When interest was lost in the last two American HW's with some clout, Holyfield and Tyson. As great as Lewis was, he wasn't the type who kept fans coming for more. And it only got worse since.
I think all your points are on the money, but this point is off. What happened was a dumbing down of the American public cause the american public was not willing to follow boxing into the intricacies of divisions and champions and the actual process of the sweet science. So the rise of stars will always be there with the american public, examples of them are Ali, Leonard, Tyson, Foreman, DLH, and whoever follows him. So there will also be a mainstream following for those who can please the crowd and give people a bang for their buck.
So i guess the Fact that DLH surpassed Tyson as the All Time king in ppv sales doesnt count, huh? Numbers speak volumes, and his speak loudest of all.:deal
Boxing has always been popular with its fans. The fans remain. The reasons for boxing decline in popularity it three fold. First off the promoters need to stage more big fights. Secondly the media needs to stop their bitching. The USA is out of the heavyweight business, but that doesn’t mean the entire coverage of the Sport in North America has to suffer. Lastly, network TV’s on cable and PPV have forced Joe Average fan away from boxing.
It was around post WWII and the evolution of television. The start of the baby boom era saw a suburbanization of society away from city dwelling. Even some baseball franchises suffered from this effect. Vaudeville was completely destroyed. A lot of forms of live entertainment diminished with the advent of TV and the stay-at-home entertainment factor. Add in the rising popularity of professional football and basketball and suddenly boxing found itself drifting behind. City and towns that used to have as many as three boxing cards a week shrunk to monthly events. Boxing even disappeared from some towns altogether. Another factor was the post war economic boom saw the number of fighters in gyms drop off. Forced to embrace TV boxing saw a slight rise in the late 50's but some ring deaths almost sunk Friday night fights at the forum. Ali breathed some live back into it but it never came close to what boxing was in the first half of the 20th century.
From my point of view professional boxing has never been more popular(on a domestic scale anyway) , this is a similar case in places like Germany . As for America , probably the 70's , as pointed out with SRL and Tyson gaining back some interest and then interest fading after them . I feel things are picking up at the moment though and at the moment it seems the best are fighting the best , which helps draws fans to any sport .
