Warren Triple World Title Show

Andy Lee vs Billy Joe Saunders has moved to Manchester after Andy Lee's "virus".... Although he looked fine at the press conference.

Terry Flanghan makes first defence against Diego Magdelano which should be a decent fight.
Liam Smith fights for vacant WBO LMW belt against a French guy I've never heard of Michel Soro.

It's a WBO extravaganza with Jack Catterall's bauble too.


All in all a decent enough card except it will no doubt look very different once we find out there are unsigned contracts, "viruses" etc....

My main issue is the ticket pricing.
Every time Warren puts on a bigger show he takes absolute liberties with the tickets.

Manchester Arena is 20-odd thousand.
The top tier isn't great to watch from and the front section of the top tier is £80 and the cheapest seats on the bottom also £80. Front section of bottom tier are over £200.

Was considering going but that is outrageous money.

Can't see them selling it out at those prices.

By way of comparison ....

The Manchester Arena site lists this show as prices from £30-£500
The Quigg and Crolla show from a few weeks back is listed as £40-£150

I'd argue the Quigg-Crolla bill was superior too.

All these World titles for British chumps...............It's like Xmas when charity organisers hand out turkeys....

"Smith v French guy for a world title !!!!!" Can it get anymore depressing...

Just give all Brit fighters a belt..and have done with it.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:All these World titles for British chumps...............It's like Xmas when charity organisers hand out turkeys....

"Smith v French guy for a world title !!!!!" Can it get anymore depressing...

Just give all Brit fighters a belt..and have done with it.

Agree with Truss, they really are on the bandwagon with this more than any other nation.

shenglong2015 wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:All these World titles for British chumps...............It's like Xmas when charity organisers hand out turkeys....

"Smith v French guy for a world title !!!!!" Can it get anymore depressing...

Just give all Brit fighters a belt..and have done with it.

Agree with Truss, they really are on the bandwagon with this more than any other nation.

Pathetic wums.

Coxy001 wrote:

shenglong2015 wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:All these World titles for British chumps...............It's like Xmas when charity organisers hand out turkeys....

"Smith v French guy for a world title !!!!!" Can it get anymore depressing...

Just give all Brit fighters a belt..and have done with it.

Agree with Truss, they really are on the bandwagon with this more than any other nation.

Pathetic wums.

yep.....

From what I've seen Soro is pretty useful, beat Glen tapia by KO4 and moved up to MW and did a better job against Blandamura than BJS did to win the euro title. If he doesn't start favourite then I might put a little bet in him.

Four world title fights and it doesn't interest me at all apart from BJS v Lee........

I imagine twenty years ago If you had two Brits fighting for world honors let alone four in four fights you'd probably get 50,000 at a soccer venue...

Just shows even Joe soap knows that the tag world champ is meaningless bollox these days..

and it's sad..

Killing the sport, thats why everyone is jumping to MMA, cus the ordinary public doesnt know (or care about) the differences on all the weight classes and the differences in all the Alphabet Spaghetti Titles bandied about.

The whole thing needs revolutionised.

Doesn't help when the champions end up with a bunch of soft defences too. That's what gives some of these so called 'no hopers/undeserving bunch' the chance to fight for the title and why promoters will line them up.

Derbymanc wrote:Doesn't help when the champions end up with a bunch of soft defences too. That's what gives some of these so called 'no hopers/undeserving bunch' the chance to fight for the title and why promoters will line them up.

The alphabets are to blame..............WBO and Warren go back a long way.....

His milkman is 9 on one of the lists..

Definitely Truss, can't fault the boxers for taking advantage of it, just hope that some common sense starts to come through soon (Especially the randomness of fighting for vacant belts by people nowhere near the top)

Soro is no chump, that will be a good scrap.

shenglong2015 wrote:Killing the sport, thats why everyone is jumping to MMA, cus the ordinary public doesnt know (or care about) the differences on all the weight classes and the differences in all the Alphabet Spaghetti Titles bandied about.

The whole thing needs revolutionised.

This is a common misconception, UFC gets confused with being MMA, it's no different to the WBO, then there's Strikeforce, Bellator, M-1, Bamma and a host of other organisations. Boxing also does far better numbers than MMA, the latter is in a huge slump at the moment with no real poster boy for the sport following a raft of retirements of it's established names, so much so they've had to resort to championing Rousey.

Where is Strongy when you need him........??

Poor card that Frank is trying to sell on the basis on '50:50 fights', clearly having picked up on negative sentiment towards Hearns' walkover shows.

