Is this the End of Boxing? It seems like somebody asks this question each week.:roll: Funny how boxing is still here.
I remember plenty of boring clinchfests from the 80s heavyweights. That's what made Tyson's arrival so spectacular, he wasn't a boring " I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me " type fighter and that's why he's still remembered today--all action. I used to like Wladimir Klitschko until Steward made him into a safety boxer. When will Klitschko start wearing a foulcup that protects his body all the way up to his collarbones?
Dude, think for a second before you post. Boxing has been international and wasn't excluding Euros. Hell, Joe Louis fought Max Schmeling in 1936. 1936, for Christ's sake!!! It's not that you guys were excluded, it's just that you weren't any good. Europeans had a distinctly different style of boxing than Americans and it just wasn't conducive to wresting a belt from a non- European fighter's clutches. With time people adapt and you have the current boxing scene. But this inferior European style is still being employed today which can explain why a European champion like, say, a Thomas Damgaard, who's indestructible at home can lose to an American club fighter. The same thing applies to Gianluca Branco, Morrade Hakkar, and a host of others. So those fighters you mentioned faced mostly American opposition because that was the best opposition at the time. Why fight Euros you know you're gonna steamroll unless the sanctioning body mandates it?
I don't know about the bad fans. Oscar de la Hoya has fought a lot of elite fighters, and was even crazy enough to go after Hopkins. He's lost his fair share of 'em, and it doesn't seem like it has turned his fans off.
People used to say the exact same thing back in the 80s and so on. The bygone years always look better because we simply forget the hugfests but remember the slugfests.