HW progress and the expanding talent pool

Nobody who can afford not to anyway. That's why boxing thrives in poor parts of the world and poor economic times.

 

To be fair theres always a certain percent of young people that no matter there background like fighting and have no issues with getting punched in the face for free

 

True, but if you want it to be a profession, you better be talented and dedicated.

 

Absolutely. Not many though. Also the background or environment can be a developing factor as well - how many heavyweight champions of the past fought outta Beverly Hills compared to ghettos like Brooklyn? Kids in Beverly Hills dont really steal where kids in Brooklyn might beat another kid over a pair of Jordans thus increasing violence/fighting/pain. Background does matter, not just enviromentally but a fighters own intrinsic motivation such as a fathers need to feed his own.

 

A bit off topic, but for some reason boxing participation has become much more common place in South Korea in the last few years. There a gyms all over the place now.

The other night I was eating dinner in a restaurant and looking out the window I saw middle school aged kids hitting mitts and bags in a 3rd floor gym. I'm not sure about China/Japan in recent years but as anyone who's spent any time in this region knows ... the populations are vast.

A north east Asian star in the pro ranks could open up all kinds of opportunities, especially for second tier fighters with some kind of name recognition to make some nice paydays fighting in this part of the world. Trainers too. I have a friend who's a qualified experienced soccer coach and there's a lot of work in China emerging in that area ATM.

 

That's true alright but I think rural areas a good place for boxing gyms to tap.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere and we used to beat the **** out of each other for fun(no much to do in the country). You also tend to have higher dedication and participation rates in sports in rural areas

It comes down to mentality and kids from Beverly hills will be soft as dish water, kids from a ghetto might like to fight. Every sport has an untapped talent pool

 

China are pumping insane money into football are all levels , one club signed Oscar from Chelsea for 60 million and he will earn 600k a week

Another club was reported to have bid 300 million for ronaldo and were going to pay him 2 million a week but he rejected it.

Insane stuff happening in China

 

China will find it hard to crack soccer even with they insane money and training kids from the womb 20 hours a day because kids train that hard in soccer all around Europe and south america for the fun of it.

Also you can't train flair or having a footballing brain.

 

I sort of agree but S Korea is quite close culturally to China and Japan, and the Korean national team is reasonably strong (about on par with Australia) and even club sides have improved, the top club side beat Australia's top club side recently and went on the win the Asian club championship. One strange thing is that Koreans do a lot of dribbling forward in tight congested situations rather than laying the ball off for someone outside, and they also have trouble with the concept of passing into space or breaking into space. I think it comes from school yard settings which are hemmed in.

Xi Jinping is really proactive with football in China and that will mean a lot. If those Germans with their robot bodies and robot brains can win a World Cup, I suppose the Chinese could too.

 

Yes, but fewer in the more affluent areas and when economies are strong.

 

ah but thats more asia football , its on a different level entirely in europe.

and the germans aren't robots at all, all their players are great technical footballers in their own right, in the backs you have Lahm and Hummels two great footballers, then you have the likes of kroos,muller,ozil,draxler,gotze etc they are just a different league and produce serious footballers.

i was just pointing out that the sports china usually have success in are the ones where they can basically have kids training all day all their lives, the thing with soccer is you have kids in europe and south america doing that for fun, when i was 10 id say i spent 5-6 hours a day at least playing football just for the fun of it

 

As a Chinese myself, I agree that China has a long long way to go in football... However, there aren't many kids in China train football as hard as you said. In fact, there aren't enough number of young kids playing football at all. Most of our kids that play sports here will choose a olympic sports that we good at so they can be selected to province team or maybe national team so that they can get paid and job after the retirements. The most popular professional sports in China (I mean there are actually lots of people playing it) is basketball. Football is the kind of sport that gets lots of attention but lacks participation. Many people watch it but few people play it.

All words above are for kids that play sports. Nowadays most of our kids don't even participate in sports frequently. They spend most of their time either in studying or in computer games....