The Decline of Boxing

Mucho Gracia Prime. Some of your northern neighbors think that
they will not age also. They are in for a rude awakening P.:good:good

 

I like Burt's stories and perspective just fine.

But he routinely misconstrues my posts or completely misses the point. That is not on me.

 

I see that being said in way too many sports to buy it fully.

That said, it's obvious that Boxing is not as popular as it was in the past.

 

I asked this before around here but no answer was given, and I think it is the type of thing that we need in those discussions, real international stats, not perceptions.
I don't care how many boxing gyms the city of Philadelphia had in the 50s, boxing is not about New York, Miami or Philadelphia.
I strongly suspect that there are more pro fighters around the world today than we had 50 years ago because even though boxing is not as popular as it was in a lot of countries, the population of these countries freaking triplicated.

 

I dont see how the BoxRec numbers (post #119) can be interpreted any other way!

 

I think these numbers are skewed. There is no doubt that in the first quarter or so of the 20th century there were FAR more fights. Therefore it stands to reason that more of those would be recorded. It was not uncommon for even journeyman fighters to have 200 fights. During the 1940s the sport declined largely due to the war. The 1950s and 60s saw the number of fights further decline because television began killed off small local clubs across the nation. This is a fact. Yet I would submit that there were still far more fights back then than there are now. I think the reason that you see the numbers take an uptick in the decades from 2000 to present is simply the fact that those dates coincide with people actively recording fights on the internet. You see very activity slip through the cracks there due to the information age. If you had that same reliability in record keeping from 1900 to 1980 you would see significant uptick in the amount of fights recorded for those decades which I think would show without a doubt that there were more far more fights in previous years. When you factor that in with the fact that the records from 2000 to present really represent a global snapshot, whereas records from countries that werent/arent known for boxing (but still staged boxing bouts on a regular basis) are very poorly represented with many of those historic bouts being lost to history currently.

 

Yeah, it's better than nothing but fighters fought much more in those days.
I want the number of pro fighters around the world, which I'm almost sure is higher today than ever before.

 

An interesting topic.
It is true, I'm sure that the vast majority who post here live in the UK or USA and for them there is little doubt that boxing has declined, in terms of Gyms, TV exposure, number of boxers, fights, media attention etc. for various reasons.
In most other regions of the World it has grown in almost all of these categories but we must be careful not to ignore the importance of these two very large boxing nations. However the advent of the formerly Communist countries has been a major boost as has the emerging fighters from the East. China, India and Africa still have a lot of growth potential.
The Boxrec stats, while interesting are as Klompton stated, undoubtedly skewed. Miles Templeton has amassed a large record of British boxing records and routinely he has usually double or treble the amount of fight that Boxrec have for the same fighters. And he hasn't anything like all the fights either. Many fights and fighters are lost for ever as their fights never made it into print or the publications themselves are missing.
My guess is that boxing worldwide is about the same as ever in terms of number of fighters, just spread way more evenly. The quality...a different argument but certainly styles are changing and evolving. Once upon a time a World title fight was a big event but only in Britain and it's former or then current colonies-the mainly English speaking World. Now in Thailand, or China or Mexico or Germany or Russia and so forth a title fight may still be big news, just the mainstream Western media have other events of note to cover.

 

Something to keep in mind is that record compilers have looked for results of bouts in old newspapers over the last forty or fifty years. I believe that such a task is far from being complete at the present time.

The quality and amount of newspaper coverage of local boxing cards varied to a great degree in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It is my understanding that the Philadelphia Item and the Pittsburgh Post devoted an incredible amount of space to results of bouts on a daily basis during boxing's heyday. But that would have been a rare exception.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Don't post these facts on here, it doesn't jive with the anything 20 years ago was 10x better argument. They'd have to ignore anything after the 40's. But i'm sure that there were tens of thousands of fights that boxrec managed to miss in recent history :nut

 

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Well, fights today are better documented than those even in recent history.

With that being said, these stats hurt both sides of the old timers vs. moderns argument. They demonstrate that boxing was at its best in a narrow range between about 1920 and 1940 -- a period most historians AND modern fans usually aren't interested in.

A world where "larger talent pools" mean everything is a world where Jack Sharkey beats the **** out of Ali and Lewis on the same night.

 

Better than the mysterious dark ages aka the 80's and 90's, for sure
I guess those guys were bums too. (ino you ^ are not saying this)

This outright disdain of contemporary boxing is a badge of honor for small niche in a niche sport. Bleh. Boxing history is so fun and rich, but it never made me think that i'm too sophisticated to enjoy the next generation.

This reminds me of the time when the cyber boxing zone shut down, and the few remaining posters were convinced that it was because of a general lack of interest in the sport.

Arc of boxing my ass. :rasta

 

To be fair, even the 80's-90's didn't have the ubiquitous internet. You'd occasionally see incorrect records in televised fights.

These days, even Charlie Zelenoff's "boxing" matches -- I use the term advisedly -- are carved in pixels for posterity, in all their sad mediocrity.

Yeah, boxing fans can be pretty elitist about the old timers (or moderns, sometimes), and it can get silly at its extreme edges.

 

good and accurate post, loads of fights, loads; and fighters too are lost to time... and boxing is declined no discussion required, and it has also both evolved and devolved again too, in terms of 'overall' excellence!

 

Indeed, Miles Templeton has many fights that aren't on boxrec and only recently I made a discovery even he hadn't for one of Jimmy Wilde's most prominent opponents that saw about 20 extra fights added to their record.