Does Frank Sanchez re-enter your top 10

Well Torrez was no 8 so he gets in.

 

Very true, Europe is now the home of heavyweight boxing.

I think this can be attributed to the fact that the infrastructure for young kids to become stars in the NFL and NBA exists in the US only. If you are (or are going to be) 6’2+ and 200lbs+, the odds of you becoming a multimillionaire playing football or basketball, are far higher than making it as a good enough and popular enough boxer to make millions. There’s also a significantly higher health risk associated with boxing obviously, so the risk/reward ratio for a kid to start boxing is just not worth it.

Which is why the best American boxers are south of 175 lbs now, mostly congregated around the 135-154 range.

 

Is this a legitimate reason, or just one that gets falsely put out there as an excuse to protect this HUGE nationalistic identity that the United States has?

For starters, a quick googling tells me that the NBA and NFL have both existed for the best part of 100 years....And that today, there's around 1700 professional NFL players. Why weren't Tyson/Holyfield/Bowe etc converted to NFL/NBA players?

The UK and Europe have the real "Football" and sports like Rugby, for example, with both Sports having a high demand for HW stature boxers in specific roles....And there's approximately 5500-5800 professional "Football" players England alone.

The fact the NFL only has around 1700 professional players in a population of over 340 million, whilst the UK has over 3 times those professional numbers in Football in just one fifth of the population, does make it appear as though this narrative is a bit false.

https://www.statista.com/statistics...jGlNhhy97g1HkD70W-9-7LcvsjDlq_d79MouKwnOaRpii

The Data above pretty much destroys the narrative that it's because of other Sports in the US are taking these athletes, when even nations like Scotland, with a Population of just 5.5 million, have nearly 5000 professional footballers.
I think Americans really don't understand the popularity of the Sports which the rest of the World play vs NFL/NBA....The NFL/NBA are just dwarfed in comparison.

 

One thing you aren't taking into account is boxing popularity dipped in the USA post early 2000s, the exact opposite happened to the rest of the world, even the USA amateur pipeline lacks the funding and the amount of boxing gyms that used to exist. Boxing lost it's cultural center in America because of that and increasing PPV prices also restricted some exposure to the extreme casuals, and even then plenty of american heavyweight champions have come and gone in that timeframe, just no dominant ones have appeared yet.
https://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story/_/id/45452226/boxing-famed-kronk-gym-closed-2006-reopen-detroit
https://gymdesk.com/blog/history-of-boxing-in-the-united-states
But the popularity is slowly rising. If my prediction is correct statistically america should have an all time great appear in the next 20 years

 

Not a chance

 

I'd put Sanchez above Huni and Ajagba who are both in the ring top 10.

 

Isn't the reality simply that the US just isn't as interested in competitive Sport as the rest of the World?

The numbers back that up when you compare not just the number of professional athletes in Europe, but also those attending sporting events too.

I think the US has an issue with Competitive sports full stop, which is why they're so invested in Sports which the rest of the World don't play/have very little interest it....But they also don't like the Competitive nature, by removing things like Promotion and Relegation, a foundation for any "Legitimate" sport.

 

Yes, he's the number 8 rated contender in my current HW ranking:

[C] Oleksandr Usyk

1. Daniel Dubois
2. Agit Kabayel
3. Tyson Fury
4. Filip Hrgović
5. Fabio Wardley
6. Joseph Parker
7. Moses Itauma
8. Frank Sanchez
9. Efe Ajagba
10. Jarrell Miller

 

Absolutely

 

Frank Sanchez should fight Jarell Miller there could be some beef there after he beat his contemporary Pero.

But who can he actually beat ? Hrgovic is all wrong for him. Dubois wouldn't respect his counters and mow him over. Kabayel already mowed him over. Parker is way more experienced and Sanchez doesn't have a high workrate. Ajagba has improved greatly since last time and might beat him in a rematch. Usyk would beat sanchez, easy, just like he would've beaten Wardley, but he still dropped his belt to Wardley, so i don't expect Usyk to entertain Frank

 

Miller would beat him up for 12 rounds

I'd like to see it