I guess Roy Jones Jr was one of the most popular athletes in the US in mid 90s. Now barely anyone knows who he is LMAO. What happend to americans that they stopped to follow boxing?
Was there even anEuropeen or U.K. fighter that was as popular as Roy? I'm talking popular, skilled, pfp best?
Americans are just different from the rest of the world. It's a different culture. Boxing was never a real national sport despite having great boxers. Americans loved the WWE though, which had PPV numbers that sold over a million, in almost every event. Kane was in 170 PPV events. Americans do not have a culture or history, but they have Hollywood which had a huge influence on the people's psyche. Boxing was popular because it was real. The WWE was fake. When great boxers ended their careers and the fall of communism brought in lots of East European fighters in an era that was extremly racist against "Russians", boxing lost it's popularity. Furthermore, many Hispanic fighters appeared and boxing turned into a sport in the US, where hardly an elite fighter was able to talk without a translator. The ghettos became soft (saying ghettos, because the best fighters come from rough environments), people rather went to college to study liberal arts or pursued a NFL career because it pays more. That's when Americans turned back to their weird sports like baseball, basketall and stuff. Then it happened. The UFC gained popularity. It got everything a WASP could ever dream of. The image of being a violent sport due to superficial injuries like cuts that made the sport appear more brutal, White American guys who could compete (because they were not really that good in boxing) and the whole WWE vibe with trash talk, loud music, Las Vegas atmosphere. Boxing in the US will be big again, but only for the Hispanic community, which is growing and producing great, entertaining fighters. Eventually it could mean, that boxing becomes a national sport again.
Surprise surprise Blizzy's first post in the thread is a USA vs Europe post, even though the OP never mentioned anything about comparing him to EU or Asian fighters. Sad really.
Damn, all those American History classes I took were just a sham. Our history may not be as long as some countries but in our history our country has fought wars to probably save the country that you live in.
If your gandparent can tell you about it, that's not history, dude, that's yesterday. It will be though, as I said, because it's important but.... you cant compare that to what we understand as history in europe, 3000 years back from now.