Do Boxers Really Have the Obligation To Entertain the Fans? In a Word, No

The thought of fighters being entertaining for the fans has been mulling around my noggin for awhile now. This past weekend really got the gears in my head going after watching Joshua Clottey cover up and hide for 12 rounds against Manny Pacquiao.

While this made for a very boring fight it was the right move by Clottey. John Mabasa covered that very well in his article Boring or Not, Joshua Clottey Fought the Right Fight Against Manny Pacquiao (which I suggest you check out).

This brings me back to my main point, do boxers have to entertain us? There are boxers who have to fight entertaining fights because that’s all they can do. Guys like Arturo Gatti, Juan Urango, and Ricky Hatton usually have to make entertaining fights to have a shot to win.

Then you have guys like Yuri Foreman, Ivan Calderon, and Paulie Malignaggi who have no choice but to use their technical boxing skills to get the victory. Then you have the guys who seem to frustrate fans the most, the guys who can fight but choose not to.

These include guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Joshua Clottey, and Wladimir Klitschko. Then there is the rarest of them all, the guys who could sit back but fight fan friendly anyway.

Off the top of my head I can only think of a few of these fighters. This very short list includes Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez (in these later years), and Juan Manuel Lopez.

Those are the four categories that I put each fighter into. You can excuse the lack of punchers because well they can’t punch, they have no other choice. So that brings me to the guys who can fight and choose not to for whatever reason.

Most of the time these fighters just have the physical advantage over their opponents and figure why put myself into trouble when I dominate them with my advantages. Truth be told (I may get ripped for this) but I have no problem with that.

Why should a guy put his face in danger of being collapsed in with a punch when he doesn’t need to? We as fan forget that boxing is a business and this is the fighters job.

When I go to work, or when you go to work do you do things the easiest way possible or do you go out of your way to make the task at hand hard?

Of course you can make the argument that millions of people don’t show up to ours jobs and watch us for entertainment. With that being said though, I still believe that boxers do not need to be entertaining every fight.

The two best fighters in the world right now are Mayweather Jr. and Pacquiao. For the most part you love one and hate the other, most of the Mayweather detractors point to his lack of an exciting style. For the record I like both fighters and enjoy watching both.

Pacquiao comes out and says I fight for the fans. Mayweather comes out and says I fight for the money. So we know Mayweather isn’t interested in making fights exciting or making fans happy. You may think why would you defend someone who has that thought process.

I understand why you would think that way. I defend it because he is making a living and he is doing it with ease. Why should he wade in and take punches when he can use his speed, defense, and reflexes to win?

No doubt there needs to be entertaining fighters for boxing to survive but every fighter doesn’t need to be exciting. Someone like Klitschko gets slammed over and over because his style isn’t very exciting. It is warranted by for the most part he has such physical advantages over his opponents, why take chances?

He gets slammed because he is a heavyweight and since these men are so big they are “required” to fight with reckless abandon and knock everyone out. Well that would be nice but some fighters just don’t want to do that.

Also factor in that taking extreme punishment causes health issues later and maybe not taking punishment is the smart thing to do. These guys have family and life after boxing to think about.

I have no problem with a guy who can beat his opponent while taking minimal damage because it may preserve his health so he can enjoy life after boxing.

Also if you are truly a boxing purist watching a skilled technician is a joy beyond words. To watch a James Toney do his thing or a Bernard Hopkins is, to me, an immense joy.

Many people may disagree with this stance, and I see why and I respect that. If you have the physical advantages and would rather be safe in a victory then reckless in a loss then I have no problem with you, or your style.

So that’s what I think, how about you?