But given how shambolic his promotions are recently, his pricing is an indefensible joke.

Hope nobody bothers.

He's trying to sell it on 4 world title fights.....

Think people are getting wise to world titles..

3 WBO world title fights, 2 commonwealth titles, WBO intergalactic something or other...

Ticket prices was my main gripe.

Absolute joke.
Looked earlier and the same seats I paid £60 for at Haye-Ruiz are £215 including fees.

They weren't even particularly decent seats.
In the corner-ish, lower tier.

Just been watching some fights of Soros and he's certainly no slouch.

rob-glos wrote:3 WBO world title fights, 2 commonwealth titles, WBO intergalactic something or other...

Ticket prices was my main gripe.

Absolute joke.
Looked earlier and the same seats I paid £60 for at Haye-Ruiz are £215 including fees.

They weren't even particularly decent seats.
In the corner-ish, lower tier.

Okay selling fighters in world titles..

But they've been stuck on Boxnation and haven't had real exposure to get name recognition...

Soro's best wins are Tapia and Blandamura, maybe not world beaters but when you consider that Smith's best win is Ochieng then surely Soro is favourite and this definitely isn't a walkover?

Pound-for-Pound wrote:Soro's best wins are Tapia and Blandamura, maybe not world beaters but when you consider that Smith's best win is Ochieng then surely Soro is favourite and this definitely isn't a walkover?

Absolutely, interesting to see boxrec has him rated at middleweight as well :|

Liam is just another bang average Smith.

Unless it's Callum fighting, I couldn't care less.

Warren will talk it up, but we're all wise to it, only one fight worth watching Lee and BJS.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Four world title fights and it doesn't interest me at all apart from BJS v Lee........

I imagine twenty years ago If you had two Brits fighting for world honors let alone four in four fights you'd probably get 50,000 at a soccer venue...

Just shows even Joe soap knows that the tag world champ is meaningless bollox these days..

and it's sad..

Spot on Truss

Looks like a good card

Hopefully nobody pulls out after the tickets have been sold. Always a danger when Warren has a decent card

If you think it's a good show and worth the money good luck to you..

Pays your money...You takes your choice.

I'm not going to go over the top but this is a decent card and more than watchable. Warren doesn't seem to be measured with the same stick as Hearn and get credit when he does put a decent card together.

Pricing is poor though so he deserves stick for that.

The headline fight is good but apart from that I just don't particularly care for Flanagan and think Smith is going to get flattened.

Don't see how anyone can regard this as a good card. Good headline and the rest is competitive fights between pretty average boxers.

And Warren is getting measured by the same stick - look at the OP. The whole point is Warren is trying to charge 2 or 3 times as much as Hearn for a no better card.

Give me two quality fights instead of four world title fights that mean diddly..

I'd be interested....

To be honest If I could watch Fielding - Smith for the British or three of these world title fights on the BJS undercard.

I'd pay to watch Fielding..

World titles mean bollox these days....and when any old British chump has one they mean even less..

Even worse when any old yank chump has it Truss (Wilder )

Think it's an okay card but the price is far too high. Would want to pay that for some proper world class fights.

World titles mean bollox these days....and when any old British chump has one they mean even less..

Must mean so much more when a useless tosspot of a yank aka Mr Wilder (to echo Derby), has one of the main four belts as well.

Worst HW champion bar Ruiz I'd say. Have Valuev ahead of him.

Coxy001 wrote:

World titles mean bollox these days....and when any old British chump has one they mean even less..

Must mean so much more when a useless tosspot of a yank

Class act ...

Inevitably...

Soro hadn't signed the contract.
http://www.worldboxingnews.net/2015/08/25/news/complications-push-soro-out-thompson-faces-smith-on-october-10

WBO crap again and again with Warren....

World British organisation...

Be fair truss its not just Warren who has the WBO in is pocket, Arum is just as bad with them

I found out today that I'll be filming with BJS and Lee for the promo/commercial for this fight on Thursday lunchtime. I assume there must be a press conference happening beforehand.

I get the complaints regarding the WBO etc, which I pretty much agree with, but at the end of the day BJS v Lee, on paper, should be a good fight.

I do find the disparity in prices as far as fights go hard to swallow. I paid £120 (only seats I could get) for Hatton v Tszyu and didn't have particually great seats, I paid around £2,000 for ODH v Mayweather and had pretty much the same view. I took my dad to watch Calzaghe v Lacy which was around £800 a ticket, and pretty good seats (about 15 rows back I seem to remember), took my Mrs to Cardiff to watch him v Kessler paid about the same amount but had even better seats. In fact they were so good we can see ourselves on the DVD.

