Three reasons boxing's declining popularity won't be reversed any time soon

I think ur wrong. We just had the 2 best Junior Featherweights fight 3 times in a year,Hopkins-Wright where both top 5 p4p when they fought in July,Marquez-Pacquiao were also top 5 p4p when they fought 2 weeks ago,Mosley and Cotto couldnt get Mayweather so they being 2 and 3 fought each other last year,2 Heavyweight titles were recently unified,for years we wondered about Pac/Barrera 2 and it finally happened in October,in the last year Mormeck fought Bell,Haye fought Mormeck and Haye fought Enzo so the best cruisers are fighting,April 12th possibly 4 of the the top 5 Light Heavys are fighting each other and a few weeks later Ring 175 Champ B-Hop is facing Ring 168 Champ Calzaghe,Taylor-Pavlik just fought each other twice when they were both each others number one rated challenger by Ring and everyones opinion.

 

One good year out of 9+ declining is a hard case to make.

 

Boxing will survive, and perhaps even increase in popularity. But the general point in the OP is correct, it will never again be the mainstream sport that it was in the early to middle decades of the 20th century.

 

I agree boxing will never die, it's just too bad the way it's run.....it makes it difficult to be taken serious as a sport. Ask anybody who knows anything about Don King, what is their response?....corruption is one of the responses you will likely get. It's hard to take a sport serious when you have him in the ring waving various flags.

 

i think the main problem is not enough big fights are made

also fighters fighting less than 2 times a year absolutely blows. you should fight at least 3 times a year

 

Going to continue to decline in the U.S. I posted this already..

Go to your local city college and see if you can find a college boxing team. Find out how many government funded after-school boxing programs there are, vs something like an afterschool basketball program, or gridiron (american football)

Most athletic kids are playing basketball, football, or baseball.. People who are into combat sports by nature are more attracted to the variety of mixed martial arts.

Boxing, with all the money promoters have made, does not re-invest in itself considering things like money generated by ppv.. Its not getting any help from the government these days because of insurance, and that our society views the sport as dangerous, AND kids would rather throw a ball around than risk so much with boxing.. So many boxers are exploited, the sport is so damned crooked that... Well, why the **** would you want to be part of it?

I want to grow up and be like Ali?

Seen many fights lately? Ever picture yourself in the shoes of someone who deserved a fairly good payday, but got outright robbed? Yep, thats just as attractive as anything.. Would you want to take your son to a boxing gym and encourage him to go pro after seeing tonights fight?

You sit there and watch this fighter with your son, then try to explain how the hell the scoring system works. You want to be part of a sport like that?

 

Where do you get that? How was that measured?

 

Also fight fans (and promoters) are doing such a poor job of developing, marketing and hyping up new fighters.

If you need evidence...notice how a faded RJJ vs a barely coherent Tito did ridiculous numbers compared to a fight between say Pavlik and Taylor.

 

Reason # 289:
As long as Don King is active in boxing there will be a dark shadow of coruption on the sport.

 

exactly. Do you know the impact that boxing will have in countries like the filipines because of pacquiao. Or how about PR with Tito and Cotto which is pretty much PRs national sport. UK is pumping out mad champions and their current champs have a lot to do with that. American's don't get hyped up about their American fighters. It can deteriorate in the USA but it isn't deteriorating anywhere else. Imagine if Cubans are allowed to fight pro? it would be a HUGE boost for boxing.

 

Actually, guys, I have some good news. The Golden Gloves local and regional tournaments have started getting underway (Nationals are May 5-10 in Grand Rapids) and in places like Chicago, NYC, and Michigan they are experiencing record turn out this year, in terms of fans and number of competitors. And these are just at local semi-finals and finals, not even their state or regional finals. I think at one event in Western MI fan turnout was at about 2,000. So it's not all doom and gloom, we're getting a lot of fresh new competitors coming into the system and coming up, along with people watching these amateurs; and as they go along hopefully they'll be interested in watching these guys progress as pros and watching other pro fights.

 

If the best continue/begin to fight the best, boxing will be fine

 

Yes. State Golden Gloves tomorrow. Might be uncontested at 165; and then Regionals in two weeks. And maybe another match in between; maybe fight the state 152 tomorrow if neither of us has fights and I come in low enough.