“There’s boxing and then there’s heavyweight boxing” (boxing adage)
“There’s boxing and then there’s heavyweight boxing” is a boxing adage meaning that boxing purists will watch boxing at any level, but that the general public is only interested in the heavyweights. The saying has been cited in print since at least 1993 (when it was said by Rock Newman, heavyweight Riddick Bowe’s manager) and has been attributed to many boxing promoters.
Google Books
The New Yorker
Volume 64
1988
Pg. ?:
This confirmed a boxing adage: the sport rises or falls depending on the relative strength of its heavyweight division.
New York (NY) Times
BOXING; Bowe vs. Holyfield: But First, Patience
By MICHAEL MARTINEZ
Published: March 08, 1993
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“He would be better off going on Dec. 25,” Newman said of King. “Remember, there’s boxing and then there’s heavyweight boxing. Chavez-Whitaker is a great fight, but it’s not a monster pay-per-view.”
14 December 1993, USA Today, “Casino hopes to hit jackpot in fight game” by Jon Saraceno, pg. 1C:
And “when it comes to bringing in the biggest customers of all, there’s boxing, then there’s heavyweight boxing,” says Rich Rose, president of Caesars World.
5 June 1998, Indiana (PA) Gazette, “TV Sports” by Josh Dubow (AP Sports Writer), pg. 19, col. 4:
“There’s boxing and there’s heavyweight boxing. Don’t ever confuse the two,” said Seth Abraham, the president and CEO of Time Warner Sports, the parent company of HBO. “People who have no interest in Jones or Hamed or De La Hoya will come to watch a big heavyweight fight.”
Boxing Monthly (July 1999)
PAY - FOR - WHAT?
The clash between flawed heavyweights Shannon Briggs and Frans Botha is not without intrigue and it might even be exciting. But what has boxing come to if this fight is a PPV attraction? STEVE FARHOOD investigates and previews the potential thriller between outstanding Marco Antonio Barrera and power puncher Angel Vazquez
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On Bash Boulevard, there’s heavyweight boxing and everything else. It’s always been that way, and don’t waste time waiting for change. Heavyweights are given multiple chances, with layoffs, losses, and lack of skills and conditioning conveniently overlooked.
Google Books
A Year at the Fights
By Thomas Hauser
Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press
2003
Pg. 191:
Famed matchmaker Teddy Brenner once opined, “There’s boxing, and there’s heavyweight boxing.” The corollary to that is, “There’s heavyweight boxing, and then there’s the heavyweight championship of the world.”
15rounds.com
This Byrd Happy to Fly Lower
by Bernard Fernandez on 24 July 2006
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“Rock Newman (Riddick Bowe’s manager), had a great line,” Hornewer said. “He told Seth Abraham (then the president of HBO Sports), `There’s boxing, and there’s heavyweight boxing.’ People want the heavyweight champion to be the guy who can boast, `I can whip any man in the world.’ They want somebody who knocks everybody out. Chris never fit that mold.”
MarcoBarrera.com
BabyFacedAssasin
OUR SPORT IS ALIVE!!!!
on: December 26, 2007 - 10:11AM
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As one former television executive would regularly say, boxing was really two businesses.
“There’s boxing and then there’s heavyweight boxing,’’ he remarked in the heyday of Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman, Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis but those days are behind us even if the 43-year-old Holyfield is not.
15rounds.com
Juanito Garcia suffers another tough night
by Bart Barry on 12 September 2008
(...)
The old adage — there’s boxing and then there’s heavyweight boxing — proved true yet again in Friday’s final undercard bout.
Boxing.com
Never Spectacular: Klitschko Wins Again
By Adam Berlin on July 2, 2011
There’s boxing and then there’s heavyweight boxing. That’s the famous boxing adage and, like it or not, most adages hold, to use another adage, more than a grain of truth. Boxing is for the purists. Heavyweight boxing is for the masses. Ideally, heavyweight boxing is for the purists too, but the difference between the heftiest division and all others is that, historically, the popularity of boxing has risen and fallen with the big boys.