Americans, how do you think boxing can return to some of the glory days over there?

first off we gotta get the fites back on channel 4 like the good old days.
second not everyone has hbo n showtime
third when we do put sumthing on besides hbo or showtime its friday nite fites n those fites are lame.
lastly we aint always dwn 2 pay 50 bucks for ppv

 

A lot of good points here.

1. Inaccessibility to live events. This is true, unless you live in Atlantic City, Vegas or Biloxi MS, there are not many live fights. Here in Cincinnati we are opening a new casino and there is talk of hosting large boxing events there. That would be awesome!

2. Local fights not promoted. This is also true. We have local fights here, but you hardly ever see them advertised well. I believe it would trickle up.

3. One sanctioning body. This is a good idea for many reasons, but it would also help make the better fights happen, the sport easier to follow (less champs) and very likely more televised events on free TV. Showing only on PPV is like putting the Super Bowl or World Series on PPV. It would be an outrage!

4. Better, or shorter under cards. I've had the same problem. You get a bunch of folks together to watch a big fight and everyone is bored to tears with the under card. A poor main event only adds insult to injury. (Pac vs. Hatton for example was a bust at my place) - The Pavlik/Martinez and Bute fights were great. No crap under card, just two good fights.

5. More viability - 24/7 and The Contender helped, just like The Ultimate Fighter is helping UFC. Americans believe what the media is telling and right now, they are telling everyone that UFC is awesome.

6. UFC - is very successful and I believe it is not because of the action, because when it goes to the ground there is a lot of bitching from fans. I think its the tempo and length of the fights. Maybe if we had weekly fights of 6-8 rounds televised, like on FNF, on local channels people would watch?

 

boxers doesn't get the ladies anymore.

 

Like or dislike the French,they have the best rugby union team in Europe and are traditionally at the top of the food chain in that very tough sport.They are notoriously tough in rugby,and as a massive fan of the Irish team,I have to give the French credit there because they deserve it.

 

Put boxing on free TV. Put in on Saturday afternoons. No more. No less.

Boxing isn't even seen in America other than the most dedicated fans.

 

Like Tyson always says, boxing needs an american heavyweight superstar to reach its full potential in terms of popularity.

 

Lack of interest from our best athletes. You've heard it all before. Until we can get all the guys focused on the NFL, MLB, and the NBA involved nothing will change. These kids for example, are not big enough for pro basketball, but that's the only thing in their head. Imagine if we had athletes this powerful and explosive in boxing.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW5nNpoCVeM[/ame]

 

I think one of the most important things is media participation. I live in a fairly large market, Dallas, and they really don't cover boxing at all, no local fights(or mentioning of local fights), no features on any local boxers, the only time it will cover boxing is if there is A) a Mayweather fight or B) a Pacquiao fight. Granted that's not universal, go 200 miles south and San Antonio's newspaper covers boxing a little bit. But I think even in the big markets like New York they don't cover it much at all.

 

that is also on the promoters my local paper covers local boxing cause the promoter invites them down for free.

are many boxing gyms closing down state side

 

Great points and to that I would also add, eliminate all the Super and Jr weight classes created in the 70s and 80s, the Cruiser-Weight Division is Legit but its not good to have all those other weight classes, all it does is spread talent thin and allow fighters to get easy belts and finally have ONE CLEAR CHAMP in every division.

 

For the local talent, it's definately on the promoters. However, it'd be nice to see better coverage nationwide on fights that are big fights but not megafights. I'd say the coverage nationwide is limited to mega-fights. And that's a big reason for major athletes not getting into boxing, so many people think the only relevant boxer out there is Pacquiaoatsch

 

Boxing may not be as popular here as it was in the past but the USA is still the premiere boxing country in the world so while the fan base has been on a decline for years we still have great boxers, just look at the top 20 in boxing right now. The sport is still dominated by americans,.

 

my muay thai, boxing and judo gym is in the shittiest part of west sacramento, which is a pretty shitty place. a lot of boxing fans believe that blacks and mexicans don't like MMA--they do, at least around my parts.

I think it's because the UFC is a great promotion. They have an essential monopoly on the sport, it'd be like people mixing up "Top Rank" and "boxing" to where people would say "oh you do Top Rank?" People say UFC (the promotion) and MMA (the sport) interchangeably. When you have this sort of monopoly and a concentration of all the best fighters, it's an easier sell than the fragmented, more complicated boxing scene.

the UFC is a better promotion than any single promoter in boxing. They build names better, are able to make better matches, and actually care about getting their hype seen by real people. They do a lot of things wrong, as well, and I find the fights themselves less interesting, but if boxing wants to regain its status, it'll need to be revamped.

The Super 6 is under promoted woefully, they have this exciting tournament, they need more hype.

But it might just all come back to the product, shitty undercards, shitty main events that you have to pay $50 for. The best fights I've seen this year haven't been on PPV.

 

Nothing is wrong with boxing esp. here in the U.S. Don't believe the media, sometimes they get caught up with other hype things and lies. The numbers speak for themselves as well as the money being generated. The sport just has a lot of smart people now a days.

 

it will never. NFL is too popular. NBA gets way more coverage as well as MLB. I collect (or used to) alot of boxing memoribilia amd one thing that has been painfully obvious to me that for exampe, 1989,1990, 1991, 1992 if Tyson, Leonard, or any big time fight was coming up, it was front page on the sports page and if it was the day after, it made the front page of the FRONT PAGE.......and then again on the sports page.... now, you can barley find it anywhere in a paper, unless you live in the city where its happening....when rahman knocked out lewis, there was no ink about this fight in any of our state papers and a small article in USA TODAY. wont ever be the same....big time fights sometimes happen, they are hyped up for months and SUCK! too many factors to be like it was.