Has boxing ANY CHANCE WHATSOEVER of getting back to what in once was?

I think boxing is probably more popular then it ever has been. It's ignorant to suggest that the sport is failing because it's not as popular in America or Britain. Look at the ratings outside of the big boxing places. Germany, for instance. Boxing gets insane numbers over there. How about the Phillipines, where Pacman is a true national icon?

With things like the internet, live TV, international radio and so forth boxing is getting more exposure than it ever has before.

Boxing is thriving...you just have to look further to see where.

As for the quality of the sport, I can't really comment as this is my era, you know? I was only born in '87 and started following the sport religiously since the 2000's. However, I look at guys like Pacquiao, Pavlik, Marquez, Klitschko and so on, and realise that boxing is not in a serious decline. I think the sport is better now than it was in the 80's.

 

Your position of rejecting criticism from older fans as "nostalgia" effectively means you are cutting off perhaps the most valid criticisms at the root. Of the men you mention above, how many would the average sports fan recognize? How many would the casual sports fan recognize? If you listen to a radio sports talk show, how often do they discuss boxing?

In fairness, the internet and cable television has given outlets to boxing and kept it alive, but to a large extent it is no longer a mainstream sport in the United States. It was in the decades from the 1920's to the 1950's which you so casually dismiss.

 

Sure it does.

 

All the game needs is another big time American Heavyweight to arise. Another Mike Tyson would probably get Boxing back in the mainstream for awhile. Personally, I'm not to concerned with how popular Boxing is, won't make me like it any more or less than I do.

I can't see Boxing ever being like it once was though. A shame.

 

Don't forget that it was pretty popular in many of these countries decades ago. Schmeling-Neusel drew 95,000 in 1934. Carnera-Uzcudun 65,000. Carnera-Gains 70,000. And boxing drew the highest radio ratings and films were widely shown.

Boxing is a world sport and has been for decades. You have a very good point that it is hard to judge how it is doing in so many different countries.

 

The only way that boxing will ever get back to being as it was in the 30s is if there is a nuclear war and the sport re emerges in the aftermath.

Much as I love boxing I am not prepared to have a nuclear war in order for this to happen.

Sorry about that.

 

Just like Chinxkid I liked your previous post, but this one... To say that boxing is less brutal than the modern ufc is highly questionable, and anyone who celebrates fights like FOTC, the Thrilla in Manilla and the S:t Valentine's massacre (which I do) should be really careful before he denounces any other sport for brutality. I've seen UFC fights with more blood, but not with more outright brutality. The beating SRR puts on LaMotta towards the end...

 

Are you a Steeler fan? I grew up with that great team of the seventies. Joe Green used to park in the lot I worked in all through college; and he was as far from "Mean," as you could get. A humble, soft spoken, thinking guy who's jaw dropped in humility when I refused to charge him out of my gratitude for his contributions.

And I won't dismiss you for being old; truth is, to the youngsters out there, the one thing that does improve as you get older is your thinking power, so take heart, even with the sagging skin, the receding hair line and the aches in this and that, you have something to look forward to; that doesn't mean I wouldn't change places with you if given the opportunity; just ask me!

But Old Fogey? Does the name Dwight White ring a bell for you? He just passed away not too long ago in Pittsburgh, but rest his soul he was not buffed by today's standards, and he played on the defensive line alongside Joe Green, and if you notice, I did say offensive lineman...

But I gotta tell you I think it's just wrong to say that pro atheletes in any sport aren't better conditioned today than they were say thirty or more years ago, and I think that again, as a "field", atheletic techniques have improved in all sports. The nod I give to the boxers of the era of say the 30's, 40's, and 50's, has to do with the Depression and the two world wars and to the nature of the entire country; they were tougher, in their minds, "conditioned" to not expect favors, breaks, special treatment or even a fair shake you could bank on; at that time only the elite were coddled.

Nobody with any sense of history or clear thinking doubts whether the time of and after WWII did indeed produce "the greatest generation." But that's due to the challenges they were presented with; they gallantly rose to the occasion. But my belief is we haven't seen that in subsequent generations not due to a lack of heroicism or heart or anything else in the boomers and beyond, but because of the shoddy challenges we've been presented with.

 

One major step in that direction would be the return of the 15 round limit for championship fights. That and alot of unification fights. I won't even talk about the abolition of the alphabet-soup organizations.

 

I don't want to debate the Depression and WWII, but I do think the experience of hardship and war probably produced greater mental toughness in the survivors.

Dwight White--I remember him playing and I do not remember him as being fat. He was listed as 6' 4" and 260 lbs. Perhaps he got heavier at some point. Pro linemen have always been heavy, but, for example, I don't remember White ever being as fat as Warren Sapp at 6' 2" and over 300 lbs.

Taking three top teams of the 1960's & 1970's, the largest Packer starter was Ron Kostelnik at 6' 4" and 260 lbs. The largest Steeler was Joe Green at 6' 4" and 275 lbs. The largest Dolphin was Bob Heinz at 6' 6" and 265 lbs. These rosters just did not have the very heavy linemen that you see today. A judgement that modern players are generally in better condition seems utterly arbitrary, although obviously recievers, running backs, and the defensive secondary are now, and always have been, in terrific condition.

 

We're gonna have to agree to disgree.

 

Size & muscle mass aside, The passion for the game back then was much bigger. The bigger stronger N.Y. Giants of today would have had little Chance against the '78 Steelers.

 

Old Fogey, hope you didn't take this as a dismissal; I'm sure you forgot more about boxing than I'll ever know and I had a big day ahead of me yesterday.

My only point was to say that I think, either due to evolution, nutrition, training methods and/or yes, to an extent and in some cases steroids, athletes are better conditioned today across the board. The height/weight statistics you cite could be due to the fact that muscles weigh more than fat.

 

No offense was ever taken.

I just don't know where you are coming from. Old football players generally did not have pot bellies. Take a look at a film of a Super Bowl from the 1960's or 1970's. You see athlete's such as Buck Buchanan at 6' 7' and 280 or so, or Ed Jones at 6' 9" and 275 or Bob Lilly at 6' 5" and 260. I am certain they have better training techniques in some ways today to improve strengh perhaps, and they have supplements they did not have back then, but training camps, including for college teams, were brutal and players emerged in top shape.

Also, football players, unlike boxers, have done weight training from way back, as well as wind sprints. Even in high school, we did wind sprints back and forth, standing upright, and hunched over, we duck-walked fifty yards, did a wind sprint, and then duck-walked another fifty yards, did a wind sprint, etc.

Don't give me this out of shape stuff. I don't think it is true and I saw these players often on TV and I also saw them live.

 

Yeah, when I played in high school our training was brutal too. Our coach was a guy who idolized Lombardi and even looked like him, had quotes of his put up all over the locker room, "The harder you work the harder it is to surrender," for example, and he worked us hard. We did 1000 yards of sprints and ran two miles in full equipment at the end of an all day practice in the muggy Pittsburgh summer. And of course we did the weight training and the "universal gym" training before we knew enough to call it a nautilus machine.

You concede that they have better training techniques and supplements today that they didn't have then, but then you say in so many words that it doesn't make any difference, that athletes were still in just as good condition back then as now; and I don't know how you have all these weights and heights at your fingertips, and I'm sure as hell not about to start with that, because I don't think that proves anything. If a guy is 5'11" and 250 pounds but solid rock, and another is 6'4" and 250 but there's alot of mush mixed in which guy is in better shape?