American Boxing...

..and one of those, Cunningham, is a debatable title holder anyway. The only reason he has that belt is because of boxing politics. If O'Neil Bell hadn't been stripped by the ******ed IBF for deciding to fight a rematch with the number one contender then all the belts would be unified.

 

Let's see here about Supernatural's -

Joe Calzaghe - Welsh

Cristian Mijares - Mexican

Joan Guzman - Dominican

Yuriorkis Gamboa - Cuban

Any American's? Not currently, but that's not even of concern, as American has had the most Supernatural's in history.

I think the Latin American countries have it going on right now in terms of skilled fighters....

 

The problem is you have too many old corpses hanging around taking up the limelight when they should really just retire

Hopkins, De La Fishnets, Mosley, Tarver, Winky-Wright...the list is endless

It's tougher for the talents to get big fights when these have so much clout

 

I feel the UFC has something to do with the decline of American fighters, I'm sure I have already said this before but, many Boxing gyms around my area are closing down, 3 to be exact, one of which is being replaced by a fight league/MMA gym, kids will always be attracted to whats new and popular, and thats the UFC, most of my friends couldnt name the Heavyweight champ even if they tried, but ask them who's the UFC champs are, they will practically run down the list of names.

I think it's a damn shame Boxing is taking the backseat to the UFC, but in America that seems to be happening now, are only hope is for the UFC bubble to burst, and for Boxing to try develope another Tyson like fighter to draw the fans back in, personality sells fights just as much as skills do, Tyson had both. I still hold out hope though, it's only matter of time before another American youth comes out of the shaddows, every generation has one, I'm just getting tired of waiting.

 

It wouldn,t be the heavyweight division if there was a weight restriction. Although I take your point about the condition of some of the heavyweights out there.

 

I'm Irish, so know little about MMA sports, but I watched Cage fighting on Saturday night on Sky.Some guy called Ken Shamrock was fighting an English guy [can't remember his name]. It was a F--king joke:yikes, Shamrock was rubbish:yep, he fell over from the first decent punch landed on him.:tired I couldn't help thinking, with a bit of conditioning I could knock both of these fools out. If this is what the Americans want to watch, well their welcome to it.Boxing is booming at the moment in Europe, things are great here, we the Europeans will champion boxing in the future.:bbb

 

Shamrock is the Evander Holyfield of MMA, he is a shadow of what he once was.

 

Holyfield should retire.

 

Athletes go where the money is. And it's in other sports. It wasn't like that back in the days. But the disparity in how much a top athlete receives in other sports compared to boxing have widened. If you are about the size of a HW and have great talents, your chances of making millions is a lot greater in others sports than boxing because even if you are good, there is no guarantee you will ever get your shot.

Look at freaken Vitali getting a shot. HA HA. Doesn't that tell it all?

Or how about Winky toiling in obscurity for all these years until Mosley gave him a shot. Who knows where Winky would've been had Mosley never given him the shot?

 

I'm not a big fan of the UFC, but if you really believe you can go in the cage and knock Ken Shamrock out with a few months of training, your an idiot. As far as the Europeans being the Champions, well that may be somewhat true at the moment, but the talent of the division sucks dick, and none of your European so-called champs will ever be looked at in the same light as the American greats that came before them, I bet Wlad never even cracks the top 15 list of Heavyweight champs, which are all mostly American fighters.

 

America should have enough of a grounded amatuer boxing program where it can deal with new fads like UFC, where the very best guys are nit American anyway...

I think the boxing world has changed, the talent pool is alot bigger, the Eastern bloc has taken the buzz out of the heavyweight division, but even if you look up and down the weights the US isnt shining too brightly.

US boxing is in a quiet patch, probably the biggest quiet patch in the past 100 years, but it hasnt dissapeared, I think a few of the potential big stars have fallen short.

Taylor and Lacy were great amatuers, made all the right noises going pro, but lost before they had got a proper national fan base. Dawson is still very much a question mark, but even he doesnt have the universal style to draw fans in the masses.

You'll just have to put up with Mayweather and Pavlik for now...

 

Maybe the US scene is a little thin but you have a much richer international scene that's put some good solid fighters into the mix. But there's still some decent fighters beyond the old guard of Floyd Mayweather, Moseley, Hopkins, Wright and I guess we should add Nate Campbell to the old guard.

We've got young guns making noise like Pavlik.

Juan Diaz is still a helluva fighter, so are Paul Williams, Paulie Malignaggi, Demetrius Hopkins, and Andre Berto. I still think Kendall Holt and Anthony Thompson might make some more noise despite some setbacks. I really like this kid Joe Greene. Others like Tim Bradley, Devon Alexander, Lamont Peterson, BJ Flores look like they have bright futures.

I think what hurts some of the US fighters is just how thin the knowledgable fan base is for boxers. You have to toil in relative obscurity for several years before anyone takes notice. That's why I applaud Showtime for their work in displaying some of the emerging talent.

 

What's with the aggressive attitudeatsch, although I was half joking when I made the comment about Shamrock, my point is still valid that cage fighting is a joke, followed and supported by moronic Americans.The Europeans are leading the way now in boxing.Get over it mate, and enjoy the ride, and maybe one day, one of your youth can manage to keep their head out of a bucket of KFC long enough to be able to acheive something.:yep

 

Seems to me that the UK is getting involved in the UFC fight scene as well. That card after the Haye fight shown on Showtime featured a lot of British fighters.