sense of the word, at least in boxing, you need several things:

Quality
Relevance
Public interest
.... and a little bad blood doesn't hurt, either


All those rivalries mentioned in your first sentence featured most if not all of the above.
When you mention Haye-Bellew, it fails miserably on just about all the ingredients.


But to answer your question, I can't think of any "bad" rivalries right off hand.

When people say "Oh he's just trying to sell the fight" in the build up to any fight I hate it. Haye is one of the worst about it because he'll do all of these outrageous things and then bail on a fight....either you hate the guy enough that you're serious in which case money is less of an issue OR you're a con artist with no backbone....Haye is most certainly a con artist

[TitoFan]

I think to have a good rivalry in the true sense of the word, at least in boxing, you need several things:

Quality
Relevance
Public interest
.... and a little bad blood doesn't hurt, either


All those rivalries mentioned in your first sentence featured most if not all of the above.
When you mention Haye-Bellew, it fails miserably on just about all the ingredients.


But to answer your question, I can't think of any "bad" rivalries right off hand.

When people say "Oh he's just trying to sell the fight" in the build up to any fight I hate it. Haye is one of the worst about it because he'll do all of these outrageous things and then bail on a fight....either you hate the guy enough that you're serious in which case money is less of an issue OR you're a con artist with no backbone....Haye is most certainly a con artist

I agree. And yet some of these guys have an amazingly resilient fan base, to where it seems there's nothing this fighter could do to shake his fan base. Haye has a pretty long "rap sheet", when you think about it. Barging into the HW division and demanding to be put at the front of the line for a challenge to Wladimir...... taking trash-talking to new levels prior to the Wlad fight, promising fireworks only to deliver a wet, spent firecracker..... blaming his piss-poor performance on a hurt toe...... coming up with mysterious eyebrow gashes to get out of fights..... and all the while never shutting his fucking mouth and having an outsized and unrequested opinion about everything. Con artist is I believe a kind description.