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JIM ROSS DISCUSSES STARS IN BOXING; EXPLAINS WHY MAYWEATHER AND PACQUIAO WILL BE HARD ACTS TO FOLLOW

By Percy Crawford | September 23, 2016
JIM ROSS DISCUSSES STARS IN BOXING; EXPLAINS WHY MAYWEATHER AND PACQUIAO WILL BE HARD ACTS TO FOLLOW

"Much like the WWE, at some point, boxing and MMA, they have to replace stars that have moved on. Boxing is in a situation now where they have to replace Floyd Mayweather, and although Manny Pacquiao is out of retirement and fighting again for the time being, you would think that he didn't have much longer in the sport as well," stated world-renowned commentator and WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross, who shared his thoughts on the current state of boxing. Check out what else he had to say!

JIM ROSS ON THE CURRENT STATE OF BOXING:

Those two guys are going to be a hard act to follow. It's the Hagler-Hearns thing. It's a chemistry that happens once in a lifetime, Ali-Frazier and all of these trilogies, and one of these rivalries that existed, and I don't know if it was necessarily planned; I think it was organic and I think it just happened, which made it that much better. Whether you liked the fight or not, those guys had a chemistry that made everyone want to see them fight and that's what it's all about at the end of the day. Pacquiao coming back is like Ric Flair in his mid-sixties coming back for one more match. We know that he was great and that he entertained us "in his day," but do you really want to see him in the ring doing what he did now than when he was younger? That's an individual answer for that matter.

It's hard to build stars. You gotta find the right guy, you gotta be lucky, you gotta look at a lot of fighters, and you gotta give a lot of people a chance because you never know who is going to catch on. Obviously you gotta find a fighter that can win. Winning is the first criteria. I don't think it has anything to do with race, hair color, or this guy is bald; people like charisma and they like winners. And then the other side of the coin that boxing has not done a great job of is letting us know who the hell these guys are. There have been exceptions, some things that HBO has done and Showtime and Fox has done. The feature that they did on CM Punk was really good because it let people who didn't know who he was, or didn't want to admit that they watched wrestling, they learned more about him.

So those have been good, but boxing in general over the years has not done a great job of highlighting and underscoring these talents. All you know about him is he is a southpaw or he's not, he has knockout power or he doesn't, or whatever. Rarely do you know who they are and why you should make that emotional investment in a fighter because you don't know enough about him. That's kind of what I saw the deficiency in boxing was. They didn't have the product knowledge to take it the whole way in letting me know who these guys are so that I can make a decision whether I want to cheer them or boo them, but the bottom line, if you're smart in marketing, whether they cheer or boo, they won't miss it. They are still going to watch it.

BE SURE TO CHECK BACK FOR MUCH MORE WITH WWE HALL OF FAMER JIM ROSS



[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]

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