Prior to PPV and through 1960 - 1980 the top 10 heavyweights were dominated by Americans. I remember watching Larry Holmes, John Tate and Mike Weaver, not to mention also Ray Lenoard on ABC for free. Does anyone remember Norton's classic battlle with Holmes that was also on free TV. **** - even Ali/Spinks I & II were on free TV. Considering the social class most American boxers come from, they usually don't have HBO or Showtime or the funds to buy a PPV Fight. They can't watch or follow their favorite fighters. Is Evander Holyfiled the best American Heavyweight? The heavyweight American has now migrated to other sport like Football or Basketball - both sports on free TV. Ameican will never dominated the heavyweight division again until we start putting quatlity fights on free TV Thoughts!
Yep. And it isn;t just the HW's, its boxing in general. PPV is making its biggest and best unavailable to the masses.
This Heavyweight PPV crap started with Holmes-Cooney which was a justified PPV fight but after that with the exception of the HBO Heavyweight Tournament they tried to put everything under the sun on PPV after that and a lot of it was absolute garbage Don King Heavyweight fights.
I agree, and you would think this would be common sense. But I'm sure some here will argue your point.
We are starting to see boxing back on TV again, but, not like the old days, of course. Arum started a thing with CBS, but, the arsehole still has Pac and Mosley on PPV. Like always, greed has killed this sport.
Actually, PPV started with Ali/Frazier I. It was closed circuit, but pretty much the same. Cost was ten dollars. How, PPV has mostly gone to PPV Cable/Sat home TV, at a cost of a round $60, I can see it going to $100 dollars pretty soon. It's killing boxing for sure. ABC, NBC, CBS used to show fights for free, which gave boxers exposure, but not American only. The fall of the iron curtain opened up the gate for East European fighters who work very hard. Klitschkos are boycotted by USTV which does not help. Vitali/Arreola fight was rated highest of the year for HBO, yet they boycott them for spite.
Same here in Uk. the main channels show all of the major events in cricket, football, rugby, tennis, golf, f1 etc but if you want boxing you have to subscribe to sky sports for £20 a month and then most big fights are ppv. all this is leading to boxing being a minority sport. and i think american boxing has declined in general, there are less people joining the sport over there but i think its also due to other countries catching up, the proportion of boxers who are american is getting smaller and i think the facilities in other countries have caught up. and if the amateur scene is anything to go by it's getting worse, i mean if you look at the USA in the 1984 olympics and the 2008 olympics there was a big big difference in performance
Agree. The NFL should be thanking PPV for giving them a layup to dominate major network sports violence. If PPV never happened Boxing as a whole would be loads more popular. Why doesn't HBO charge 49.95 to watch the middle episode of one of their original series ? ofcourse people would lose interest.
I think Burger King and McDonalds had some to do with it also..but yeah, as mentioned with boxing nowadays you have to go searching for it to find out about what's going on..the exposure to the joe public just isn;t there any more..especially with the fights which would help the sport gain popularity, being the biggest fights, which are pretty much all PPV
