The Decline of Boxing

These are all good suggestions.
Though I do think that we should have the CW division. Folks have gotten larger, it is unfair to have someone who cannot get down below 175 fight folks of any size, including those SHWs the better part of 100 lbs heavier. & most of it muscle, bone length width.

The other fixes proposed can limit fat guys, anyway as long as the best fight adipose tissue does not matter. Agguably we should have a SHW division above, say, 235-240 too. And optional unification bouts between the top 2 divisions. That might create an rooting & underdog interest.

But you can't fairly have guys who naturally weigh 175 to ~ 200 taking on all comers. Maybe let them choose to do so in the unification "True-HW" category I am proposing, though you may want to make sure they are at least 200 for the bout...

 

Burt, on a January evening in '73 I was watching TV when suddenly the announcer comes on with "We interrupt this station with a special sports bulletin. George Foreman has knocked out Joe Frazier in the 2nd round. We repeat, George Foreman has knocked out Joe Frazier in the 2nd round to win the heavyweight title. We now return you to our regularly scheduled program." Can you imagine that? We all were stunned, even my mom. We all knew them. Can you imagine them interrupting the Big Bang Theory with news of the Hopkins - Kovalev fight. Everyone today would stare at each other just as we did. But only to say, "Who's Hopkins?"

I pose this statement as another reason why the sport has declined. The sport is so diluted with champions, who really never learned their trade and in essence, would be club-fighters in a different era. These champions win and lose their titles regularly. For the most part they are not dominant and they don't fight often. So how do they develop a real fan base? I had this conversation with the late John Garfield once. We were on the same page. We had heroes. John's was Rocky Graziano. I think Burt's was too. Mine was Armando Muniz. Only someone who had a real fight hero can understand what it was like pacing before your fighter got into that ring, sweat beading and slipping imaginary punches while he was fighting. I still watch the fights and will always watch the fights. But I haven't had a hero in some time.

 

Its really the style a certain HW cossack brings opposed to not being American thats turns people away.
Thats backed up by the popularity of Kovalev and GGG.

Golota and Adamek were very popular in their day.

Fans want excitement , if a fighter brings it , his birth place is absolutely meaningless .

 

Boxing is nowhere near what it used be.

The number of licensed boxers is at an all time low. In the 70's it was in its highest , i think.

The prestige and the Glory is gone.

Floyd and Pac would of fought at least twice in any other era.

The HW division had been killed off by Wladimir and thus gives no youths inspiration to become HW Champ - the once richest and best prize in sport.

 

No dino,...it's his COMPETITION that's killing the division...the competition is dreadful,...just God awful...with one of the best in the bunch a legitimite CLOWN,...David Haye...that ******* would have been laughed out of the sport in bygone days. No, Wlad is just doing his job..he's doing what he's supposed to be doing....winning.

 

If its so bad (which it is) why doesn't he look impressive and blow through them all like Tyson did in the 80s? And why did he lose badly 3 times and have struggles with other woeful contenders?

He's no better than the bottom feeders in front of him.

1-2 head shot - hug-clinch. again and again and again.

That's not what boxing is about to most people.

 

I disagree ... box is in crisis worlwide. Sure there are countries and regions here and there where boxing is currently popular thanks to some popular figthers from those areas (Pacquiao in Philipines, Klitchko, Kovalek, etc. in eastern eruope), but overall, boxing is a pretty obscure sport nowadays.

During the 70 and 80 big fights would be in the coverup of newspapers worlwide, with news flash in radio and TV. Everybody knew that Frazier had beaten Ali, or thar Hagler and SRL were going to fight. There was excitement, suspense, action.

Today other than the cable and PPV crowd, nobody cares too much for boxing :think

 

I don't know of any sport in the U.S. today where a kid's dad could ever afford to take him to the "game" every night of the week, including Friday night, and then take the kid to a practice on Saturday.

I don't know if people years ago took their kids to baseball games every night, or hockey games every night, or boxing matches every night ... I realize tickets across the board for sports were cheaper then, but I'm sure it cost a small fortune to do it even at that time.

You were incredibly lucky.

Today, it would cost thousands of dollars a month to take a couple of people to any professional sporting event three/four/five times a week every week.

So it's not just boxing.

Also, you may have enjoyed yourself as a kid (who wouldn't ... it sounds amazing) ... but fighters fought so often back then because they didn't get paid much at all.

Archie Moore made $300 when he fought for the title against Maxim.

I'm sure everyone who was a boxing fan WHO DIDN'T live in New York kind of wished they could see all those fights that were taking place every night of the week.

Back then, if you didn't buy a ticket, 99 percent of the time you never saw it. (Unless they showed highlights on a newsreel and you happened to go to the movies that week.)

While it may suck for you not to have boxing all around your neighborhood and city, I'd say FAR MORE people watch boxing today than ever did back then.

Wlad Klitschko may be boring as hell, but how many people around the globe are going to see that Pulev fight this weekend from Germany?

