20 Years on; the slow, painful, bitter death of boxing

20 years ago today (17th March), boxing was as strong as possibly ever has been, coming of arguably the decade of the century, two huge events brought us into the 90s (Douglas/Tyson and one of the most exciting endings ever to a bout Chavez/TaylorI).

All was right with the boxing world, so what the hell happened?

Sure we have had one or two exciting moments since, but boxing has pretty much been on a down slope since, to the point that it is a minority sport, that in Britain at least struggles to keep up with Darts let alone Football, Rugby or Cricket!

 

I don't think it was too bad in the 90's either, I'd say it really started to drop off in the late 90's.

A combination of bad promotion, MMA, fighters getting greedy with money, not fighting enough, big fights not been made.....the list is endless really.

 

I for one did not consider these to be great moments in boxing.. You had a journeyman/fringe contender who upset one of the greatest young talents in the history of the sport, and not because he was a better fighter, but rather because that champion's heart and mind had fled the game.. Not long after, his conqueror ballooned to 247 lbs and lost the same prestigious title in only 3 rounds... The other event you mentioned, involved an extremely talented fighter who fought his ass off for 12 rounds at great expense to his health, only to lose via controversial stoppage with 2 seconds on the clock....... The 90's for the most part, were a great time for boxing, but 1990 was one year out of the decade that actually sucked.

I agree that things have gone drastically down hill since those days, but the two examples you provided were not reasons to celebrate, even back then...

 

In the US at least, boxing has been on downward spiral since the late 40s. TV killed off the boxing clubs and pulled out the roots of the sport. The suburbanized population switched to watching other sports like pro football and basketball.

During some periods the decline is masked by a big star: Ali, Leonard and Tyson being the big examples. But the "health" of the sport during these period is somewhat phoney when the stars leave interest drops.

I think small boxing clubs could find a market in the US (call them Fight Clubs). If this happens the sport could be rebuilt from the ground up.

 

Soccer is garbage. Cricket is like a ******ed version of baseball. Boxing is on a decline, especially in America. But how the hell is Darts more popular than boxing in your country? I hope I'm missing something and the confusion stems from the name.

Man, the Brits wouldn't know a good sport if it hit them in the face.

 

Tokyo version of Douglas beats any version of Tyson.

 

I would probably agree that darts gets more coverage, especially on tv.

Crazy, I know.

 

Boxing is a bonanza in Germany and the Philippines!

 

It's mind-boggling. It's almost as comparable as Poker or Pool being more popular than the NBA or something.

 

It's funny, you can have a half decent conversation with someone about Darts and they'd know who you were on about.

If you started on about boxing they wouldn't have a clue who you were talking about and just refer back to Benn, Eubank, Hamed etc.

Out of all my friends I think there's about two that take some interest, the rest don't even give it a second glance.

 

Boxing has lost popularity in the USA. But I understand boxing is massive in Germany.

I dont think 1990 was any high point though. There were many people complaining that it was dying a painful death back then too, and harking back to the 70s, or the 50s, or Ali, Robinson or the days of Jack Dempsey.

1990 we had a lot of crappy televised mismatches, and splintered titles in most of the 17 divisions !
In those respects it wasn't much different from now.
But we did have Benn and Eubank fighting each other to a sell-out crowd and televised on regular TV over here in the UK.

 

They fight again on May 22. :happy

 

Well, they are ancient for little 'uns.
I think it might be a good scrap.