Quote Originally Posted by SecondRoundKO
Quote Originally Posted by chrisbird13
Personally I would say that it is indicative of much deeper seated problem in the sport. Because having an undefeated record is desireable, people now seem to avoid risking it in big fighs, and therefore avoid the big fights. With the plethora of titles available, 9 at my last count, many fighters get one belt and then fight mandatories and bums to up their defences.

Examples of this are PBF and Hatton, they as far as I am aware are the only two really highly rated welters with 0's and they are rated 1 and 2 by box rec, yet the idea of a fight is nothing but a pipe dream because neither will risk their zero.

Hence it is almost the fans fault for being sucked in by the word undefeated, which means that there are fighter building up long records of fighting bums in order to make themselves have more appeal.
PBF and padded record don't go together if that is what you're insinuating. Judah, Gatti, Castillo (2), Mitchell, Chavez, Corrales and Augustus are all far from bums.

Some of you people seem to think that fringe contenders are bums. No. Bums are 2-17 fighters who box at local fairs and ballrooms as fillers. Fighting them is fine...when you're starting out. Sean O'Grady fought these guys his whole career. Marciano fought the best. Euros tend to take a little while longer to get big fights but that doesn't mean Hatton has only fought bums. Phillips, Tackie, Magee, Oliveira, Tszyu, Massua and Collazo aren't bums.
I think what he was getting at here was that the fight between PBF and Hatton, which I agree is very unlikely to come around anytime soon, though they do have enough star quality to attract relativel big-buck fights withough squaring off against each other, with the risk of being shown as not the best in the division.