I don't understand the pricing policy or how the promoters come up with the ticket prices. What we all know is these guys go in the ring and put their well being on the line, it could be last chance saloon for any fighter that gets in the ring. For every person that isn't happy to pay for the fight, there will always be one that is.

It's the same thing with Arsenal charging a fortune for away tickets, people can boycott the away games but someone always steps into to buy the tickets and replace them.

It doesn't work like that with boxing, if the pricing is too high then people won't pay to watch it, it is nowhere near as tribal as football where the supply for a team like Arsenal doesn't meet the demand.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:It doesn't work like that with boxing, if the pricing is too high then people won't pay to watch it, it is nowhere near as tribal as football where the supply for a team like Arsenal doesn't meet the demand.

Yes I get that, but we'll have to wait and see what the end result is as far as tickets sold are concerned. Lee v BJS is a big fight, fans will pay to watch it.

Serious question, at the prices being mentioned by the OP would you pay to watch? Forget about hotel costs etc, would you if it were down the road? Let's say it's on at Loftus Road.

No I wouldn't pay, being a Warren promotion the undercard is likely to get worse and worse as the fight gets closer and it will over run, if the fans were that enamoured with the fight we'd have heard about it selling out by now.

And it would not have been moved from ireland

Hammersmith harrier wrote:No I wouldn't pay, being a Warren promotion the undercard is likely to get worse and worse as the fight gets closer and it will over run, if the fans were that enamoured with the fight we'd have heard about it selling out by now.

I read on here more then I post and I pretty much respect your opinion on most articles I read, as in I usually agree along the lines of what you have to say. But again a serious question, what was the last fight that was in the realms of this fight that you paid to go and see and was it worth the money you paid? I only ask as I've been to some fights that have been worth every penny and some that haven't. I watched Audley v Sprott at Ali Pali, simply because there were tickets available and I live around the corner. I went for no other reason than my love for boxing and I had a free evening (and to see Audley head back to the drawing) but it was a great night. Admittedly I didn't spend much on the tickets but I've spent far more in the past and had a pretty poor experience/night of entertainment.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you never know what you're getting for your hard earned £'s until the night is over. You could spend a small fortune watching something like Mayweather v Manny whereas you could easily end up getting a great night in BJS v Lee and walk away telling yourself it was worth every penny.

I agree that promoters milk their gravy trains, always have, always will. But until the stadiums are empty it will continue, hence my Arsenal reference.

Saw Warren being interviewed by Kugan last night, he said they've sold around half the tickets which is in the region of 10,000.

Given the perceived (by Warren) size of this show I'm not sure that's particularly good.

Froch Groves 1 sold out that arena in about 2 hours.
I know Froch is a much bigger name than any fighter on this bill but....

The tickets for that were less than this as well.

rob-glos wrote:Saw Warren being interviewed by Kugan last night, he said they've sold around half the tickets which is in the region of 10,000.

Given the perceived (by Warren) size of this show I'm not sure that's particularly good.

Froch Groves 1 sold out that arena in about 2 hours.
I know Froch is a much bigger name than any fighter on this bill but....

The tickets for that were less than this as well.

I saw that, he claimedalso they had already sold 12,000 tickets for his aborted ireland show, i find both claims hard to believe

Used to get 15,000 in Caesars palace....

12,000 with a few weeks to sell more....Sounds like baloney..

Ratboy

I paid £150 from memory for Froch-Groves II at Wembley. Cracking fight and great overall show. Worth every penny.

This card is more akin to an Ally Pally show (I also live round the corner) and I'd pay £25 for it if I had a spare evening, or maybe £50 if I was feeling flush and the seats were good (section behind floor seats, for example).

Ergo I think this event is a joke and the seat prices a rip off.

The problem with this show is the price of the mid range tickets.

Ringside seats and cheap seats generally go quick for most shows.
The slower moving ones are the middle tier.

The middle tier seats for this are all over priced by at least £50.
When you're looking at a boxing show and poor seats are going to be at least £100 then you're not going to bother. Half decent seats are north of £200.

I might be proved wrong but I doubt it.

These fighters are being criminally under exposed on boxnation and you can't sell fights just because the name World title is involved anymore........

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:These fighters are being criminally under exposed on boxnation and you can't sell fights just because the name World title is involved anymore........

I agree truss, how many tickets do you reckon it will sell in total. Warren says half are gone(highly doubt it) so how many will sell do you think?