Why has the Heavyweight Division lost it's umph?

I agree with most of the posters on this thread, there is just no personality in the heavyweight division. The 90's fighters were full of personality, and thats why the mainstream fans watched the Heavyweights. Now you have Euro fighters who just dont know how to hype a fight, which limits the amount of people willing to watch your fight because there is no excitement there.

I remember two summers ago when my friends all laughed at me because I wanted to spend the saturday night in watching the Hopkins/Wright fight, until the day before the fight they seen Hopkins smack Winky in the face at the weigh-in which was plastered all over sports center. Then all my friends decided they wanted to come over my place and watch the fight. I realized at that point why Tyson was so successful at getting the average person to watch him, not only was he exciting to watch in the ring, his personality was just as enertining.

We need more enertainers, Haye is a more recent example of how far your personality can take you. We need more hype in boxing, especially if we want to stop the young guys from going UFC instead of boxing.

 

Decline of "SKILLED" HW's. Most HY's out there today do not have the skill sets of HW's 15-20 years ago. They are all BIG and powerful, so they use those attributes to get by in a very weak HW division.

 

Exactly right. Like I said, the 90s scene had lots of bad stuff happen too, often out of the ring but sometimes in it.

But overall, added to the good stuff, it made for an entertaining mix. Many critics looked down on that kinda thing at the time such as Tyson or Golota's antics, as critics always do, but it did draw attention and make characters.

 

It's full of fat *******s and steroid abusers who are 30-40lbs overweight

 

The Heavyweight division died the night Tyson lost to Mcbride.

 

basically

 

The same complaints that people are posting in this thread are the EXACT same things that were being said when Larry Holmes was champion. The only thing that has changed from that particular point in time is that the champions and all the top challengers are not from America.

Hell, they said the same things after Dempsey and Tunney retired about the fighters that followed them (Carnera, Baer, Sharkey, Schmeiling etc.)

Boxing goes in cycles it always has.

 

I actually think its improving. Slowly.

 

:yep

 

Bingo. As always a dynamic champion is needed to stabilize, unifying and INSPIRE the division. with the exception of maybe joe louis, when there is a great champion, great challengers rise to the challenge. without one unifying force, heavies has no reason to exert themselves. why fight the best when you can fight a lesser fighter for what abouts to a regional belt?

 

larry holmes was actually ranked in the top 10 p4p list

 

I am not questioning Larry Holmes skills I was questioning his popularity with the fans, his boring and cautious at times style and his mediocre competition.

All which have been posted not only in this thread but in many others pertaining to the current Heavyweight era.

Mike Tyson came along and saved Boxing in the mid 1980's.