The next great American heavyweight!!!!

That's pretty much what i was saying also.

 

Sonny Liston was slow, plodding, and didn't have handspeed either.

Saying none of the hundreds upon hundreds of great athletes in basketball/football wouldn't make it big in boxing is absurd. If you are in the US you know how little publicity the sport gets and know how few people actually care or know anything about boxing. They are playing other sports because that is what people are growing up practicing, getting encouraged to do, not box.

 

True.

 

People who say otherwise are lying or ignorant of how little anyone cares about boxing over here. I'm in high school and play multiple sports and I know NO ONE that boxes in my high school, or other schools near by. It just simply isn't a sport people try out or care about.

 

I didn't reply to that because although I see your point, at the end of the day, all that matters is that they're not in the sport. A guy not in boxing because he's a manager at Taco Bell, a lawyer, or an NBA point guard all ring up the same way.

What I mean when I say boxers aren't drawn from the same talent pool as NBA or NFL players, is that it's as much mental as it is physical. The top talent in both football and basketball is identified at such an early age and showered with attention for it, that I don't think they'd ever have a proper fighter's mentality because they're treated as if they're on top of the world. Tell that to a teenager enough times, and they're going to buy it even though most never make it to the pro level.

Then, you get the young athletes that fall through the cracks- they're either too poor, are in a shitty environment, have too much baggage, don't project well to other sports, or genuinely just love boxing. This is the pool that US boxing draws from with a few exceptions, and it's been that way since the sport began here. Take Ali, Frazier, Holmes, Tyson, and Holyfield-5 of the most notable US heavies in recent history- and not one of them ever projected to another sport or was in danger of getting "poached", because those weren't the kids football and basketball scouts were looking for.

The next US Heavyweight boxing star is out there right now, and he doesn't have a college scout drooling over him and 20 colleges texting, calling, and giving him gifts off the books- he's just someone who's a born fighter who might not even know it if there's not a gym close to home to get to. Or, you know what? Maybe that kid's already at the gym busting his ass to make it big, knowing that the next great US Heavyweight champ can get 10 million + a fight and the respect of bringing the belt back if he succeeds.

On a broader scope, it's the lack of boxing gyms and better economics that lessen the overall numbers of every division today, not just the Heavyweights- which is why I'm so adament that it's not the NBA or NFL, because we'd still have an abundance of fighters at Cruiserweight and below if that were the case. But, I'm an eternal optimist-and just because there's fewer overall numbers, doesn't mean that the ones that are there working their asses off can't achieve greatness just the same. After all, it only takes 3-4 great fighters to take a weight class from average to spectacular.

Eventually, we'll get a couple of great heavyweights back and people won't need to pretend that Lebron James can take a punch. It always runs in cycles.

 

Deion Sanders could fight a bit.. But he was not as mobile or well grounded enough to go past a certain level..

 

WHAT!!!

Sanders had incredibly light feet. He was one of the most physically gifted athletes to ever play football.

 

:huh

 

What point would that be?

 

No handspeed.

Kendall Gill didn't look terrible when he tried fighting a few times after retiring.

Someone like Darvin Ham would have made a great boxer.

With his quickness and pain tolerance, AI would probably have been a helluva boxer, had he gone into boxing instead. But then again, he probably would have been elite at almost any sport he tried. He was a freak of nature in his prime.

 

I think in the heavier amateur weight classes, this would ring true from middleweight on up (165 and up). You can say all you want about football or basketball players not having the mental fortitude or chin to succeed in boxing, but guess what? That's only speculation or inference. All you know for sure is that guy like Lebron James is athletic enough to compete. Whether or not he would succeed is only a guess. Therefore, it's safe to say that American boxing loses out on a lot of PROSPECTS because they choose to play other sports (soccer suffers as well due to this).

Now in the weight classes 165 and below is a different story. There is only a small handful of professional baseball, basketball, football, or even hockey players in each sport under 165 pounds. This means in my opinion that our best athletes in these weight classes haven't been poached by other sports. Therefore, I can see why we don't have any dominant heavies, but for us to not to be dominant or at least competitive in classes from super welter and below is no excuse.

Seriously, the last successful American Olympians in bantam and below to do anything in the pros are Tim Austin and Brian Viloria. Austin had a solid career, but Viloria was a one and done in terms of defending his belt. Floyd was an Olympic feather and De La Hoya a lightweight. But that's about it, and those two fought in 92 and 96, a long time ago.

 

Exactly. People don't understand the Oak.

You are right about Darvin. I didn't think about him.

I would work with him and Mason. Those are the two best prospects through the years.

 

We are good in the lighter weights. At strawweight, flyweight etc. we aren't as strong obviously because you have to be a midget to be that size and suffer from lack of proper food as a child which few in the US nowadays suffer from.

 

My solution would be to overhaul USA Boxing, and like what Kolya said, bring in a former Cuban, Russian, or Eastern European coach to act at least as a consultant.

And when you say this plan is madness, the USA Basketball team did the same thing in hiring consultants and coaches with vast foreign experience (like Mike D'Antoni, current Knicks coach and former Italian League coach) because like in boxing, we are having problems adjusting to the international game.