Classic Fans, Who Still Follows the Sport, When did you Stop?

Yeah, if you lived in New York, that must have been a great time - but if you didn't, then what?

Today fans from all over the world can follow all the big fights, either live or the next day on YouTube. So how today is not a great time to be a boxing fan, I don't understand!

 

Ever since HBO left it turned stale. Doesn't have the special feeling it used to have, like the cherry on top is missing.

 

I have not watched a live fight on TV since 2014. My dad passed in 2014 and boxing was sort of a shared interest. He was a life-long fan and got me into it as a kid in the 1980s.

I remember watching a fight one night, on my own, around the time my dad passed and thinking to myself, "why am I even watching this?". It wasn't fun and didn't feel right anymore... I did see that Toney-Ruddock "exhibition" that someone posted on here, and I watched that only because we met James back in the day and I had a moment of nostalgia come over me.

Peak interest for me was the early 1990's. Boxing for me was getting really bad once we entered the Pacquaio/Mayweather/Alvarez era.
The pool of talent, or cast of characters, declined. No more "Tuesday Night Fights" nor ESPN.
When HBO stopped showing boxing, that tells you how bad the sport got... but that's just my opinion.

I do miss the old days when I enjoyed it.

 

By quoting the only 2nd paragraph, you missed the point of what I was saying. The 1st paragraph talks about finding out about results the morning after and how that isn't as good. Then stating that live boxing on TV is much better but hardly as good as being in the stadium (using a golden era as an example).

 

How do you figure the pool of talent has declined since the early '90s - when, worldwide, there are far more registered boxers from far more countries today?

Sometimes I think fans here are only focusing on what happens in the US - instead of looking at the big picture.

 

The point I was trying to make, is that the '40s was a shitty time to be a boxing fan - except for those few lucky enough to be able to attend big fights in person.

 

Yes that's what I said. What else did I claim?

 

Of course our emotions play a part in how we see the sport, I feel the same way relatively to soccer, to me, soccer today is not comparable with soccer from the 90s, but it´s because it was MY era when I was a kid and discovering everything for the first time. Everything is not new today, life goes on, and repetition desensitizes enthusiasm.
Enthusiam ! What are mine today ? What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy ? Boxing from the past.

 

I agree mate even though the overall product is better these days though, really. Of course, i enjoyed it when i was younger more as there's more wonderment involved, my team was decent rather than mostly crap and you could mess about at the game as you were a kid. I think the one startling thing about going the match these days is that i always feel like i'm the average age of the supporters around me- and i felt like that when i was 15!!!

Gangs of lads together going is far rarer due to the cost of going the game these days. To buy a match ticket, if you don't have a season ticket, it's £55 cheapest sear and the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal is much more extortionate. Although the cap on away tickets at £30 is a good scheme- and I went to West Ham in October, for that price.

 

Oh, this about the prices happened here too, it is super expensive, not only the ticket, but everything around the stadium. You pay 3 times the price of a hot dog in there. I attend minor league matches but I don´t attend a Brasileirão match since 2013.

But football now changed, just like boxing changed, the game of boxing is about fastness and quick combinations and fast movements, the guys are sooo fast, they do look like robots though (its my complaint all the time), in football too, is always about intensity and how much you run in the field everywhere all the time, it would be very hard for a guy Sócrates or even Zidane to play the same way today.

 

Agree, and when Jurgen "Turkey Teeth" Klopp stated that "no playmaker in the world can be as good as a good counter-pressing situation" I decided that everything that is wrong about modern football is down to him and Liverpool FC are truly the spawn of Satan and need to be removed from existence.

 

Agreed. I prefer blue than red, blue means the ocean, the sky, only good things. When you think about red you think about blood, hell, stop signs, red lights in traffic which means you are stuck and so on.

 

Actually it is both issues: boxing politics and quality of fighters, what keeps me away.

It is not like those issues are separated. They are interwined.
Boxing politics influence the quality of boxers, and quality of boxers influence boxing politics.

I agree there have been crooks, hype works and fixings in every era, but my impression is that it has become worse nowadays with the coming of digital media, cable, ppv, etc.
With the current alphabet soup is it quite easy to become a world champion compared to previous eras. The media promotion machine will do the rest, and ppv make sure the big money keeps flowing even if the product is sub par
Consequenlty, if you a boxing promoter you don't need to worry for quality as much, because a mediocre (and cheap) fighter will do.

And sure there are some amazing fighters out there, but also mediocre ones passing as ATG in the media.

To each one his cup of tea, at personal level I can't bother anymore to dig around all the BS hype going on to find quality fighters.

 

Sums up my present approach to boxing nowadays.

 

A lot of it for me is time. Fights not being as available on tv anymore. That and the older I get the less interested I am