Quote Originally Posted by greynotsoold View Post
Yes, a guy that has been fighting a long time against good opposition and is still undefeated has special merit. But it kind of gets tired when every single up and coming prospect is 24-0, so if he doesn't have at least 18-20 kos he is considered some how limited. Or if he has 3 or 4 or 5 early losses, that's it, despite the number of great fighters that weren't so good early on. (Monzon, Benny Leonard, Armstrong). It encourages young fighters to seek easy blow-out wins rather than quality outings that build better fighters.
Unfortunately it's necessary though and the fault of fans as much as anything. If a fighter loses coming up there is less interest in him and his career is affected. It is absolutely essential for any up and coming fighter with real prospects that they dont' have too many mistakes early on because as soon as they do the tv networks can't do anything with them.

Look at some of the top prospects in recent years whose losses have left them by the wayside. Joel Julio is just a gatekeeper now, a few years ago he was being tipped by Jim Lampley as a future star. Whetever happened to Ricardo Torres or Chazz Witherspoon?

As soon as you start losing you are effectively done in terms of having a succesful career of your own. At best you can continue to fight as a trialist for other prospects.

That is driven by the commercial aspect of the sport, which ultimately is all about giving the fans what they want. Fans forget fighters with disgusting ease, just witness the threads on any given weekend.

Any promotional outfit and management team worth anything will try and keep their best fighters unbeaten long enough for them to get mainstream exposure because if they slip up along the way the chances are high they will never get there, as we the fans won't want to see them.