Boxing is a niche sport now?

Been a niche sport for a while but it definately doesn't help that the sport is so caotic and unorganised ... in football/soccer, you have league tables where every team play each other every week as a matter of course, there's one league cup to play for and a knockout tournament cup. It's all very organised and predictable.

In boxing there's a rash of "World Titles" with no defined logic behind the rankings, the fighters and promoters decide who they will fight and when and for what flavour of the world title, there are dozens of weight classes and TV exposure is slim.

Boxing is a ****in hard sport to follow man, it takes a bit of dedication more than what the casual TV sports fan is interested in.

 

I can't think of anyone I know, outside my brothers who are into the sport. I've had some funny conversations with non-fans though.

One guy asked when Kostya Tszyu was going to fight Mike Tyson lol.

I don't mind though, you can educate them and maybe they'll look into it. One guy just last week didn't know who Pacquiao was, and he said he was heavy in boxing before. I told him he was the greatest boxer on the planet who'd fought in 5 divisions in 7 fights and destroyed all these top fighters including DLH, Hatton, and he seemed interested finding out more about the guy.

I've also been owned by a non fan, on that occasion it would've helped to have been quiet.

I remember telling this guy (who did some kickboxing but didn't follow boxing) about the upcoming DLH-Pac fight and he said something like "Pacquiao is going to smash DLH, isn't he?".

I laughed and felt obliged to tell him so he wouldn't have false expectations in case he bought the PPV that DLH would probably crush him because Pac had to go up two weight divisions (good big man beats a great little man theory).

Anyway, we all know what happened, and he let me know how wrong I was.

 

and it's also a sport you have to go looking for, big fights being PPV and not much free to air or mainstream coverage of it

 

I know, Montreal's the exception. I've lived coast to coast and in most major Canadian cities but Montreal is one I've unfortunately not had the chance to spend more than a week in. Canada's entire boxing scene can be summed up in one city- Montreal. Finding true fight fans in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Halifax, Vancouver is a hard task.

Montreal is a sports crazy city in general though. And party crazy, would love to spend more time there.

 

when casuals ask me about the many titles i tell them the wba,wbc,ibf,wbo are like la liga,premier league,bundesliga,ligue 1 while the ring belt is like the champions league seems to make it easier for them.Every sport is confusing if you don't understand it baseball is confusing as **** for me

 

98% of the brits can't tell you who the nr 1 in the serie a is at the moment... and there are very few spaniards who can give you 5 players of bayern munchen at the moment... It's just how it works... Ask americans about the Euroleague and 999 out of 1000 wouldn't know what you are talking about...

 

Roy Jones and Mayweather helped to yank boxing out of the mainstream in the US after the Tyson era and Manny has been grabbing it back for the last year.

 

My feeling is that in the UK at least, boxing is a niche sport because only those with SkySports have it - so it's harder for the general punter to get into it.

In the 80s and 90s boxing in the UK was huge, EVERYBODY knew Lennox Lewis, Frank Bruno, Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Prince Naseem, Lloyd Honeyghan and the rest.

These days Carl Froch could walk down most streets unrecognised. Even Calzaghe isn't a household name.

The exceptions - Hatton and Haye have had big career-defining fights or a huge local fanbase; and the only other household names - Amir Khan and Audley Harrison are famous for their Olympic exploits.

Get the big fights back on primetime free-to-air TV and add one or two great fighters or personalities and boxing would regain it's popularity.

 

That's the problem, boxing lives and dies with it's current stars. In team games, you support a team and when players come and go it doesn't matter, you still support the team. A good boxer will come along, get a load of fans and then retire and his fans will lose interest. If boxing isn't constantly getting new stars for each area then it starts to suffer.

 

that is true. I remember as a kid, I was watching an episode of the Wayne Brothers and they had Roy Jones Jr. on there

 

I think its too many belts and too many cameras on American and Mexican fighters. The sport is seeing a dip in popularity worldwide because of this. Its impossible, but what we need is a CLEAR champion and exposure of the wealth of talent the rest of the world has to offer.

 

true I'm tired of people asking me who the heavy weight or who the featherweight champion of the world is. My cousin asked me the other day, "does Floyd have the belt at welterweight" and I didn't know how to answer it

 

Not a niche sport. A popular sport lacking heavyweight stars.

For instance, the haye-Harrison fight had my local pub full to the max.

And those two ain't Lennox Lewis.