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

the end of the Cold War hurt boxing.

During the Cold War Olympics, American-Soviet bouts, or American-Communist Bloc bouts, were must-see TV. The Olympics generated a lot of marquee pro stars.

 

Well, here in Germany we have a fightcard on TV nearly every weak with 5 different broadcasters on free TV and a ppv-broadcaster who brings on every big fight. Boxing over here is mainstream - not like football, well soccer for you, but nothing can compete with football in Germany or in Europe for that matter - and it´s doing very very well. It´s bigger than it was in the 30s when Max Schmeling was an idol for the whole nation and also bigger than in the 50s/60s when Bubi Scholz was the symbol of the rebuild and the economic miracle.

Boxing´s going through a golden age over here at the moment. The last Klitschko fight was watched by 10 million housholds and while there are 82 million people living over here there are roughly 50 million housholds. Even fights which aren´t that big do around 3.5 Million in the late evening, shortly before or around midnight at saturday. Just to give you an example how good boxing is doing over here.

 

I also enjoyed their discussion.

 

To answer to the thread, I can't see it ever being as popular as it was pre-60's personally. That's not to say boxing cannot become a high profile sport again, but pre-60's it didn't have the competition from other sports it does now.
The NFL and NBA were way behind boxing in terms of popularity back then, and now they're more popular sports that attract many athletes that no doubt would be fine fighters. Of course, there was no MMA back then either, as well as other sports such as the extreme sports you have now.

I realise that boxing is popular in other places other than the States, but I still think America is a vital area for the sport and always will be. Boxing needs to be big and mainstream in the States as far as I'm concerned.

But obviously boxing will always be around. It's one of the few sports out there that caters for all shapes and sizes. A guy who is 5'3" can't be a basketball player, and a guy who only weighs 125 pounds cannot be an NFL player. Many good athletes are being frozen out of sports like that purely because they don't stack up physically.

What the sport needs - desperately - is a single, uniform governing body that can take control and clean up the proliferation of 'champions' and titles. If that could happen, boxing would be far better off for it.

 

I agree. One governing body, getting rid of these super, emeritus champ bs and few weightclasses less and the meaningful fights would happen more often which would attract more people. But i suppose the ABCs are just making enough money with today´s situation.

 

As an American boxing fan, I am happy to read this. Perhaps some day boxing can rally in the United States, also.

 

This sort of echoes a Billy Conn quote from the seventies, something to the effect of, "What boxing needs is another big war." Presumably like Janitor, he meant the aftermath of the war, which would release hundreds of thousands of young Americans back into the population, glut the job market, and leave the overflow with not many options.

I disagree with Billy and agree with Janitor; it's not worth it. 'Course, Bush still has close to six months in office. That's plenty 'a time to up the ante!