"Americans are playing other sports" is nonsense

Agreed, but i'm talking about the ELITE athletes that will and do make it to the next level and why there arent more of them in American boxing. I agree with your point about the amateurs though.

 

If Adam Malysz didnt take up Ski Jumping he would own Floyd!

 

Not to mention how we have been deprived of his exciting trilogy against Simon Ammann.

 

The Chinese have 10 of thousands of Lightweight Champs but they choose instead to bring joy to the World by making toxic toys.

If they werent in the factories they would rule the smaller weights!

 

yea man the heart of the problem is just the roots of it all and that is the amatures. Fighters like Holyfield, Roy Jones, SRL and Floyd don't just come out of no where like magic. These kids were groomed early on with an very well amature background. If the amature programs start slacking it will severely injure this sport beyond belief. Thats why I laugh when I hear UFC is taking over boxing...They could never hurt boxing, In fact UFC can only help boxing because 1) both are contact sports so they're like family in a sense 2) Competition between the two will force both organizations to stop all BS and get to doing the right things.

Boxing can only hurt themselves and this is mainly through slacking with the amature programs.

 

LHW Champ in your avatar right there!

 

The point is that in all divisions the pool of talent has been fluid, from ethnic group to ethnic group and from country to country. Latin America had not always been a huge force in the sport but over the last 40 years they have moved to dominance in the lower to mid weights. These shifts do not mean that the quality has diminished, only the focus talent pool. That is the point. Capisce?

 

The thread starter is right, I have boxed off and on for the last 10 years, and been apart of 3 different boxing gyms in and around where I live. The sad part is, more guys in there teens and 20s are now doing the MMA fight leagues more than Boxing, and sadly enough 2 out of the 3 gyms are closed now, and one of them has already been replaced by a fight league.

I wouldnt stress out to much about it, everything goes in cycles, back in the 70s Karate was the growing sport in America, but eventually died out after 90s, so I feel Boxing can make a comeback in the states, I hope it happens soon.

 

These shifts do not mean that the quality has not diminished either. Obviously, if boxing is an active sport there are always going to be champions and top contenders. There is no reason at all for the champions and top contenders of today to necessarily have to talents equal to the talents of the champions and top contenders of the past. Looking at the past, one can see that there were clearly variations. Few would claim Carnera or Braddock were as talented as Louis.

The juggler Enrico Rastelli (1897-1931) could juggle 10 balls at once. No living man can. There are still jugglers today, but it was probably a far more popular form of entertainment generations ago and the general skill level has perhaps receded.

 

I tire of the back and forth here on this question. Both sides have points and counter points.

Anyways, to the posters who keep mentioning basketball. We have already explained thoroughly that it is a different game in FIBA than in the NBA and that we were throwing together teams in 3 weeks to play teams that had been together for years. For a true indication of Basketball and where American truly stands, see where the NBA teams (with admittedly some foreign players, but mostly American) and the teams from Euro leagues (With some American players, but mostly foreign) play each other nearly every year before the NBA season starts. The NBA teams win the vast majority of those games, and the NBA champions beat the champions nearly every time. That's what happens when two teams who know their teamates and play on a high level play each other.

 

damn straight...His haymaker overhand right could KO any man on earth :good

 

Venus and Serena were the **** till the Eastern Euro's showed up!!!!!!

 

most of successful American mixed martial artists are wrestling based. I would not say wrestling is any more of a presence than it was in the past, there is just now a better outlet for it to be applied beyond high school and college, an outlet that allows the base to be evolved. but no I dont buy this argument for America's decline being to do with mma either. most of these American mmaers wouldn't have cut it in boxing.