Boxing in America is dying, but is it at it's peak in Europe?

It's not about PPV. It's about main stream popularity.

When you say 'aside from the HW Division' That is a big 'aside'.

Boxing in the late 90's and early 2000's had a lot of high school kids and college kids talking about 'Iron Mike' still and 90% of the celebs in England and the USA was picking Lewis or Tyson. It was an 'event'.

It was such a big event, they even risked putting it on at the same time as the World Cup Tournament and it still created world wide buzz.


No event now can create the 'world wide' buzz Tyson did, when Lennox-Tyson was signed.

That conference where Mike attacked Lewis like a god dam rabid dog was replayed more times then actual news.

 

lol WESTERN, like the rest of Europe was some hotbed outside Germany and the UK and both those countries are doing fine.

All this tearing down the sport by its own fans. I have seen it non-stop since I started following boxing. If the sport is in such massive decline then find something else to fill your time with.

 

Just because you like a sport doesn't mean you can never point out the sport's weak points.

Boxing isn't your girlfriend or wife. You can talk **** about boxing all you want and boxing won't get offended.
The truth is, boxing does have a lot of weak points.

PPV being a huge one. PPV Killed a lot of mainstream fans. It is what it is.

Imagine FLoyd on ABC.

 

Yes, you are right. Most casuals will only ever care about 1-2 max glamor USA HWs. But those people aren't really fans, the vast majority of those people wouldn't buy DLH or Trinidad PPVs back then let alone watch anything else that wasn't hyped up to the max. The same way the majority of people buying May and Pac PPVs don't follow the rest of the sport either.

 

You're are just making up your own history. Fact is the major stars were always on CCTV or PPV. Boxing in the 90's was just as inaccessible to average sports fans as it is today in the USA. But yeah, keep pining for the glory days of Leonard/Ali/Tyson at their champion best on network tv, because it almost never happened even back when boxing was more popular.

 

Oi, slow down **** face and back off!

No ones tearing down boxing least of all me. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend things aren't what they are. fighters were household names pre the 90s over here, now no one even knows who Carl Froch is!

And Western Eurrope includes the UK and Germany where with the exception of K bro fights, boxing is minority TV whether you like it or not. However combat sports of all kinds in Easten Europe have been on the rise since the 90s.

 

Yeah, pick Froch and not Hatton, Calzaghe and Haye. I'm sure it was more popular back in the 90's but to claim that boxing is in some massive crisis point in the UK and Germany is a joke.

Whine all you like, nothing will change. Boxing is going to be a niche sport with a tinge of corruption for the foreseeable future. Take it or leave it.

Besides this topic has been done to death, it's as fresh as a Pac v May debate.

 

Wht the F are you talking about. Who said anything about a crisis point? I said in decline since the 90s and mentioned how it'd had become minority TV, which is exactly what you've agreed in your last post. :roll:

Are you agreeing or disagreeing make up you mind! atsch

 

it's not dying it's just a low point in popularity which has happened several times before and boxing has come back to prominence when an exciting polarizing heavyweight champ comes along. Dempsey, Louis, Ali, Tyson....... before and after all these eras were times of low popularity such as now and people back then were saying the exact same **** about how boxing is dying then boom along comes Ali and it's more popular than ever. At some point there'll be another heavy champ that fits the mold of one these guys and brings the sports popularity back.

 

I'm trying to be a realist, it's a successful niche sport which can at times reach mainstream status. Boxing went to sky in the mid 90's? That's a long time and the sport isn't 'dying'. It just seems funny to me to complain about the sports popularity in the UK, I was there for Calzaghe-Kessler, it seemed borderline mainstream with the right fight. Isn't UK ama boxing in a huge boom right now in terms of participation?

I can speak for North America though, and aside from Tyson the sport is just as popular or unpopular as it was 10 years ago. Nothing is dying, boxing still has a fanbase that is willing to pay for content, and that counts for a lot. HBO viewership is up and the sport is going back to two network channels (even in a small capacity) for the first time in a decade BUT YET AGAIN, here we have the sport is in trouble thread.

 

I must disagree with most of this.

1: "People get this idea that NBA and NFL are paid a lot more, so that's why boxing is slowly losing mainstream appeal, and that is simply not true."

The minimum salary of an NFL player in 2011 was $325,000.
how many boxers made at least that much in 2011? six? seven?
The average pro boxer probably makes less than $10,000.
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2: "The lack of boxing gyms and the financial crisis are the two major reasons why boxing is not popular as it should be."

If there were were more demand, more gyms would pop up, as the existing gyms filled up & overflowed.

A bad economy is exactly what causes people to become boxers in the first place. That's why there are so many boxers coming out of eastern Europe.Of course, thanks to the banking and Wall Street assholes, and our thoroughly corrupt Congress & Senate, there will soon again be a huge pool of boxing talent in the USA.
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What's really killing the sport are 2 things:

1: PPV. The average Joe is no longer getting exposed to the top fights.

2: Corruption & rampant ducking.
If average Joe finally DOES buy a PPV, what does he see? Pac-JMM. Or a snoozer like Wlad vs anybody.

In the old days, everybody could just turn on channel 7, and see the best fights for free. And they were treated to fights like Hagler-Hearns & Ali-Frazier. Of COURSE more people were into the sport then, worldwide.

 

I bet it's closer to 30. If anything, boxers are way overpaid by HBO and Showtime and comparing pay to the NFL is silly.

Hagler-Hearns & Ali-Frazier were not on free tv in the USA.

 

So basically a third of the country paid to watch Ali-Frazier?

Holy ****.

 

Boxing is still huge in the USA unless you live in some small white hick town everyone knows the top boxers

 

im in canada....I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU