"Americans are playing other sports" is nonsense

This has been said ten million times in this post but people think they can step around it with some cool statistics and facts they dig up. THE FACT REMAINS that the gyms just arent around, and the exposure for the sport isn't there. Julius Peppers (one example out of thousands of great, "big" athletes, is something along the lines of 6'6", 275 lbs. He has NO FAT, runs a 4.5 second 40 yard dash, and is incredibly explosive and athletic. Are you telling me that if we took him as a kid and instead of training him football, trained him boxing he wouldn't be at least "decent"? I know this doesn't translate to boxing skills, but if you were to take 100 of these guys (there are easily that many and gobs more) and trained them on boxing instead of football *from a young age* and brought them up on boxing the US heavyweight division would be absolutely loaded. You can do this in other countries too, but seriously people the athletes in football, basketball, etc are some of the best in the world. Just follow the money trail and you will typically find tons of good athletes. If the exposure and gyms were more abundant, the heavyweight division would be stacked

 

if thier are no gyms then how do the lower weight scome through still?

 

Bump. :deal :good

 

has football (soccer) meant that americans have dominated in weightclasses lightweight to light heavy because millions of potential boxers were lost from thoise weightclasses?

250,000,000 competitive male soccer players a week play the sport , plenty of roy keane`s/wayne rooney`s boxed before turning to football.

argentina , a good boxing country for example could turn out thousands of tough lightweights to light heavys if football was not so dominant.

i can understand the american arguement-big men play american sports and so there are not as many big men to box.

but this affects every single country in the world at different weightclasses including heavyweight.

rugby for example is one of the uk national sports , as it is for all the pacific islanders /moairi`s (spelling) who all seem to be heavyweights to a man.

 

Why has no one mentioned all the great American boxers lost to golf and NASCAR? It's a real shame.

 

Chuck Hughes in the 1970's.

From what I understand, off the studies, one is actually more likely to be killed in gridiron football than boxing.

It is also true that the life expectancy of NFL players is on the average extremely short--something like 53 and NFL players have their own football version of pugilistic dementia caused by too many concussions.

 

This argument might be correct. Americans might in fact be doing better in the lighter weights because world football, which draws more from the lower weights than gridiron football, is not very popular here.

I also think as I previously posted that none of the arguments about the NFL or NBA or even about the vanished gyms can really explain only four white heavyweight top five contenders produced in a half a century while at the same time the country was producing dozens of black contenders. (Blacks are about 12% of the US population)

Now black athletes are also abandoning the sport. It just is no longer on the radar screen in America.

 

Exactly. And you can call bull**** on the importance of the nba and nfl in other countries but having spent 20 years either living or traveling regularly in italy and portugal- and reading the sports page daily- I can tell you b-ball and certainly american football are way down the totem pole.

 

this is just a related argument. many big men are playing other sports because of a lot of what you said (no youth boxing programs anymore, etc). of course there's been a lot of big guys in mma for past 15 years (guys who truley love to fight etc) but theres proportionately a lot more in other sports due to sheer numbers.

 

Boxing is not a stick and ball sport. It is not a sport that necesitates a great 40 or even a good bench press. I've seen plenty of talented lugs enter ring only to realize that the smallest fraction of guys can actually take getting punched in the face on a regular basis. You can't just suppose someone would be even adequate at the sport just because of what they can do in a weight room or on a track. It really is irrelevant. Otherwise, an Ali or a Frazier - who it has been documented could not perform in these other venues- should not have been ATG's.

 

Let's put another spin on this discussion. How many great potential boxers are not being cultivated in China, a country of 1.3 billion that has produced the current world record holder in the 110m hurdles, a record holder in the high jump in the 1980's (despite track not being a major sport) and has a long history of martial arts?

My point is that the talent pool for boxing has always been liquid. For most of the 20th c. the entire eastern bloc was entirely ruled out of contention, let alone most of Africa where the sport had either not taken hold or because of apartheid athletes were not allowed to compete. So, just because the US is on a downswing of recruitment, I would not assume the worldwide quantity of recruits- nor the quality- has shifted dramatically. They are still paying these guys a large, large sum of money to gain the belt. And there are still many answering that call.

 

Its pretty easy. The great American athletes can make a hell of alot more $ easier in NFL and NBA, is it that hard to grasp? Plus you can play football anywhere and there are basketball courts on every other block, but its tough to find a boxing gym. Oh, and every school has baseball, basketball, football...No schools have boxing anymore.

 

The problem = the Amature programs.

If they seriously increase all the boxing gyms and amature programs all over this country, in matter of 20 years boxing would EXPLODE. Everyones got talent to be a boxer, they just need the right upbringing support and dedication to do it.

 

I kinda disagree, although there may be more money in other sports...It is EXTREMELY unlikely to make it in those professional sports. Only like 1% make it into professional teams in the nba and nfl. Boxing...ANYONE can go pro ANYONE can start and build a great amature experience and if you're good enough you go pro you win fights and keep on winning. If that happens you WILL be recognized. There isn't a sport like boxing, this is the most accessible sport on the planet

 

Not playing together like the other teams do and it's a different game from the NBA game, different rules.