What happened to the popularity of boxing from the 70s to today?

I'm curious: If those figures were available, what do you think they could help us prove?

 

How can it be any kind of accurate measurement? With inflation being considered, the only real measurement you can use is how many buys there are for given cards.

 

Well, first it would obviously be a more be a direct representation of how many individual fighters there were rather than how many fights took place. (A direct figure is always more desirable than a proxy.)

The twenty fight marker is arbitrary but would help us more precisely gauge how many were career fighters as opposed to dilettantes who had two or three fights.

The weight class breakdown would tell us whether and to what extent certain eras had an uneven distribution of total participants across weight classes relative to other eras.

 

Ok, who was the last world class fighter to have over a 100 pro fights? 70? 60? Boxing maybe more world wide, and maybe were seeing it from an American point of view ( unlikely esp in my case) but boxing has declined WORLD wide is because even in poor countries, more people are much more aware of the risk of boxing. World class fighters dont fight 2-3 fights a month, plus God only knows how many exhibitions, and sparring was done within that same month. Boxing has declined simply because safety concerns are much more prevalent now than before . Plus, the money earned today, and the money actually kept by world class fighters
Is a big difference. World class fighters don't need to fight once or twice a month like back in the 70's and earlier to have a comfortable life. But. Without the experience that would come with multiple fights exhibitions, and hard sparring a month comes a cost of fighters not looking as good as they used too. Boxing has become a much safer sport then it used to be. But theirs a cost for that. In the 70's through the 80's their was at least 5 boxing gyms in my area alone. And 50 miles south of me their were world class gyms like 5th Street and Varricks in Dade co. Their are NONE now! The Amateur programs across the country are jokes today (When was the last time an American won a gold medal? But we have the best nutrition, best athletes in the world) So your opnion is basically everyone has caught up. But even in other countries were not seeing fighters with the abilities of a Duran, Nelson, Monzon, Papp, Napoles, Kyboashi, Watanabe, Tiger, Sanchez,Chavez, etc Just to name a few ATG talent from other countries. Boxing is watered down with all the multiple titles and money earned by below average fighters. It is a slowly dying sport on its death bed the last 20yrs or so.

 

This isn't adding up to me.

1)If world class fighters fought more often in the 70's, and there were more fighters, there would be more fights in the decade compared to today, not less. That's not the case.

Lets assume your point on higher activity in the 70's is true. If the average fighter is fighting fewer fights today, there can only be more total fights if more guys are boxing.

Thats not really a sign of a dying global sport to me, but an evolving one. Plenty of people don't like the change and confuse evolution with extinction because they like and miss the way things were. There's nothing wrong with that; it is the classic section, after all, and there were good things worth missing as things shifted.

2)There's numerous reasons for the domestic decline (and you've touched on some), but that is also juxtaposed against the rest of the world catching up and producing better talent, and more of it is able to go pro than ever. That's 100% my stance.

3) I'll emphasize again that there wasn't the talent pool available in the 70's to supply both a heavyweight and a 200 pound Cruiserweight division. If both divisions were combined today like it was then, it'd be considered absolutely stacked. That theres enough 200+ pound fighters to fill two divisions? Thats globalization at work. Those athletes are coming from somewhere, even if it's not here.

Take a look at the current Cruiserweight rankings: 8 of the 11 Ring rated Cruiserweights wouldn't have even been allowed to turn pro in the 1970's.

 

Rock0052 has already replied to this… so I'll restrict myself to just a couple of additional comments.

The last world class fighter with more than 100 pro fights under his belt? I don't know - nor do I see the relevance of this question. Are you implying, that old-timers with 100+ fights were (generally speaking, of course) better than today's boxers, who rarely go above 50 career fights? I don't really care, how many fights a boxers has on his CV - I'd much rater look at how good he is.

Take someone like Joe Louis: 6 months after his debut, he was already world ranked (#9 by The Ring). In his 2nd year as a pro he was blasting out guys like Carnera, King Levinsky, Baer, Uzcudun… and in doing so, exhibited skills never seen before (or after, for that matter!) in a heavyweight.

And, if given the chance, Sugar Ray Robinson could most likely have won a world title (at LW) in the first 12 months of his paid career. So if you're exceptionally talented, you don't need years and years of honing your skills and 100+ fights before you're ready for the big-time. If you're good, you're good… it's as simple as that!

You claim, that today we don't see fighters from other countries with the abilities of top foreign boxers from the past. Are you serious? In this decade alone, we've had boxers (from outside the US) like Pacquiao, Lomachenko, Rigondeaux, Usyk, GGG, Roman Gonzalez, Inoue, Canelo. Are you really saying, that we shouldn't rate these guys as highly as.....Papp, Kobayashi and Watanabe??

 

The top fighters nowaday just avoid each other resulting in one sided matches.

Americans are very insular when it comes to sport, if they're not doing well in a sport then they will not watch it. Just look at men's tennis in America in the last 10 years.

 

Your latter point would be true of any country, if you're being fair.

 

Not really, people in the U.K. will watch sports even if there is no home participant. Other European countries are also like this.

 

Really. They like American baseball, do they?

 

You keep adding in " The rest of the World" But where is the Durans, Monzons,Napoles,Gavilan,Watanabe, Galaxy,Papp,Chocolate, Chavez,Sanchez,A.Nelson, D Tiger, Pedroza, Griffith, and many other ATG's from the rest of the World". Its simple . Fighters are not fighting on that level in the " Rest of the World". Because if they were, the way Media is today everyone would know about him. I understand a lot of young and new fans to boxing have this mentality of if its newer it's better. It maybe so with cars and telephones. But boxing is the ultimate sport of timing, skills , technique and physical ability. There are some great athletes today but skill level,timing and technique are completely missing in most World championship fighters today . What does it say about the competitors? Question? Where are the super slick fighters like Pep,Papp,Whitaker, Davis jr, Camacho Sr. Laguana, Fighters so skilled it seemed as they knew what their opponents would do before they thought of doing it? Fighters who were instinctive? How did they get that way? They got that way by hrs,yrs of sparring, not just hitting speed bags,punching bags and mitts. Also, they had trainers smart enough to see what they ( the fighter) was good at and focused in on that skill. They didn't turn G.Foreman to M.Ali. Where are the vicious punchers? The Mugabi's Formans, Jackson,Olivares, D.Lopez,Marciano,Galaxy, of yesteryear in in today's game? They dont exist because punching like everything else in boxing is not purely about physical strength, it's also about timing, technique, and deception. Sure Joshua or Wilder probably could bench press more than Tyson,Liston,Shavers,Liston , Louis ,Marciano or Lyle but could they punch with the snap of said fighters without winding up? Winding up is telegraphing and a well schooled fighter would beat them to the punch everytime. Lomo, Wilder,Joshua are better athletes than their opponents, and better skilled. But the competition is extremely weak. It's easy to look great against a not very good.

 

Baseball has never been popular here in the U.K. ever. The original poster asked why is boxing not so popular in America like it was in the 70s. Two completely different things.

 

Look, you're the one that said sports fans across the pond would watch anything, not me.

 

It is easy to bias your argument when you lump fighters from different eras together and then use that extended list to compare to today. Right now there are exceptional talents (Lomachenko, Crawford, Spence, Golovkin, Canelo, Inoue, Usyk plus perhaps a few others) just like there always has been. I mean Lomachenko is arguably the best amateur boxer of all time.

 

They will watch sports that are popular in the U.K. like Football(soccer), Rugby, Athletics, Tennis, Boxing even if non U.K. citizens are taking part not obscure sports like Baseball or NFL.