By Terence Dooley

The rematch between Liverpool’s Tony Bellew, 22-2-1 (14), and Welshman Nathan Cleverly, 28-1 (14), is almost upon us, but the fight itself has been overlooked to an extent due to the ongoing debate about whether or not the contest deserves its PPV status here in the U.K.

First things first, it takes place at Liverpool's Echo Arena on Saturday night and is a rematch of their October 2010 WBO light-heavyweight title fight.  Cleverly won that one by majority division, but both have lost since then—Bellew to Adonis Stevenson for the WBC belt (TKO 6), Cleverly lost his title to Sergey Kovalev in four one-sided rounds—and they decided to move up to the 200lb division in the aftermath of those defeats.

That's the fight, then.  Interestingly, the pre-fight furore has helped us add a few more words to boxing’s ever-increasing online lexicon.  Words and phrases such as: “British but not Euro-class”, “Euro only-class”, “Only ever won a British title class” etc. have been bandied about for a while, damning hard-working, and achieving, fighters with faint praise as only a select few become "Genuine top-class-level class".  Now we can now enter new levels of fandom into the hierarchical mix.

You may have seen mention of the terms “hard-core” and “casual” during the Twitter and forum debates; one side is buying the PPV and will be watching the fight on Sky Sports Box Office, the others won’t touch it, opting instead for a stream.

Confusingly, many of the fans who consider themselves hard-core aren’t actually attending the fight, don’t see the need for it, or would prefer not to pay, and have focussed almost solely on the issues surrounding the bout while those cast as casual fans are  either attending on the night or will put their money up for the PPV.  Perhaps earning their disparaging label courtesy of  their relaxed approach to either getting a ticket or shelling out for, in effect, a single competitive fight underpinned by a slew of bouts heavily weighted towards the home fighters.

Another casual angle of attack is the sheer excitement shown by some for the fight itself, with many Tweeting Eddie Hearn, the show’s promoter, to tell him he has pulled a blinder by making a fifty-fifty domestic non-title fight and stacking the bill with fighters from his own stable.  Much to the disapprobation of the hard-core, who, like the casuals, focus a lot of their attention on the promoter, but without showing the same level of interest in the fight.  Turning the pre-fight build-up into an extended threnody for those magic, bygone days when we used to get fights for free by paying extortionate Sky Sports subscription fees.

By all accounts, and judging by the conversations people have had about the hard-core/casual divide, hard-core fans are using the fight as a means—grabbing attention from Hearn, making a point about Matchroom/Frank Warren or yet another opportunity to bemoan modern boxing—rather than an end in itself.  The casuals see it as an end, they just want to attend on the night or watch on TV.

So who is in the right?  While it is certainly true that this fight isn’t PPV-worthy as a stand-alone contest, it has to be placed into context.  Hearn sold Carl Froch versus George Groves well, too well in fact—fans latched on to the domestic grudge aspect of it and lapped up the crass and humourless build-up to both bouts.

Decent PPV figures, two bouts and the cherry on the cake of 80,000 packed into Wembley to see a rematch between the world’s second best (and by a considerable distance) Super middleweight against a former British and Commonwealth titlist suggests two things: many British sporting fans don’t know who the best fighters in the world are in the respective divisions—some boxing fans struggle with this themselves—but if you tell them that two British fighters are at the top, or near to it, of their divisions and really don’t like each other the sales will rack up.

Once this was clear, fights such as Bellew and Cleverly could be wrapped in a bow and sold as PPV events.  That’s event, not the fight, as their rivalry will pick up general sports fans who only take an interest in boxing when it’s got an ugly edge and who combine a fight with a night on the town or, for the people buying at home, a night in with friends.

These fights are similar to football derbies, they’re not always the best versus the best, but there’s an element of fan interest that attracts support outside the fan base of the clubs, or fighters, in question. For many of the people who bought tickets, the fight is enticing because they recognise the names, there’s been verbals and although there’s no wider world context (it’s an eliminator for an eliminator), few people in boxing care about the cruiserweight division, or its champions, so the average ticket buyer doesn’t mind that there isn’t a bauble on the line.

The fundamental question surrounding this fight was: “Will it sell?”  Ticket sales would indicate that it will sell, and to an audience beyond those of us who spend too much time reading all the sites, from this one down to www.squirrelboxing.net and everything in-between.  Once that question had been settled, the PPV status was set in motion and a gazillion angry Tweets won’t change that fact.

“As I said, it is every fighter’s ambition to be a pay-per-view fighter, but the policy is not to just get pay-per-view back in,” said Hearn when speaking to me about the return of PPV in 2013.  “If the fights are big enough then you can bring it in, if it is not then just continue to build, build, build.  David’s on Sky to make that happen, but not in the first fight — for me the only pay-per-view fights out there for him are either Fury or Klitschko.”

The key word is “Big”, and we, the so-called hard-cores, don’t set that particular measurement, it is decided by the number crunchers and accountants.

