The Heavyweight Champion Of The World

The heavyweights are duds these days.

Plus you got to realise heavyweight champ used to be the pinnacle of sport.

TOP MONEY everything..

Sport has grown and now there are people bouncing a basketball or kicking a soccer ball getting 10times what the heavyweight champ gets..

Plus society has gone soft.You got all these do gooders saying boxing is barbaric etc..

Kids are playing ***** sports like baseball,soccer,basketball etc.

Times have changed....

Aint much heart anymore.

 

Money is the problem. I don't want to sound like a communist, but fighters can make millions just fighting easy fights and padding their records without taking a risk. And in todays time, if you lose one fight (especially within the limit), you're done. So no one wants to take that risk anymore.

Due to human nature, corruption is an irreversible process. Unless jesus is ressurected and makes some miracles happen, there will always be 3 or 4 title belts. Unification, which is already highly unlikely as it happened two times in the last 20 years (three times if you count the upcoming Ibragimov (WBO) vs Chagaev (WBA) fight), would solve this. But governing bodies are ridiculously easy to strip fighters for ridiculously bad fighters (Ray Austin for instance).

Having to pay 50 dollars to be able to watch a stinker like 46 year old Holyfield vs 40 year old Lou Savarese doesn't help things either.
If you have a fighter who is just like Ali in both ability and character, but who will only fight Evangelista's and at best a Quarry to win his title, and who never gets any attention on tv or other media, then no one will ever watch his fights or get to know him. Names and charater sells. The WWF promotors knows this all too well. I'm not saying that boxing should become a freak show like that, but you have to be realistic; with all the PPV's, no one is going to recognise any boxer and when that happens, the sport is as good as dead.



Another factor is that society has changed. Over the last decades, more and more people think boxing is too brutal. Maybe because in the old days, people had less luxery and therefore were used to life being more rough. But life isn't going to get any less luxerous so this tendency is not likely to change. Seeing how ****ed up former boxing icons like Ali and Tyson are currently doesn't give the sport a better name either.



Maybe more important, in the current society, people don't seem to be willing to really take time for something anymore. Fewer than ever young people still read the papers. Everything has to be fast. Who wants to go in town and buy a CD and view the artwork/lyrics when you can just download the mp3 and move on? Who wants to do old fashioned running ? Everyone wants the hyped up Billy Blanks fitness stuff and related programs that "will make you lose 15 pounds in 2 weeks by doing one half an hour of work a day". Look good without spending time on it.

Trying to sell the idea of two men boxing for twelve (not fifteen) rounds is very hard to sell when you can also watch two men fighting for 3 rounds where they can also use their legs. K1, UFC etc may not last long in popularity, but at this moment they are much better to sell because the fights are much shorter. It simply fits better in society. The reason that we went from 15 rounds to 12 is all the same.


In Germany, boxing is pretty popular at this moment. You can see fights on national German television for free although that's only a few saturday nights a month. Perhaps the future lies in eastern Europe.

 

Great post and bang on the money chris....In the eighties and nineties boxing was very big and even the common man knew tyson,leonard,hagler,benn,bruno and eubank. The fights were free on tv,the fights were exciting,The best tried to fight the best,and the boxers were characters......
PBF v de la hoya or b-hopkins v wright!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! P4P greats???????!!!!!!! BORING BORING AND EXPENSIVE........Id prefer an exciting free undercard between real fighters risking greatness....
Is it any wonder why no people in the street will know pbf? Enzo v braitwaite was better than the **** that goes on supposedly world class ppv.....Some boxers have forgotten they are there to entertain as well. as win...It can be done,just ask tommy hearns how its done....

 

Slightly off topic, but where actually is the original championship belt? Like the one Joe Louis had? because nowadays its all WBO this and IBF that.

 

And WTF that.......:rasta
The undisputed WTF belt.......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

That's the problem. There isn't a champion. There's just titlists.

 

The Heavyweight Champion is supposed to be the baddest man on the planet, he's supposed to be able to lick any sonofabitch in the house. We dont see that these days. HW's these days no longer impress the casual fans. There is no larger than life stars in the Heavyweight Division. The lower divisions are great but they will never carry the sport. So its up to the HW's to do so. Unfortunately the excitement is gone. When was the last time you saw a HW Chamption score a 1st Round KO? IF you count the WBO belt then it was 2 years ago Brewster Golota. Otherwise it was 10 years ago Lennox Lewis vs. Golota.

-Corruption doesnt help, belts getting splintered

-Better prospects in team sports. The average boxer makes far less than the average Basketball, Football (American and otherwise), Baseball, Etc.

-Fighters get written off and bad press when they lose a fight. So and so got exposed....

 

Too many title belts.
Too many boring fighters.
No Unified champion
PPV's
HW MMA champion is now the baddest man on the planet... (had to sneak that in there)

 

The original belts are the WBC and the WBA.
A group splintered off from the unified belt and created their own belt called the WBA belt, they were unhappy because they didn't want Ali to give Liston a rematch and wanted Ali to face the mandatory.
The old organization then called itself the WBC.
The IBF was then created in the early eighties.
The WBO was then created in the late eighties.

 

AND .......... 10 YEARS LATER!

Have things improved in the 10 years since this thread was first started in 2007 or is the state of the Heavyweight division still regarded as been in the doldrums and seen as in a state of derision and indifference by boxing fans and sports fans in general?

Btw. How tough and mean were the posters back then? Take the last guy who posted in this thread in 2007. Coming up to 6000 posts and not one 'like' received from his fellow disgruntled posters!!

 

There are rays of hope today!

 

When I was at school I used to spend all day talking about Tyson and whether or not he could beat Lewis or Holyfield in a rematch.

I was really young then about 9 or 10.

Most kids today know who Joshua is. But before Joshua came along whenever I brought up boxing I'm the class the kids just stared blankly.

I think globally speaking boxing is nowhere near as popular as it used to be.

I hope it returns to those days but for that to happen we need clarity. Everyone should know who the champion is in every division.

Moorer said it best, how can there be 4 world champions when there's only 1 world.

 

I think mma played apart in hw boxing not being as popular. The HW champion just isnt seen as the baddest man on the planet anymore. Especially among young fans.

 

I've never been so disinterested in who the heavyweight champion is as I am today. Deontay Whatshisname doesn't do a damned thing for me, neither does Anthony Joshua for that matter. If it weren't for GGG, and my hoping that he beats Canelo, I wouldn't have any interest in the modern boxing scene at all, for that matter.
I guess that's why I'm here in "ClassicWorld" instead.