The Decline of Boxing

"certain newspapers"

The big city ones, but would they send reporters out to smaller outlying towns to cover fights of marginal interest? Would the wire services?

If a small town newspaper is threatened with cancelled subscriptions and a boycott of advertisers--which is what happened--how many would simply not cover boxing in order to stay in business?

My bottom line is that prior to the creation of state athletic commissions, the newspapers are the only real record source, and if they didn't cover a fight, it was lost to history.

 

In New York City during the 1910s, there were so many boxing shows taking place that it would be very hard for local newspapers to have coverage for all of them. As a result, I wouldn't be surprised if
many results of New York City bouts of that era are lost to the ages.

To find information about boxing shows which took place in smaller towns, I like to look at the local newspapers. Yes, the quality of coverage varied greatly in such newspapers. Many newspaper archives are far from being complete. But one saving grace is that even small towns often had more than one newspaper at the time.

I never found much evidence that many American newspapers bowed to any pressure, if it existed at all, not to have coverage of boxing during the Progressive Era. Even where a majority of people were in favor of banning the sport, there was almost always a substantial minority which liked or tolerated it.

- Chuck Johnston

 

After looking at the BoxRec list of professional boxing shows which took place in Washington during 1933 and 1934, I find it hard to believe that there were 770 which took place in the state between July 1, 1933 and June 30, 1934. BoxRec lists for the state of Washington contain 236 for 1933 and 141 for 1934. Could it be the the total of 770 includes amateur boxing shows? There were lots of amateur boxing shows staged during the 1930s.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Chuck, I don't know. This is the only info I have. I gave the name of the researcher. My one comment would be that I consider the records of the Washington state athletic commission to be at least potentially a more complete and reliable source than boxrec.

I am not interested in getting this deep into things at my age, but the records of these state athletic commissions are possibly available and you might be able to get information if you phone or e-mail.

 

"I never found much evidence that many American newspapers bowed to any pressure"

It wouldn't be something they would be that likely to admit openly.

I think the one way of checking is to find middle-row fights that it is agreed took place at this date in this city, and see if you can find a covering article. I tried that for a few fights in LA in the early 1890's and could not find articles, but certainly didn't have access to all the LA newspapers, only the ones at the SF library.

It does not have to be intimidation, though. A newspaper might not have covered boxing because the owner or editor agreed with the anti-boxing crowd and didn't want to encourage an "evil" by giving it publicity.

 

During the late 1880s and early 1890s in Los Angeles, fight cards were staged at small, short-lived athletic clubs on a fairly infrequent basis. At the time, the city of Los Angeles was a relatively backwater locale with a population of only about 50,000. Moreover, the amount of newspaper coverage devoted to sports was relatively small except when there were major events during the 1880s and 1890.

A number of fighters' records in old publications can be hard to verify. In fact, it appears that some of the listed bouts on such records didn't take place.

When Uncle Tom McCarey was staging fight cards in the Los Angeles area from 1901 to 1914, the amount of local newspaper coverage of sports was much more than it was during the 1880s and 1890s. But at the time, the Los Angeles area and the rest of Southern California was growing by leaps and bounds during the early part of the 20th Century. Moreover, Los Angeles was becoming a major boxing locale for the first time when McCarey was staging fight cards there.


- Chuck Johnston

 

Chuck Johnston

I agree that the coverage exploded as they moved into the 20th century, and probably especially in the late teens. Gigantic crowds for not only boxing, but college football and baseball in the 1920's really show sports becoming very mainstream.

I think major sporting events were less and less likely to fall through the cracks as you move through the years.

I also got the impression dipping into 1890's papers that much of the sports coverage was aimed at the "upper crust" crowd, yachting and polo and the like. Boxing might not have been big with that class.

 

So do I - and I don't understand, why BoxRec can't make this information available to us. If they can tell us, how many fights they have in their database, year by year, how difficult would it be to give us the number of boxers, who "produce" these fights? Or is that more complicated, than I imagine? Anyway, any request to get these numbers released is met with nothing but silence!

 

The biggest problem with boxing is the best fighters being reluctant to fight each other for many a reason.

 

Even if there are more boxers at the present time than at anytime in the past (which I find hard to believe), the boxers of the past usually were far more active than their current counterparts.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Obviously yeah, but.. that would show that the talent pool of today is really not small as many say.

 

According to that reporter in WaPo there was.

This commentator on Amazon also reports to have heard III:


[url]http://www.amazon.com/Thrilla-Manila-Muhammad-Ali/dp/B00259HB5Q[/url]


quote: "FIGHT OF THE CENTURY
By Nicholas Eason on October 22, 2013
Verified Purchase
I listend to this fight live on the radio while on guard duty at fort sam houston, texas, back in the day!!!
great fight on the radio.

marvelous fight AND story on DVD!!!"



Back in those days we had short wave radio and perhaps this it was on armed forces radio or something like that. As I wrote above, I only recall the first fight, not the next two on radio.



Summary of rounds given live on radio:

[url]http://www.boxing247.com/weblog/news.php?p=10154&more=1[/url]



quote: "On fight night, I was at a party and we gathered around the radio listening to the round by round summary. We were pretty much split on the outcome of the fight but almost all of us were rooting for "Smokin' Joe." From the round by round reports we could sense that this was a bout with shifting momentums. The ever proud Ali realized that Joe had come to fight this evening. Maybe Ali took Frazier too lightly. Maybe Muhammad rushed too soon to get back in the ring after his lengthy layoff. Maybe, just maybe the Joe Frazier of March 8, 1971, was one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. I've never seen a boxer who laid it all out for one fight like Joe did that night. You've heard it said that a boxer would rather die then be defeated. On this night, Joe would have died a hundred deaths before giving in to Ali.

Round after round went by and as we listened to the radio. In the eleventh, Frazier rocked Ali and we as a collective group cheered. Even the ones who had bet on Ali to win. As the bout moved into the "championship" rounds, we were all on the edge of our seats. Then it happened. It was announced on the radio the Joe had decked Ali in the fifteenth round"




So long ago that I cannot recall if we listened to both the summary on the sports radio shows and short wave radio or perhaps just one. But I do know that there was some live radio programming.

 

I read somewhere a while ago that NYS issued far more boxing licenses in the 1930s than today. Clearly there were more boxers and far more fights. And, as you say, the boxers were more active. Because of that there was more name and face recognition than we have today.

Back then we also had many more boxing clubs with dozens in Brooklyn in East New York and in Brownsville. Pugilism was definitely the people's sport back in the day. How I long for those days in boxing again!

 

No radio?

These are excerpts from an 11-8-2011 column by Thomas Boswell

"How huge were the Ali-Frazier fights in 1971, 1974, and 1975? They were too big for home TV."

"Instead, what was called theatre TV showed their '71 'Fight of the Century' in 750 locations and grossed 30 million. The whole country cared passionately, but less than 1 per cent of the population saw it live."

"The vast majority of fans, like me, listened to Ali-Frazier, all three fights, on the radio, and this primitive form of communication, with the action sometimes only recreated by the announcer only added to the drama, the tension, and the importance of the moment."

 

Yes, that was what I referred to. I do recall that Armed Forces Radio carried some matches or reenacted others. We have had had a reenacted show on NYC radio for Ali-Frazier but I'm having trouble remembering for sure.

For some reason I distinctly remember Ali-Liston on radio even though it took place a handful of years before.