The Black Murderers’ Row, White Fighters and the Truth

All this is true, but another factor is the US had a much larger military establishment than prior to WWII. The military was another way out for poor kids, and often offered career training outside of combat training.

 

Clearly the main point is that white Americans largely abandoned boxing after the mid fifties.

A thought which has occurred to me about the recent fall off in black Americans among the top heavyweight boxers. I wonder what impact the drug laws and the crime bills of the 1990's which led to massive imprisonment of young black men had on boxing.

Just a question.

 

BoxRec has 6,800 American professional boxing events listed for 1929; 2,628 for 1940; 4,380 for 1946; 1,988 for 1950; 1,224 for 1955 and only 757 for 1960. In a way, that is evidence of a professional boxing meltdown in the United States.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Star power at the top of the sport (Ali and the heavyweights) provided great misdirection as to the declining overall boxing scene. People are surprised to hear that Ali's era was actually the low point for boxing from a participation standpoint because it produced, likely, the sport's biggest star. It was the boxing equivalent of the 1% making enough more to show overall growth while the middle class wages decline.

The fussing about the downfall of boxing in the U.S. didn't hit a crescendo until foreign heavyweights began to surpass the domestic ones, but the decline here was already in place for decades post WWII.

That's also why I don't view the 70's heavyweight scene as a golden age, as some do.

 

Chuck,

Many blame football and basketball for the decline in upper weight USA boxing. It's BS. No basketball player I ever saw made to a fringe contender status are an upper weight fighter. You could argue football steals some up and coming boxing talent, but I have not seen a football player who didn't make it in the NFL, make millions in boxing either.

The real culprit could be the decline in physical labor jobs, the fattening of Americans and the value of money offered for the first 15 or so fights of a person's career.

What would a typical journeyman make in the 1940's for a 10 round match, and what would that money be worth today? I don't know! Do you?

Back then, men were not as fat, they were in shape as their jobs demanded it, and when the fought, it was was worth something to them economically.

Today, upper weight journeyman boxers are too fat to be in shape and often buzz sawed by much harder hitting opponents. It's a bad proposition.