The "Decline" Of Boxing - Your Opinion

fists of fury · Sep 22, 2008

ChrisPontius said:

I think this point is worth repeating. People have a way of forming their opinion first, unconsciously through emotion, and then find reasons for it; not the other way around. Of course the average Classic Boxing poster, who thinks about and loves the battles fought during his youth, is going to say the old days were better. And in the general forum you'll find exactly the opposite opinion where they'll state that we look at history with rose colored glasses. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

Two things, however, are undeniably true:

1.

In America, boxing is becoming less and less popular as a mainstream sport. The fact that there's no longer one true world champion has had it's bad influence. The fact that there's so few American champions and as good as no new American top heavyweights no doubt has had it's influence. It would have for any sport that was nationally dominated for a century.

But there's more to it than that. I believe the main reason is that society is changing, and in a bad way. We are all wussy-fying. In the old days, disciplining your kids was normal and there was respect for teachers, parents, etc. Today, if you as much as shout, you risk having your ass sued off, receiving anger management, counseling, etc etc. Boxing is violent and as such is losing support.

People used to live in much harder circumstances and today's generation is spoiled like hell. You don't have to go to the post office anymore to send a letter, just send an email. Who needs to go to the library and do some hard worked research when you can find anything on the Internet? Who needs to be able to read maps and find locations when a GPS machine with a voice sexier than your girlfriend will just give you directions?

As a consquence of this, people these days have a very short attention span and constantly need new things. Now, boxing has many layers to it that easily escape the untrained eye. Long term strategy, ring generalship, footwork, etc. It takes time to appreciate this and 12 (let alone 15) rounds can be a long time if you don't get it.

And this is where MMA comes in. It's fast, only has 3 or 4 round fights and is closer to a "real" fight. This is appealing to people. They don't care that outside of Fedor, barely any fighter can keep a few-fight winning streak and professional fighters will lose to TV celebrities taking up MMA. MMA is boxing, kickboxing, Judo, and more. More is better. They don't know or care that boxing by itself is incredibly difficult, which is why no one can really master the mix of those sports and look unbeatable. Plus, MMA fighters are bigger, look buff and the way many people imagine a fighter to look, Hollywood-like if you will. The irony of course is that a beast looking guy like Bob Sapp isn't worth a dime as a fighter, while Fedor looks like your average bus driver.

That is just American, however. In Europe, boxing is very popular. Every other weekend, there's boxing on (free) mainstream channels in Germany, with boxers from all over the world though mostly Eastern Europe.

2.

We have had absolutely fantastic boxing matches in the last few years. Vasquez - R. Marquez is arguably the best trilogy of all time. Coralles-Castillo ranks up there with just about any great fight. Katsidiz - Casamayor was exciting and had everything you could wish for. Pavlik vs Taylor I was excellent. Pacquiao - J.M. Marquez will go down as classics. The heavyweight division is lacking, but even there, we've had wars like Liakhovic-Brewster, exciting fights like Virchis-Bidenko, W. Klitschko vs Peter, Sanders vs Klitschko (both) and Lewis-V. Klitschko is still a heavy point of discussion four years after.
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Good points overall Chris.

Two things:

1) In some ways our cultures are 'wussifying' (nice term) but in some ways it's actually become more violent, or at least we have become more desensitized to violence.
It's arguable that to the layman, MMA is more violent than boxing, yet it's very popular.

2) I personally don't believe MMA or any other such sport is to blame for boxing's decline. All MMA did was take advantage when boxing was busy shooting itself in the foot.
The big Philly gyms and fight arenas were closing down before MMA even arrived. Same in Miami etc.

Honestly, the alphabet groups, lack of core marketing and losing the mainstream sports fan would be my pick.

r_9-Ronaldo · Sep 22, 2008

joe calzaghe is probably the greatest smw of all time because there isn't really any other fighter who even lays claim to the super middlweight division, it was virtually a dead weightclass stuck between middle and light heavy, it really has no history and is pretty much a new weight class

la-califa · Sep 22, 2008

When it started to not be in the mainstream. Namely Television. When is the last time A good Boxing match was aired on network television on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon?? Some of those matches we used to watch on ABC,NBC or CBS. Would be on Pay per View right now.

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The "Decline" Of Boxing - Your Opinion

fists of fury Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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The "Decline" Of Boxing - Your Opinion

fists of fury Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

r_9-Ronaldo Shinny Shadez Full Member

la-califa Boxing Addict Full Member