The argument that American Heavies are "in other sports"

I'm not looking to slag off anyone's ideas for why there appears to be a decline in the quality of American Boxers, but I would like to get some opinions on a few things I am going to raise.

1. If NFL & NBA is the reason for the decline in quality of the American Heavyweight, what has changed to attract more kids to those sports in recent years, than the NFL & NBA were doing 30 years ago, as it was insanely popular then too?

2. Are scholarship opportunities for a kid(who might have gone into boxing) to go to College via a Grid Iron or Basketball scholarship much greater in the last 15 years, than was the case 30+ years ago?

 

You have no evidence to prove this.

You all seem to be using athletic nationalism to counter each others points, why don't you just skip the part where you are trying to make it relevant to boxing and have a broader argument about which is better Europe or the USA. I'm going with Bhutan.

 

Why would they?

Many pool competitions have big money stakes and any top 10 world snooker player could easily win those tournaments, because it's a much easier sport, yet they don't. They don't because it's not the sport they love - And no athlete or sports person in the world will ever be world class as a sport they aren't passionate about. Sport needs far too much dedication for that.

Johnny Wilkinson has been turning down the NFL for years for this reason.

Aside from that, it's not easy to make a transition to another sport. You say "no rugby player could go into the NFL" and the same applies to NFL players. They couldn't just come over here and be in any sort of decent team. I doubt they'd be good enough to get much beyond the non-pro teams, in fact. They'd be very limited. Rugby league players rarely make a successful transition to rugby union, so the idea that ruby players are inferior to NFL players because they couldn't make it in the NFL is way off the mark. Very, very few can make the transition.

 

If this or that,fact is it isnt,we have to deal with facts,a lot of great athletes in a lot of other sports,not only in american football or basket,this argument can be made for a lot of countries.
would they take a punch well?would they have stamina for boxing?would they quit after a rough sparring or match?


No one knows,the rest only happens inside your head.

 

Just for the record Jack Sharkey (Joseph Zukauskas) was Lithuanian. He took his name from Sailer Tom Sharkey.

 

You said that America wasnt producing any heavyweights, we had Sharkey, Baer, Braddock, and Joe Louis. 3 of the most popular heavyweights of any era. You have no idea what you are talking about.

First define what you mean by "warrior". You're quite ******ed and dont make alot of sense alot of the time so please show me what you mean by warrior.

 

You are counting Germany now?



Oh jesus, Europeans. :rofl

 

the usa got owned by china in 2008, that is all

 

You keep missing my point - The American view of the heavyweight division, was that it was in great decline in that era. Do you disagree?

It's part of your name, so why would I need to tell you what it means? "Warrior" is part of every boxing fans terminology and it doesn't need to be explained. Or shouldn't have to, anyway, but let's not get into the whole "floored" argument again.

 

Possibly never read anything on it. Provide a link if you can. The comparison between then and now as in which you tried to do originally is utter and complete nonsense. The division then was far stronger then it is now.

I just want to know what you mean in your vernacular. You are pretty weird dude and say alot of crazy ****.

For me a warrior is any one who puts on the gloves and steps into the ring risking his life and health. Thats a warrior to me. To others its guys that fight a particular style or leave it all in the ring every night. Of that today America has guys like Paul Williams, Tim Bradley, Devon Alexander, Brandon Rios, Shane Mosley, Andre Ward, Tavoris Cloud, Juan Diaz, Chris Arreola, Shannon Briggs ect ect.

But considering you never acknowledge this I want your definition.

 

I read it in two books about Louis. I saw an interview with Bert Sugar, also about Louis, where he said the same.

I agree the division was better then but that's not the point. The point is that in the general publics eyes, the division was weak, and that there's been a constant cycle of weak and strong divisions since the turn of the century, usually after a great division. The 70's was great, the 80's was very poor. The 90's was great, the 2000's were poor. It's cyclical.

So you consider every boxer a warrior? I agree everyone deserves respect but there's more to being a warrior than fighting at all.

 

There have been weak divisions. The Heavyweights were weak in the 50's. The Welterweight division was weak in the 70's. But comparing it to this is silly. You have cruiserweights making up half of the the top 10. This is the weakest the heavyweight division has been ever. Eddie Chambers would not be a top 10 heavyweight in any period ever.

I consider every boxer a warrior unless they do something outright embarrassing in the ring like Cintron against Martinez.

You risk your life in the ring every time out. In terms of warrior styles this era is not any different then any other in boxing history. Maybe in the 20's when only a select few boxers actually boxed.

 

If you were to believe the arguement that all big American athletes are in Nba and Nfl you could also argue that all the european heavyweights are in rugby, i dont agree with this arguement

 

European heavyweights have never been good. American heavyweights dominated the division and made boxing what it is today.

NFL players are superior to rugby players anyway.

 

no their not surperior its two different sports you cant compare them and by the way why dont you name some former American football players who were very succesful in boxing so?