What's Your Opinion On "Modern Day Boxing ''?

That was an amazing fight and an amazing trilogy.

 

Most of us see it differently.
Although the population has expanded a lot, boxing gets a smaller share of the pie for money, media attention, TV broadcasts...
And less frequent (or more often unsuccessful) mega-fights.
Not dead, but boxing is injured.

 

If they come up with a Fury-Wilder 4, then I'm done with this sport. The greatest fights of The Fabulous Moolah would have more appeal IMO.

 

I'd be happier with more heavyweight championship fights. Things seem to move slower now, not happy with that at all.

 

If a Fury-Wilder 4 is all it will take for you to drop boxing completely - then you are very lucky not to have experienced the 1920s first hand. As a fan back then, you wouldn't have lasted very long!

 

When done right, it still has great moments, but overall it’s fairly poor now especially as you get beyond the bantamweight class where fighters fight more on social media than in the ring. Also, todays current scene fans are toxic as hell too.

 

Speaking of modern day boxing, what did you all think of Fimo-Martin the other week? I'm halfway through it and I don't agree with the hubbub about the decision. Martin could still turn it around though. He must have done something right to elicit the type of reaction from Lopez after the fight. All he's done apart from the flash knockdown is check hook and evade. Lopez is winning rounds just on aggression alone.

 

Pretty much same here. Why do people want to see a rerun? That is not a trilogy like Zale vs Graziano, or Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier. It is about a cry baby heavyweight that is pouting because no one cared about his title reign especially defending his title against 50 year old relics who came with Moses. Tyson Fury needs to say No to a fourth fight, give a more deserving heavyweight his just due, a title bout, Wilder is yesterday's news.

 

Now we all know, that it's very popular among "real" experts to put down the present. It has always been like that. No need to go through all the things that are wrong with boxing today, that we would like to change, if only we could. We have been over this many times, and are all aware of the many problems.

A lot of posters will mention the loss of the many boxing clubs that could be found in most major cities back in the day. But to see this decline in the US, as an indication that boxing is dying (or at least injured, as you say) is a very narrow-minded way of looking at things... when we know that today, there are more registered boxers, from more countries, taking part in more fights, than at any other time in the last 50-60 years. So worldwide boxing is doing very well.

Also, I find it almost comical, that some posters are prepared to give up on boxing - if we get a 4th Fury-Wilder fight! That would be the worst thing that could happen to boxing - really?? Those guys should be time-machined back to boxing's golden era, during the ND years... and forced to watch the top boxers carry each other in long, meaningless series of 6, 7, 8 (or more!) fights. Then I'm sure, four Fury-Wilder fights (where they actually try to beat each other!) suddenly wouldn't sound so bad!

I know, I've said this before... but It seems like a lot of people have no idea, how lucky they are to be around today!

 

You have a point about boxing's health internationally vs. in America.
However I want tos ee the stats on these things, compensating for the large growth in population.
Could be more participate & still a lower share of the whole pie.

But not everyone knows everything in this thread-even if we all agreed, which we do not.
If it was true there is no need to go through these issues, this thread would be pointless or destructive.
Which it is not; & just people agitating for change-including any issues, say politically, for access to resources & opportunities, for general freedom-in conversations means it will facilitate for pressure, planning & implementing change.

Whether the era where many fought the same guys often were "golden" depend upon who is defining golden.
BUT context is everything.
If guys were fighting so much more often-& actively looking to face the best opposition-it is usually much better overall.

Sure folks can be too extreme about something like the prospect of Fury-Wilder 1V.
But one can be grateful for the advantages of modern society-much easier to say if you are the favored/lucky nations/race/sex though...

And still recognize that things were better in some ways-& whole realms of experience were-at certain times.

 

The number of fights/fighters registered annually by BoxRec can be found here:
Total Bouts in the BoxRec Database: By Decade - Page 4 - BoxRec
As can be seen, these numbers have pretty much trippled over the last 50 years - far in excess of the population growth over the same time.

With regards to how many countries hosted pro boxing in the past, this can be found here:
BoxRec: Locations
Yes, I know... it takes a bit of work (and time) to find these numbers! But a little while back I looked at 1930 (boxing's busiest year) and 2018 - to get a rough idea of how the numbers have changed over this time. For 1930, 60 countries with pro boxing can be found in BoxRec's database - in 2018 the number is 118.

"If guys were fighting so much more often-& actively looking to face the best opposition-it is usually much better overall." Yes, back in the day, most top boxers had a lot more fights than today. Especially back in the 1920s and 30s, where 100+ fight pro careers were the order of the day - with some even having in excess of 200 fights.

Can we from this deduce, that those times were better than today? I think, this depends on how serious those many fights were. We're back in the ND era, so how interested would the many journeymen be, in going all out against each other- if no official verdict would be given, in case the fight lasted the full distance? Wouldn't it make more sense to take it easy - rather than risk injury, if the fight got too "serious"?

As for the top boxers, it was probably not much different. For sure, many of the fights were serious business, where both boxers gave their all - but in a lot, it seems that some of the best boxers were carrying each other. Take a look at these long series, involving some of the absolute top boxers:

Memphis Pal Moore - Joe Lynch x 10
Mike O'Dowd - Frank Carbone x 9
Pancho Villa - Mike Ballerino x 10
Jack Britton - Johnny Griffith x 9
Jack Britton - Soldier Bartfield x 8
Jack Dillon - Battling Levinsky x 10
Johnny Dundee - Joe Welling x 8
Benny Leonard - Johnny Dundee x 8
George Chip - Jack Dillon x 12

What I find interesting about this, is the fact that not a single one of these fights ended inside the distance - not by ko, tko, rtd or dq. Each and every one lasted the full scheduled distance!

So what can we make of this? Is it too crazy to think, that when boxers meet each other this many times, an agreement (spoken or unspoken) to not put too much hurt on each other could possibly develop? Certainly not in all fights, but in some this could surely have been the case, I would guess - unless, of course, all these oldtimers were unrealistically featherfisted!

 

How exactly are we lucky now, specifically in terms of boxing? I'm curious.

 

The sheer amount of belts in boxing today is one of the more irritating things. I remember watching a fight on ESPN+ where one of the analysts flat out said the belts don't matter, and they're just props, and laughing about it. The belts are supposed to be props in the fake sport of pro wrestling, not the real sport of boxing. It's an absolute shame, and it doesn't have to be this way. Simplifying the rankings and going back to eight divisions, getting rid of interim, super, and mega gigya ultra belt BS, it would help boxing so much, immediately, tomorrow. Greedy orgs need to think about the long term damage they are causing, not the short term profits of sanctioning fees.

 

The way we can easily follow boxing around the world. We are now able to watch all the big fights - if not live, then at least the following day on YouTube. Something we couldn't do just a few decades ago.

 

Boxing was a mainstream sport back then than you could easily follow via the regular news, and the numerous dedicated boxing magazines. not to mention there was something to actually follow.

Most big fights are complete duds now because the real fights don't get made. If boxing was as slow back then as it was now You could easily follow it.