great topic! cc

To be honest I don't think poll is much use coz everyone who's going to take it is one the internet, thereby having access to google and wikipedia, but it kinda does show that Floyd Mayweather has a certain degree of name recognition amongst the general public. He's been a marquee name boxer with a glittering undefeated career for the last 5-6 years at least, he has to have generated some interest outside the hardcore fans.

Floyd's well heard-of, but he's not got the sort of massive appeal that De La Hoya, Tyson, Roy Jones, Holyfield or the other big names of the 90's had. Some people take that the fact that the no.1 consensus P4P guy is not as big as those names were as an indicator of boxing's demise, paniced articles appear everwhere saying that boxing is in its death throes and UFC is replacing it and serious deep questions are asked about what is wrong with boxing.

But you only have to look around to see that there are fighters out there with big followings. A lot of the support and fanbase a fighter gets is due to his TV coverage, hype, opponent selection, charisma and 101 other things not related to how good he is. There are fighters nothing like as good as him who get huge crowds. I remember Joe Mesi selling out 30,000 and 40,000 seats fighting absolute nobodies, but he had a lot of charm and was well marketed. Hell they even did Butterbean - Larry Holmes on P4P not very long ago, and Roberto Duran - William Joppy before that, those fights sold and it wasn't down to the skills that were on display. George Foreman got great viewing figures in his 40's, not because he was skillful like Floyd Mayweather but because you were seeing something inspirational every time he knocked people out.

Over here in England Ricky Hatton used to beat up journeymen in manchester when he was in his early 20's in front of huge crowds for fights like Stephen Smith and Joe Hutchinson! But Ricky has a huge following, and is a lovely down to earth bloke. The working class boy done good story sells so well in Manchester, they absolutely love him. Same goes for Calzaghe in South Wales, and dont forget 8 MILLION people tuned in to see Audley Harrison and Danny Williams 1, which is quite possibly the most dull fight I've ever seen. Amir Khan got loads of exposure and is becoming a big hit in this country especially with kids. Over here Boxing seems to be doing quite well, and thats in spite of a moribund domestic heavyweight scene due to politics, Frank Warren's shady involvement and Audley Harrison being an epic waste of time. Infact the British scene could've been really good at one point a few years back but it never panned out right. But in spite of this the lower weight classes have prospered.

I think thats the same all over. The post-Lennox mess that is the Heavyweight division has left boxing without a big name star, but attention has shifted to the lower weight divisions which are doing quite good. Its quite a recent thing that a non-heavyweight fight like Mayweather - De La Hoya would be the biggest fight of the year, but it looks like its going to be. So people shouldn't panic so much about the state of boxing.