How come sons of great boxers are hardly ever as good as their fathers?

Eh, I don't think it's that common in other sports either really.

Sometimes a mediocre professional sportsman has an outstandingly talented son or vice versa but its rare that father and son are both great at the sport.

 

There is one ...his name is Campbell Hatton !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

No eye of the Tiger

 

Semi decent question, however a far more compelling question is how come sons of non boxers go on to become ATG boxers?

 

Campbell Hatton does.....and the burning heart !!!

 

This is spot on.

No hunger, no desire and fold at the first sign of adversity in many cases.

 

Drive I'd imagine.

Although it shows the power of genetics that so many sons of boxers do make it to world level.

Drive is hard to inherit. Natural size, strength, speed etc is quite inheritable.

 

Chavez son was a legitimate world champion with wins over the likes of Andy Lee.

Nowhere near the level of his father, but not comparable to Holyfield or Pacquiaos son. (Who dbf are both young and could have respectable careers yet.

 

A lot of horrible boxers have great sons.

 

I posted earlier, but there's a lot of voodoo when it comes to boxing traits that don't pass down in the blood.

That real punch power is an individual gift, caused by some weird thing like the bone structure or the way the limb structure allows one to coil.

Whereas nfl (for example) traits do pass down, e.g. being an athletic 6'5 250 lbs naturally.

Soccer is a sport where famous stars don't really have good sons. Because even if you start early, that hand eye coordination to dribble the ball at speed etc has to be there at birth.

 

That said, there's a handful of examples were the son surpassed the father, like Buster Douglas and Cory Spinks.

 

Roger Mayweather didn't suck, He was a very good boxer and after he beat Serrano it looked like he was going to be a star. He just had a glass jaw.

Funny story: I was going to attend the Serrano fight with my grandfather, but at that era i had just been diagnosed type one Diabetes and my pastor decided to have a church prayer service that same night in my house. My parents, who were hopeful that God would cure me by way of my pastor's prayers, told me I could not go to the fight because of that and my grandfather ended up attending by himself..

I was ten, and ten year old girls are not able to overrule their parents. Plus I also felt, deep inside, if this might help me eat candy again, why not?

 

To put a twist to this: How about Muhammad and Laila Ali? Or Joe and Jaquie Frazier? Yeah, Jackie was a great fighter..

 

The same reason sons of great actors are never quite as good as their fathers