The argument that American Heavies are "in other sports"

The only way MichiganWarrior's arguments stands up, is if you don't need technical ability to do well in American sports. I know that in rugby, football or cricket, the criteria is much greater than the competitors size alone. You need skill. If his assumptions that people like Pavlik could make it on size alone, then that says to me there is very little skill needed in basketball.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but you can't say it's a highly skilled sport, if you place so much emphasis on size.

 

hhhhmm US in the last olympics took 110 medals total and a country which is slagged off as being pretty useless in sports (UK) took 47 medals (im not british just using it as an example) but USA has over 5 times the population of britain but did it win 5 times the medals?? No it didnt come even close. You could apply this to a lot of other countries too im sure :good

 

I think it's fair to say you could make that argument. But we're talkin about 200+ athletes.

 

That jonah lomu clip someone posted was when the majority of players where not professional, and yes many of the guys were indeed not big in the backs, and many fowards were pretty chunky. Compare them then to todays teams and they are ****ing both fit and huge, so yes the counter argument could work for other euro countrys like the uk and france were rugby is big.

 

College scholarships, blah blah blah, beaten to death.

The fact that you're making this thread at all means you don't want to listen to the argument, so why even bother?

There's a big difference between how sports programs are run in the U.S. as opposed to most other countries, and that weighs heavily into it.

The other really big factor is that bigger guys are heavily favored in all of the sports that are popular in America, whereas that's not the case in most other countries (sure, soccer has its fair share of big guys, but ideal size is someone who would be smaller than a heavyweight). There's about 20 other factors as well, but whatever.

 

Huh? For every ten thousand people who compete in a sport, there's one who's good enough to go pro. That doesn't mean that the other 9,999 aren't going to try to play the more popular sport that they don't have to go out of their way to play.

It's pretty telling that a huge chunk of current American heavyweights are guys who focused on other sports through college and then picked up boxing once they were done with college and figured out they weren't good enough to go pro in that sport (e.g., Derric Rossy, Brian Minto, Seth Mitchell, Ray Austin, Tye Fields, etc.). These guys almost never pan out, in large part because they picked up the sport so late so don't have the opportunity to develop the technical skills in time.

 

Did you actually look at the names of the gyms? 2/3 of them are either fitness gyms that have a boxing component, or "martial arts" gyms.

 

we have a huge sport called rugby for that, infact their are two versions,

 

No, you are ******ed.

Guys on the O and D line spend hours working on block technique, shifting guys off, swimming and ripping, cut blocking, pulling to block for a receiver, pass and rush blocking.

Backs have to memorize tons of different routes, running and receiving technique, how to respond to a defense with audibles and with their route, how to break and evade tackling...

they spend years working on this stuff, you don't know what the **** you're talking about, period.

Consider this: If boxing went back to having no weight classes, who do you think would win, for the most part? That's what it was like in England with Broughton's rules. Who was the first bareknuckle champ: James Figg. A 185lber, huge for the time. Size matters, in every sport. Especially in basketball where height makes both defense and scoring easier. In football added mass helps you move people on the line, absorb impact better, and taller receivers can catch a ball easier when defended by a shorter secondary. Of course size matters in boxing. That's why we have weight classes. That's why we measure reach, height, and fight night weight. That's why pound-for-pound is a relevant term.

 

China got the most golds but we got the most medals! They only won because of all the bow and arrow and boat rowing type competitions. And everything else you said is just blah blah blah bs. We have most delegations because we have more people and better qualified!

 

I understand that. But the percentage of kids who play rugby is much smaller than the percentage of kids who play football, basketball and baseball combined in the US, and all three sports place a premium on size.

But more of it has to do with access than anything. It's not just that American heavyweights are playing other sports (although they're more likely to stick with other sports long-term), it's that ALL Americans are playing other sports. Boxing is a difficult sport to access. There is no boxing in schools anywhere anymore (there used to be, once upon a time) because of liability readons. To start boxing, you need to go out of your way to find a boxing gym, which just isn't even an option for 90% of the country (because unless you happen to live within walking distance of a gym or in a huge city, our public transportation generally sucks). On the other hand, to play football or basketball, you just need to try out for the school-sponsored team, which is free. And while not that many folks can make it as a pro in those sports, at least they have the allure of giving out tens of thousands of college scholarships.

I'm not saying the situation is that much better in the UK either, but it's pretty damn different than most of the rest of Europe, all of South America, and Asia outside of Japan, where a kid would need to go out of his way to play any sport, so at least boxing is on a more level playing field.

BTW, I'm not one of these idiots saying the US is the dominant athletic force in the world. We have more people and like sports in general, so of course we'll do well in a lot of sports. Pound for pound though, Australia kicks everyone's ass. Seems like they have top athletes in just about every sport out there, which ain't bad for a country of 15 million people or so.

 

We got the most medals, that's considered dominating. Yes they got the most golds but we still domintated in top sports. They beat us in sports like... bow and arrow..

 

Arreola might not be the most asthetically pleasing, but he's no slob. He was nearly there against Adamek, and gave Klitschko a far better fight than any of his other last 6 opponents.

 

Not mention we shattered records in the olympics.

 

This is the thread you all need to check.

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=85168

Americans in general are not good at sports, they are just big that's all.:happy