History of professional boxing if Soviet countries could fight pro?

Nobody cares in America becUse they havnt had a champion in to years and they believe the heavyweight division to be dead because of that, take out all foreign boxers and leave just then Americans like it was in the past and they would suddenly be all fighting for world titles and people would be interested

 

Wlad is a great fighter, theres no disputing that and he is on top of the table.

But theres nothing stopping the likes of Fury, Wilder, Pulev, Povetkin, Stiverne and a whole ton of others mixing it up with each other.

If any of these guys really wanted it, they could make the fights happen, but instead, each is content to feasting on bums.

Although my own personal opinion is Stiverne and Fury stand out a bit from the rest. But Furys star has seriouslly dimmed due to the whole Ustinov situation.

 

It's just common sense, Gaelic football and hurling are Irish games and if were obviously the best in the world at them, if more counties started playing it and produced good hurlers then obviously there would be more competition than there was before and thus would make it harder to succeed

 

Well I think all of them have there reasons for not stepping up, fury has got shafted a few times and has been unlucky recently , wilder is a protected hype job waiting to cash out, pulev is stepping up, povetkin did already and I think he has a good fight lined up and stiverne is mixed up with don king so all I can say is poor him

Thing is the next wave of heavyweights look very exciting Joshua ,the two furys, Parker ,usyk and medzhidov in the amateurs . I'm probebly leaving out some good ones too

 

Asia has been strong in the lower weights for decades. Thailand/Korea and Japan have had trop fighters in the lower weights for quite some time.

Australia/Oceania have always been...meh....they have the odd good fighter, the really rare elite fighter, but in general weak.

Probably the best thing to see is the Cubans getting off that poor Godforsaken island and making great careers

 

Ya but now china are coming three and murata, Japan have never produced in the higher weights

Oceania are coming threw in a big way, Parker,hooper,Hammond,opetaia and David nyika was the best boxer at the commonwealth games and still only 18 and many others

If they keep up like this there goijg to be a force in the higher weights

 

This era was claimed as boring previously, is now entering a similar phase to what the early 70s and early 90s was.

You had Ali going into exile, which gave guys like Frazier, Foreman, Norton, Holmes etc an opportunity to come up.

In the 90's Tyson went to prison, and it allowed guys like Bowe, Lewis, Holyfield, Moorer, Mercer, Morrison etc to make their names

Now, with Vitali retired and Wlad on his way out, you've got the Fureys, Povetkin, Stiverne, Wilder, Joshua and other guys to stake their claim.

Wlad has done what most dominant champs did in the past, he dominated his division, difference was he was very boring compared to the likes of Ali and Tyson etc.

This is a normal cycle in heavyweight boxing, where after a certain dormant/quiet/boring period, suddenly the division comes to life, and thats whats happening now.

 

I agree on a lot of things apart from ye boing bit, love Ali but held just as much and in more fights than else after his exile and the only reason he wasn't considered boring is because of his mouth and his fights were competitive, tyson was exciting, most of the reason woad fights are boring is because his miles better than everyone else and a lot of his fights are actually good to watch eg wach but he doesn't get any credit because he destroys everyone

 

Yes. Azzer85 putting Ali together w/Tyson and separate from Wlad shows either bias or misunderstanding. Style wise Wlad and Ali are much closer than Tyson, a short HW that had to get inside to land his shots.
Ali was "exciting" b/c of his personality and there was much less competition for entertainment in his era.

Today we have very realistic action & martial "first person shooter" games from military combat to various forms of fighting on pc's and other media. Cable tv was in its infancy near the end of Ali's career. Even some of Tyson's bouts were not exciting - the anticipation of a KO was - and are viewed as exciting through some nostalgic haze.

When Joe Louis was dominant and going through his "bum of the month" club that was as boring as Wlad's dominance. But the technology we have today - like the internet and its youtube, realistic pc games, etc - was a dream.

 

It wasnt just his mouth, he produced the goods in the ring too.

Tyson was better than his opposition too and much smaller as well, yet he was still exciting. Tyson only has one boring fight his whole career and that was Smith.

Look at the Haye fight, if Wlad really wanted to make a statement, he could have done a Lewis and got Haye out of there in a couple of rounds.

Instead, both of them were happy to play hide and seek with each other

 

No if you actually watched alis fights post exile the vast majority of them were hugfests and wlad also produces the good but his fights aren't even close

You are also looking at the haye-wlad fight wrongly wlad pressed the action haye ran the whole fight looking to land a massive counter punch , was else supposed to put his hands down and go brawling? Might have ended up like Lewis vs Rahman

 

Now that's quite an exaggeration. (And I'm not counting 84' Olympics when Cuba, the USSR and 15 or so Eastern Euro countries didn't participate)

http://www.olympic.org/content/resu...sportsummary/?sport=31408&games=1988/1&event=

http://www.olympic.org/content/resu...sportsummary/?sport=31408&games=1976/1&event=

http://www.olympic.org/content/resu...sportsummary/?sport=31408&games=1972/1&event=

 

You also have to factor in that countries such as Poland and Hungary,Yugoslavia while communist and not aloud to turn pro we're still allowed to send there own team separate from the Soviet Union this isn't being taken into account when adding up the Soviet Union era medals