HBO is showing it in the States. It's being shown in Germany, England, Russia, Bulgaria, etc. It'll be posted online within the hour for viewing or download. You can even watch it on your phone while your doing something else.

Hell, I'm sure more people IN NEW YORK will watch the Klitschko fight and the undercard than ever attended those small arena shows or a big Friday Night show that you attended with your dad.

It is so incredibly easy for everyone to watch boxing now ... if you're fan.

It does suck that it's not such a personal experience for some. I'm sure you treasure your memories of that time - and you should.

But boxing isn't "dead" now just because you can't attend a card every night of the week and the Times doesn't cover it wall to wall.

Back then, you couldn't watch a fight from England, Russia and Germany within minutes of it taking place, either. Hell, you couldn't watch the vast majority of fights taking place in any given week anywhere ... unless it took place in your town.

It's just different now. Some better, some worse. But for the majority of fans around the earth, it's better.

 

Tyson did that on the top level for what, two and a half years? Waldo is going on 9 years. His is a mature, educated style not the style of an impertinent youth.

I find him refreshing and predict we will see an army of eastern Euro heavies spurred on by the Bros. K incredible accomplishments.

 

They wouldn't break into a television show to give a boxing update today, that's true.

But if they had today's technology then, you could watch Foreman-Frazier on your phone while sitting in the room with your mom, who was watching TV.

And you could show her the KO right then ... instead of waiting two months for ABC's Wide World of Sports to get around showing it.

There were three TV channels then. The news aired for 30 minutes twice a day. Sports was allotted about 5 minutes on each news broadcast. Most newspapers had a morning and an evening edition, because there was no other way to tell people what the hell was happening.

In a thousand ways, it's better today.

In fact, back then you couldn't tell anyone outside your town how bad boxing had declined unless you wrote a letter to a boxing magazine and waited three months for them to (maybe) print your letter. And three months later, you'd get a reply from someone wanting to debate the point with you.

Today, you get to tell people what you think and get immediate feedback.

Like I said in an earlier post, in some ways it's worse, in others, it's better. But for most people, it's better now.

:thumbsup

 

If these eastern Euro heavies are like Golota or even Vitali , i don't see the problem.

If they are like Wlad , say goodbye to the sport.

9 years on top and not a memorable moment or half decent fight to his name.

 

This is the greatest of all possible worlds.

Wlad is absolutely at the fore of the discussion as the greatest of all time.

 

Casual fans don't know the name - Wladimir Klitschko.

A first in the history of HW Champions. Plus , he shouldn't even be champ after the Pov debacle.

 

Great fighters without many pro fights:
Floyd Mayweather Jr, Pernell Whitaker, Andre Ward, Miguel Cotto, Ray Leonard, Aaron Pryor, Salvador Sanchez, Joe Frazier, Carlos Palomino, Felix Trinidad, Oscar De La Hoya, Azuma Nelson, Alfonso Zamora, Wilfredo Gomez, Jeff Fenech, Rocky Marciano, Joe Calzaghe, Michael Spinks, Yoko Gushiken, James Jeffries, Jeff Chandler, Ray Mancini, Jiro Watanabe, Danny Lopez, Chang Jung-Koo, Yuh Myung-woo, etc.

Modern fighters with expansive amateur records:
Terry Norris (291-4)
Virgil Hill (250-11)
Mike McCallum (240-10)
Kennedy McKinney (214-13)
Aaron Pryor (204-16)
Tommy Morrison (202-20)
Pernell Whitaker (201-13) (Gold)
John Mugabi (195-5)
Michael Nunn (168-6)
Sugar Ray Leonard (165-5) (Gold)
Wilfredo Benitez (123-6)
Vasyl Lomachenko (396-1) ( Gold x2) (Gold x2, Silver)
Guillermo Rigondeaux (374-12) (Gold x2) (Gold x2)
Gennady Golovkin (345-5) (Silver) (Gold)
Matt Korobov (300-12) (Gold)
Adrien Broner (300-19)
Chris Byrd (275-19) (Silver)
Kostya Tszyu (259-11)
Sven Ottke (256-47-5)
Shane Mosley (250-16)
Vernon Forrest (225-15)
Oscar De La Hoya (223-5) (Gold)
Andre Dirrell (210-26) (Bronze)
Vassiliy Jirov (207-10) (Gold)
Vitali Klitschko (195-15)
Sergey Kovalev (193-22)
Evander Holyfield (160-14) (Bronze*)
Wladimir Klitschko (134-6) (Gold)
Alexander Povetkin (125–7) (Gold) (Gold)
Joe Calzaghe (121-9)
Roy Jones Jr. (121-13) (Silver*)
Andre Ward (115-5) (Gold)
Zab Judah (110-5)
Ivan Calderon (110-20)
Erik Morales (108-6)
Tomasz Adamek (108-12)
Diego Corrales (105-12)
Riddick Bowe (104-18 )
Amir Khan (101-9) (Silver)

Modern fighters seem to be getting all their experience, rounds, and losses in an expanded amateur career.

 

15% of the German public watched his fight with Povetkin. An estimated 60 million more Ruskies watched it.