When did boxing lose its mystique for you?

[TBooze]

Do not get me wrong I still have a huge fondness for the sport. But I find myself more and more reflecting on its past rather than looking to its future.

I look at probably best fighter in the world (Lil Floyd) and shake my head and tut at his attitude and public persona.

Boxing has always had its jerks at the top of the sport and a lot were worse than Mayweather but for whatever reason I used to put up with them.

But to answer my own question around 95/96 I stopped going to fights (with the exception of local bouts, I have been to one big(ish) one since (Harrison/WilliamsI)); Tyson came back and people tried to rehash the past and pretend it was 1986 not 1996.

Also King gave up on doing his super shows where there would be three main event quality fights on each bill. And in Britain mainstream boxing disappeared from primetime terrestrial (Network) TV...

I am sure for some boxing still has that mystique, and even without that little bit of magic very few things compare to the hours leading up to a 'super fight', but still for me boxing has not been quite the same sport for the last 12 years or so.

[Duodenum]

Everybody familiar with my posts won't be in the least bit surprised that the abolition of the 15 round limit in professional boxing, and the imposition of mandatory headgear in amateur boxing turned me into a former fan.

[My dinner with Conteh]

Bizarre. I was going to say 'around 95/95'?



I'm not sure, maybe a bit later. Maybe when Shea Neary came to our local pub and passed himself off as a 'world champ'. Hatton too, regarded himself his WBU (or whatever it was) as a world title.

[Dempsey1238]

Ads lol.

But relly they started to lose there mysticque when boxing started to be film in Talkies.

[buddynabuick]

when i got my tooth knocked out

[red cobra]

Originally Posted by Duodenum

Everybody familiar with my posts won't be in the least bit surprised that the abolition of the 15 round limit in professional boxing, and the imposition of mandatory headgear in amateur boxing turned me into a former fan.

That was the symbolic beginning of boxing losing it's lustre to me, the end of the 15 rounders. That bastardized the sport in two ways, first by yielding to public hysteria about ring fatalities of that time in a sort of knee jerk reaction to appease the "abolish boxing" people. The other "reason" for it was to fit a boxing match into the time frame of a network televised showing, and you know how popular boxing is on network televised sports shows (sarc.). Boxing has been jilted at the alter in favor of just about every concievable sporting event, probably even quilting bees. The end of the 15 round element more than anything symbolizes a breach with boxings great and noble past by the garden slugs that rule the different organizations and the sleazy promoters that work with them. A damn sellout!!! Also for me, a factor that has soured me somewhat on the current boxing scene and made me a denizen of boxing's past, has been the infiltration of the despicable rap culture and the resulting thuggery and bad sportsmanship that you see so much of.

[salsanchezfan]

Hard to pinpoint an exact time, but it seems to have faded pretty dramatically for me with the death knell of boxing on free TV. Sure, you could still get good fights on HBO or Showtime, but it wasn't the same.

[Club Fighter]

When hugging became acceptable.

[young griffo]

When Ray Mercer lost to Kimbo Slice.

[ironchamp]

I love boxing but it gradually lost its mystique as the 90s fighters that I knew and loved got old.

Seeing Mike Tyson, Roy Jones, Felix Trinidad, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, etc seeing these guys no longer being the same fighters that they were in their past when I see all the 90s fighters taking a back seat to the dull and uninteresting future I realize that the mysitque is gone. Shane Mosely in his prime would have wiped the entire welterweight division clean. Now he's almost taking a back seat to these guys.

The Heavyweights have nobody in thier current rankings that excite me. That make me want to see all the time. Tyson got me into boxing. Holyfield and Bowe kept me watching. Lewis I reluctantly gave him his due but he was a great. To me boxing's mystique lies in a talent laden Heavyweight Division. The division has to be appealing otherwise the sport will feel empty.

[fists of fury]

Great thread.

I suppose towards the beginning of the millenium for me. I used to be a complete boxing fanatic, collecting all the monthly magazines (KO, World Boxing, Boxing Illustrated and of course The Ring) and watching everything from 4 rounders to championship fights.
Really, I was boxing obsessed.

What started the rot for me was that for some reason all the magazines I used to collect are no longer aqvailable in this country, and the TV channels no longer show as much boxing as they used to. I suppose I could read all the latest news on ESB of course, but I've never been a big fan of reading lengthly articles off a website.

So yeah, my relative lack of interest has to do with not keeping up with the modern scene, but in addition boxing in my eyes is just not as exciting as it used to be in the 70's, 80's and 90's. That's my personal opinion anyway.
I still watch fights (naturally) but I only know the big names today.

[DamonD]

Seeing the end of my old favourites from the 90s, or at least the end of their full capabilities in the case of Holyfield.

I still think I'm a fairly good follower and cheerleader for the HW divison. I like to think I can still get excited about the possible matchups out there, I'm still always buzzed come HW fight night. Even for stuff like the Tua/Rahman doubleheader.

But perhaps naturally, it's not the same devotion I had watching it in my pre-teen and teenage years.

[Dempsey1238]

Other thing when boxing started to lose there mystique was when they were require to wear gloves.
But they went starve raving mad when Dempsey coulnt do this.



Boxing went from this,



To THISSSS in a blink of a eye.




Yeah MORE of that boxing action.



Ali relly ruin the sport. It was never able to recover since than.

[jowcol]

Probably somewhere in the late 80's early 90's.
Many reasons:
1) abolition of the 15 round title fight.
2) multi-multi "champs" in each division.
3) the creation of new "divisions" with maybe 3 or 4 pounds difference
in weight
4) paying an arm and a leg to see the big fights.
5) (I think this shows how truely the sweet science has gone head
first into the toilet) I recently saw the 4 Heavyweight champions and the top 10 contenders in each of their jurisdiction body. Out of these
40 top ten spots there were only about 5 or 6 if memory serves me that had the same fighter listed. So, in effect, we have 34-35 "top 10
contenders"???? Insane...
My $0.02

P.S. I will continue to grow my boxing video library on fights from the 20's thru the mid-eighties and the STILL occasional great scrap that comes along every now and then but that's it for me.

[Dempsey1238]

Only the 1920's?? What about the great era of the 1900's and before?