What's the future for this sport that we have so much nostalgia for?

If you consider watching Penn vs Silva more interesting than Pac or Mayweather, then maybe you're not a true boxing fan? And that's not meant as an insult or anything, but i really don't see two steroid pumped men hugging each other for 5 minute rounds as a substitute for boxing, especially not when future all time great and master boxers like Pac, Mayweather, etc, are active.

As for Jones vs Lacy not happening in MMA, how do you know? MMA doesn't have even have someone who has been a star for 15 years like Jones, but is now past it. I'll guarantee you that Fedor will do exactly these sort of matches 5-10 years from now. In fact, most of even the major names have only had a handful of MMA bouts.


In America, MMA is taking over boxing in popularity, for several reasons. Here's my take on it:

-MMA fits today's popular thought of "it's like real fighting, yo".

-Wrestling (the fake, kid stuff) is at an all time low and almost all those went to the other redneck contact sport: MMA. Huge influx of fans, which makes an even larger exposure possible.

-MMA is marketed very well, in that there's one champion per division, although there are multiple organisations, which is why Fedor isn't fighting the best.

-Everything has to be fast in today's society. You don't write a letter and post it, you just send an email, text message or msn. You don't read an article, you watch a YouTube film about it. Fitting in here: you don't take 12 rounds to watch a boxing match, but you want quick, 3 round fights.

-Boxing was USA-dominated for the past century or more, but in less than 10 years time, the flagship, heavyweight division is almost completely devoid of American talent, as are many other divisions. In fact, out of the 12 major weight divisions, only 3 of them have American champions. You can deny it all you want, but as soon as your own countrymen no longer succeed as much at it, interest in it degrades.

-The PPV's are obviously a cancer to the sport, but MMA has those as well.


Outside of the USA, however, it's the other way around. In Germany it's huge. Wlad just sold out a 60.000 seat arena. We don't have PPV's here, in fact, just the thought of it sounds ridiculous to me. I think England does have them however. Cuba is unleashing a lot of talent. In Asia it's rising, with Pacquaio's immense popularity.

 

The boxing and non-boxing media in America were saying things quite similiar to what you are here just before you became a fan, Dave. In the mid 70's the boxing landscape in America was rather poor, with, save for Ali (on his last legs), almost all of the divisional champions coming from other countries around the world...Central & South America, Asia, and a few from England. An often repeated opinion in the Amercian press was that the sport of boxing wouldn't survive past the Ali era, and the United States Championship tournament, which was designed to help "save" the sport, certainly didn't help matters when it was found out to be so corrupt. Viewers also had an alternative combat sport to follow when PKA & WKA kickboxing gained tremendously in popularity during those years, and much of that had to do with Bruce Lee's popularity I would guess. That sport was on television quite a bit back in the day and was viewed as a rival to boxing (some promoters even put on boxing vs kickboxing cards...Termite Watkins, Mike Quarry, and a few other name boxers competed in them).

You just missed that time, but maybe you remember how much trouble the sport was thought to be in around the years from 1983 to 1985 or thereabouts? How it had to hold off attacks from powerful lobby groups like the Amercian Medical Association and the World Medical Assembly, as well as some influencial media means like "America's paper" USA Today. All groups pushed for the abolishment of the sport (helped by former boxing people like Howard Cosell for an example), and when we saw a significant decrease in the amount of network television dates (more than 70 in 1980 to apx 30 five years later), the time slots those dates recieved, as well as the poor ratings it was doing in comparision to what it earlier did, there were a ton of media types who wrote about how boxing's death was finally imminent.

They were also writing about the same thing in the early to mid 1990's when boxing was taken off the networks for good, and showed only on cable (ESPN, USA), as well as the limited availability of pay-per-view. There just weren't as many viewers then as there was even in those 83 to 86 years, and some very poor live attendance figures were a concern to many too. Boxing was being written about then as a "dying sport" then, as well, with promoters like Arum, the Duvas, etc., all expressing thinking along those lines.

Just a few examples from more recent times, but the writers back in the 1960's, 1950's, 1940's, 1930's etc., etc., have always found one reason or even plenty of reasons behind their proclammations that the sport of boxing was "dying" before their eyes. Yet it has outlived any of those writing about it's demise from back then, as it will any of those writing about it's demise nowadays.

 

i agree with McGrain right now is actually a good period in boxing. John Garfield whos lived through afew eras has said he thinks in 20 years time people will be talking about Pacquiao and Marquez very highly.

The new tournament at SMW is quite an interesting thing. It provides SMW with 1 champion and if HBO are thinking of doing a tournament aswell then if the 2 winners met it would be huge. Anyway this tournament is getting people excited. My Dad whos not really a boxing fan more a casual fan is very interested in this tournaments and has read articles on it and is looking forward to it.

As McGrain says lack of newspaper coverage hurts boxing as less people are aware of it and less domesticly televised fights on ITV or BBC hurts aswell.

Right now i would say were in a good era of boxing, actually its pretty darn good. But its a good era for the hard core boxing fans and not the casual fans due to lack of coverage etc....

Boxing will pick up were just waiting for that star.

 

I think we are already well beyond that point. When I was attending highschool from 1988-1992, boxing was almost an entirely undiscussed affair even then. But, occasionally there would be some buzzing about Tyson, Holyfield, Leonard or Foreman's comeback. By the time I got into college, I rarely encountered anyone who was interested in the game.

 

There is buzz around the bigger events at least here anyway

Mayweather vs Hatton was huge, everyone was talking about it

 

People have Rose Tinted Glasses, I really don't believe allot of you on here are real boxing fans.

We have had so many exciting fights and great fighters have graced us over the last 10 years. In the next year we have Pacquaio stepping up into his 10th division to face Cotto and Mayweather, this is as big if not bigger than what Henry Armstrong did.

Mayweather and Pacquaio fighting for the title of best of our era.

We have all the best SMWs squaring off, which is very interesting.

Haye and Wlad/Vitali unifying in an exciting bit of HW action

Paul Williams is fighting Pavlik, the world's 2 best MWs and Paul making a bit of history if he pulls it off

Hopkins is proving to be perhaps the best old fighter of all time and is going for another division against Adamek

We have a host of exciting potential fighters with the likes of Bradley, Alexander, Khan, Petterson all at 140, Juan Ma and Gamboa look likely to be elites squaring off at FW


Now take your rose tinted glasses off for a moment and remember:

Sugar Ray Robinson didnt face Charles Burley or the Black Murderers Row.

Dempsey never faced the best blk men like Harry Wills

MMA is just a low skill level sport that maybe exciting but it just isn't boxing

 

A Brit that says 'Jeez', please kill yourself immediately

 

The more I think about it, the more I'm coming to the realization that boxing is probably more popular in places like the UK, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Latin countries. Boxing is basically dead in America. We had our surgeance from about the 1970's-1990's. We like our football, baseball, basketball, Golf and MMA. Good luck at trying to ask anyone who the current heavyweight champion of the world is.....No one cares.

 

boxing aint big in Britain infact its almost ignored. probably similar to what US is like but the US you get afew fights a week and a big one once a month we have maybe 4 fights a month period.

in Europe Heavyweight boxing is huge. Asia has alot of lower weight fighters so its big over there in the lower weights