Once the torch paper was lit, the conversations, debates and tirades began and one thing became clear, for all the disdain that comes with the word “casual fan” they’re the people who are actually focussing on the fight, and in some cases solely on the fight, whereas the hard-core fans do what they often do, arguing about the details that are set in stone, i.e. the PPV and the price.

The hardcore have form when it comes to this type of thing, too many of them spend fight nights airing their Team Hearn or Team Warren opinions while fights are raging away in the background.  The irony of bestowing hard-core status on themselves whilst arguing over issues outside the ropes while boxers fight, and pick up damage, in the background seemingly lost on them.

Neither side has the right angle on this one; the casual fans, in the main, don’t know what they’re looking at, and the hard-core don’t, either, but can cover this up by looking at anything but the boxing.  It used to be the case that never the twain would meet.  Hard-core fans would go to a show, or watch it on TV, and take in the entire bill.  Casuals would turn up for the main event with a woman on their arm then leave as soon as the action was over, rather than taking in the four-threes floater.  The hard-core fans would grumble as the ringside area emptied, but the two sides wouldn’t get to mingle.

These days, though, social media has amplified the divide whilst simultaneously bringing both sides together, if only virtually.  Especially when it comes to this fight.  Those who will absorb it into their sporting weekend are happy to pay what they believe to be an acceptable ticket or PPV price for a fight between two men who “Really don’t like each other” whereas the fans who slavishly follow the sport see it as a PPV step too far.  It’s a little late, though, as it’s well over a decade since we let the monster through the door by shelling out for Frank Bruno’s world title rematch with Mike Tyson in 1996.

Once the door was ajar, a few other abominations managed to slip through: David Haye versus Audley Harrison (minus an undercard) and James DeGale versus George Groves—a massively inflated British title fight that was built on the fact that, again: “These two really don’t get along”.

Indeed, a Sky insider told me that the DeGale-Groves fight was the straw that broke PPV’s back, trying to sell a Lonsdale belt tussle between two relative novices had turned Sky off, and that’s despite the fact Frank Warren had assembled a card that was very solid before falling apart.  There was an exception, Sky were never going to allow David Haye versus Wladmir Klitschko to air for free, but, in the main, that night in May 2011 briefly ended PPV.

In reality, the network were just freshening us up, knowing that, as boxing junkies, their subscribers would cough up when a PPV-worthy fight popped up.  Enter Froch versus Groves, the all-U.K. angle and this latest, in my view natural, development.

As an extra kicker, the undercard features DeGale and Groves, the latter was allegedly brought in to shore up a bill that lacks real competitiveness and accomplished star power.  There were rumours that Audley Harrison was going to step in, despite the fact that Audley’s only significant recent KO punch came in November 2010, the night he and Haye helped send PPV to the canvas for a quick count.  We may get a hat-trick of PPV-killers on the bill come Saturday, that dollop of irony's well worth an extra £16.

Therefore, and all things considered, Bellew-Cleverly is a perfect abomination, it could have been created in a lab specifically to generate endless debate, and therefore publicity, amongst those who consider themselves hard-core while appealing to the fans who dip in and out of the sport, and who don’t know or care who Guillermo Rigondeaux is, let alone that he’s the real champion in the division of a fighter who is defending a version of the championship on the very same bill.

As the movie line said: “If you build it, they will come”.  if you build up a domestic rivalry then package and sell it people will not only come, they’ll pay £16.95 to watch it on telly.  Is there an end to PPV and what many consider to be rampant madness?  Yes, and to paraphrase Jim Carrey: “Stop buying PPVs, arsehole,” but that message only filters through to the hard-core fans who watch PPVs illegally, and therefore don’t have a voice, and will be ignored completely by the people who look at the price of a PPV and think: ‘That’s not bad for a Saturday night’s entertainment’, especially if they are watching with friends, as opposed to online and alongside virtual keyboard pals.

The long and short of it is that PPV arrived, it was accepted, evolved and has now reached us in this final, imperfect state.  Is this fight worth the money we are being charged for it?  No.  Will it sell enough units to justify the PPV?  I say “Yes”.  Therefore it’s a PPV-worthy fight.

One question remains, would you prefer to watch it with a hard-core fan or a casual.  I’ll take the casual, to be honest, as they’ll talk about the fight itself (albeit badly and with very little insight), rather than the politicking that surrounds fights, or should we now call them “events”?  That’s another one to add to the dictionary.  And this is an event.

Coda:

If you want a genuinely casual boxing viewpoint, then check out September 11th’s edition of The Guardian.  There is a review of the latest attempt to flog Muhammad Ali via the film: I Am Ali, and one line stands out: ‘Today, dominated by pay-per-view, as corrupt as ever but lacking the stars to redeem it or at least distract from its ugliest sides, the sport (of boxing) may seem debased, even squalid.’

No argument, no attempt at proofs—the very definition of a casual view, and sadly the most widespread one.  I say come one, come all and bring your attention, money and vocal viewpoints with you.  The sport needs more, not less.

Please send news and views to @Terryboxing.