the big time boxing has gone. do you remember the time when tyson, holyfield, bowe and lewis were around? the early 90's were phenomenal. tyson was a beast, a public figure, holyfield came up and there was bowe who battled evander in an epic match. then he avoided to fight lennox. tyson lost-a sensation. holyfield became champ and fought foreman and holmes! i miss the times. holyfield was a hero and the people cared aboout the heavyweight champion of the world, just like everybody knew who was the best. there were matches to look forward to. some did never happen as bowe-tyson or bowe-lewis but you had these corona of heavyweight heroes and a bunch of formidable contenders as moorer, tucker, mercer, bruno and foreman. i really liked the tension, i even liked don king hanging around and making a lot of noise. yeah, he did damage to boxing, no doubt, but he also gave it a great peoples conception. anyway, can you understand my feelings about it? after tyson lost, we had evander and bowe with lennox coming up. holyfield survived, bowe lost and retired, then tyson came back and lost to evander who ultimately lost to the new king lewis who finally beat tyson. now lewis has retired, holyfield is too old and thats it. sometimes i think we have to give the guys credit for giving us such a great time but holyfield should give credit, too and he should beat ibragimov and retire forever!
At heavyweight most likely. But boxing ain't limited to heavyweight, the Vasquez/Marquez fight is an example.
:rasta Glorifying the past is the only thing sad ! Personally watching MIKE fight bums and HOLY struggling with grandfathers and then FAT OVERRATED BOWE managing to make ANDREW look much better then he is ? I DONT MISS ! :deal
In the 90s, the hw was actually the deepest division on terms of talents. Guys like McCall, Bruno, Golota, Seldon, Morrison, Ruddock, Tucker, Donald, Mercer, Holmes, Foreman, Briggs, Botha, Moorer, Rahman, Tua, Ibeabuchi, Grant, Akinwande were really showing a lot of potential back then.
i just wanted to express my emotions. i do not want to gloryfy the past, it just makes me sad when i see a legend like evander holyfield still hanging around. the heavyweight division is the most attractive division because the public knows the champion. today it is fifferent, we have got a bunch of beltholders and one (wladimir) who should be unifying. JLC: i think you are ignoring some facts concerning lennox lewis: he was not the one who avoided to fight bowe after winning the crown from evander. bowe ducked lewis several times and when bowe did not have a title he and rock newmann accepted to fight for lennox's wbc-title. sadly lennox lost his title to mccall and it took him another 3 years to become champion again. lennox was paid step-aside-money from the tyson-people to fight seldon first. then the wbc-belt was vacated and lewis did win again. lennox never ducked anybody, the opposite is fact. he refused to fight ruiz, he was undisputed champion then, because a fight with ruiz was not attractive to the public. the same with byrd. lennox fought tua and grant instead, fights that the fans wanted to see. it is ridicolous but when you are the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world you just cant fight the several belt-mandatorys, so it does not matter whether lennox gave away the wba-belt or not. he was the ONE, the heavyweight king and ruiz and byrd were nothing but fighters with a ****ing belt.
A lot of boxing's popularity at that time was due in part to the rise in popularity of "Gangsta Rap". The days of the NWA and Death Row have since fizzled, and thus the popularity of big-black-heavyweights.
Yeah, you're absolutely right, then along came Eminem and whiny little annoying white boxers became popular.
True, but that fight only drew 3,500 people. On a positive note, boxing is having a big year; HBO and Showtime are putting on some great fights and ratings seem to be good. I think some of the MMA hype is already starting to die down. Personally, I'd like to see the networks get back into doing fights on Saturday's. When they stopped, that took away a lot of the mainstream fan base, and it's much harder to promote the lighter weight fighters through cable only.
