The dramatic decline of South Korean Boxing

The countries or places within countries that produce large numbers of quality fighters tend to those where the needs of the people aren't being met. There aren't as many opportunities to be successful. People are fighting to get ahead. Where there are more opportunities to have a successful career and a good life, there tend to be fewer fighters.

South Korea was coming out of a civil war in the second half of the 20th century. In Korea as a whole in the 1950s, only 20 percent of the population could read and write. So it made sense that they began producing a lot of top fighters.

There are probably more opportunities now in that country for younger people. I just checked and their unemployment rate is like 2%. You probably don't need to get your brains pounded to make a good living.

 

wealth for sure.

being the largest male cosmetics market on earth is prob a good indicator of where young mens minds are at.

 

Ouch.

K-Pop KO1 Boxing.

 

Demographics.

South Korea has a very small young population today.

 

Nah, sounds great but I doubt it is that. There is simply not young people in Korea anymore.... yes, the young population has never been so small.

 

I don't know about middle class or higher in the U.S.

In most sports in the U.S. - baseball, football, basketball - you see a lot of former big-time pros who have sons who also become big-time pros.

In fact, scouts follow the sons of guys who played and excelled in Major League Baseball, the National Baskeball Association and the National Football League while those children are growing up ... to see if they take after dear old dad. Because not only do many take up the same sport as their dad, they tend to be really successful at it as well. Like it's in the genes.

I was watching the recent NFL draft, and I think the sons of three or four former NFL players were taken in the first couple rounds. And they'll start this year.

In boxing, once a guy becomes a wildly succesful pro fighter, usually the last thing his son does is also become a wildly successful pro fighter. Most don't box at all.

In fact, considering how dominant the US was for so long in many of the weight classes during the 20th century, I can't even think off the top of my head of a US world champion whose son also became a world champ. Out of all those world champions from the US, how many had sons who were also world champions? The percentage has to be ridiculously small.

But, in the other major sports in the US, sons become champions like their dads did all the time.

I know there were some from Mexico, like Julio Cesar Chavez and his son, and the UK, like Chris Eubank and his son (kind of), but really not so much in the US. Tracy Harris Patterson won a title, but Floyd Patterson adopted Tracy Harris when he was a grown man. He wasn't actually Floyd's son.

People who have a lot going on don't tend to become great pro fighters. There usually has to be some sense of desperate circumstances there.

Like Hagler said about how difficult it is to continue training when you're wearing silk pajamas ... well, it's difificult to become a fighter at all if you grew up wearing silk pajamas, apparently.

But not so much with the other sports. Maybe because you don't "play" boxing, like you do in the other sports.

 

i'm sure that's a factor too.

 

Could be.

But take a look at some patterns here........ France, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, USA..... all these countries have healthy age demographics in population still.......

Now, Brazil, Germany, South Korea, Italy, New Zealand....... do not anymore, their younger population is so small compared with back then.

Hey think about a second about who is dominating...... Football, Rugby, Basketball, Combat Sports..... you see what I see here ?

 

not to the extent you do i think. smaller talent pool = worse results, that's indisputable, but japan has the same demographics problems and exists happily in the combat sports world.

 

tbf they had entries in 10 of the 13 classes at this years iba's, so people are still fighting.

 

I believe Leon Spinks son, Cory, was a welterweight and junior middleweight world titlist for awhile.

 

You are right.

I don't think Cory grew up in the lap of luxury, however. I don't even think Leon was around.

But Leon and Cory were both world champs.