Are we the last generation of boxing fans?

After last night where the world saw the "elite" boxer get punked in the cage and with boxing basically dying here in the States with nobody worth a sh*t coming up, is it time to wave the white flag and kiss the sport goodbye?
Looking at the average age of the heavyweights(mostly just retirees) and the little guys who won't fight eachother and with the younger generation not giving a crap about the sport at all, I think boxing will die in the States with us guys here on FightBeat and the few other boards out there. And there aren't too many spring chickens on this board if you know what I mean. Once we're done, the sport is done.
You guys think so?

 

PPV and this "risk and reward" mentality is effectively killing the sport. This 0 protection and coddling of prospects. This one party rule as in HBO. Boxing does need to reinvent itself.

 

The only thing "elite" about James Toney is his belly.

 

Bullshit. The Americans might be the last generation of AMERICAN boxing fans. Just because the yanks are sat in their own little puddle of doubt doesn't mean the rest of th world is.

For Europe, The Philippines, Thailand, Japan, and other localities, it is a great time for boxing, and there are millions of fans.

 

Very true. It's a big world out there. I do wish that HBO would go bankrupt though and ppv go the way of the dodo bird. It's like the fox guarding the chicken house.

 

Boxing needs a major structural overhaul. The BIGGEST problem is the impossibility of growing any kind of market share when next to nothing worth watching is available to anybody who isn't already committed enough to buy a pay per view.

Maybe champions being compelled to fight a free TV non title fight per year as part of their tenure or some shit. Im sure fighting 3 times a year isn't suddenly beyond the capabilities modern fighters, especially if the extra fight's are relative gimmes. I really don't know. I think brainstorming this might be an unusually non-pointless use of our collective time here.

 

The effort of putting an ethno-cultural spin on everything is mushing your brain if you think this is a 'great' time for boxing.

 

Perhaps it would.

Don King's diminishing presence in the sport has coincided with it going down in the US. I don't believe that to be a coincidence, but a reason.

 

Irish is correct, and include Mexico in that list as well, they love and idolize their boxers.

Karl

 

Don King has nothing to do with boxing's fold. The last time he was relevant was Tito. I agree with the Irish. We in North America seem to think the buck stops here. Look up the definition of geocentric and theirs a picture of the North American continent. HBO is a parasite and as fast as they crash the better. I'm surprised they don't have their own belt.

 

Don King is the best promoter the sport has ever had. Who has stepped up to fill his shoes? Bob 'can't make a shittier undercard' Arum? Oscar? To date, no one in the us.

 

Phillipines- Pacquaio fans, I've talked to several Pinoys online, and their obsession with boxing was limited to Pacquaio and like two other well know Filipino. One didn't even know who Shane Mosely.

Thailand - Sport is utterly overshadowed by Muy Thai, wouldn't surprise me if MMA became more popular there, so the Thai generation could apply Muy Thai to other sports.

Mexico- Im a regular at Mexifanatics and they certainly don't idolize any of the new Mexican boxers. All they do is complain about the lack therof.

Japan- Well behind pro wrestling and MMA.

"Europe"- In the few parts of Europe it is popular it's still not that big. Most of the Klitschko fights are filled with 30+ year old, rich, social elites.

 

I'm not denying what DK has done as promoter in the past. I'm shocked that he is not dead.

 

There's definitely a point here with regard to King's decline...considering that there aren't a lot of good "promoters" that can actually promote (meaning do more than line up a venue and a television channel).

King and Arum are still the two best promoters in the sport, but King rarely promotes these days and while Arum is busy, he doesn't promote a lot of black/white American fighters if they don't have an obvious base behind them.

The Top Rank stable is primarily Mexican/Mexican American, Puerto Ricans, with some Cuban and Filipino fighters.

So, much of the top American talent is left to a mostly poor group of American promoters, or stuck trying to find a promoter elsewhere.

Golden Boy can sign talent, and give them venues and television dates, but they're not cut out to bring a lot of prospects along from the early stages of their careers to a title shot and beyond.

Gary Shaw is so inept at promoting in the States he was talking before Pascal-Dawson of promoting Dawson in Canada.

It's not just Don King, though...you can take a look at the decline of Main Events after the death of Dan Duva and everything that went on there.

 

Demetrius Andrade and Gary Russell Jr. were two of the best looking American prospects to come out of the last Olympics...it's been two years now...how many people have even seen them fight?

And they were considered to be among the best on the team.

 

:shit:

Like it or Not, America is the MECCA of Professional Boxing, Homey...

YOUR Precious Joe Calzaghe (& Most Other Non-American Fighters) KNEW that the Route to Universal Prizefighting ACCEPTANCE Traveled Thru AMERICA...

Lennox Lewis, Prince Naseem Hamed, Ricky Hatton, Carl Froch, Arthur Abraham, the Brothers Klit, Manny Pac & just about EVERY Prominent Mexican Fighter U Can Name...

The Bottom Line is, if Boxing is Doing Good in America, that's Good for EVERYBODY In the Sport...So Let's NOT Pretend that this ISN'T the Case...



REED:shit:

 

I think Pacquiao is a separate case from some of the other names you mentioned because he's from the Phillipines, a poorer country than the ones where a lot of the fighters you mentioned are from and/or based out of.

Acceptance and money are two different things, and while Calzaghe gained some of both by fighting in the US, he did so at the very end of his career, after a long career in the the UK, and did so against two fighters that established themselves during a previous era.

There's a far smaller number of American fighters from this era that can bring fighters over here with the lure of those kind of paydays.

Abraham did want to fight in the US before the tournament, but resumed fighting in Germany after the Miranda rematch (which is pretty much what the Klitschko's have done, as well...although a fight with Adamek might be enough to stage a fight in the US...a fight with Haye would be in Europe).

Abraham, Froch and Kessler are interesting cases, because they have fought in the US as part of a tournament...but that wasn't for an individual fight, it was part of the Super Six...and I don't see how you could argue that it wasn't the inclusion of those three non-Americans that brought more acceptance to the tournament than the American fighters (Ward, Dirrell, and Taylor).

And the Super Six discussion doesn't even include Bute, a non-US based fighter who is a bigger gate attraction than Ward or Direll are.

 

Germany, Russia, Puerto Rico, Central and South America, and the Philippines/Thailand.

That's one hell of a spread.

Ironically........it is the American-Centrism that I am railing against. You've not been watching your Oliver Stone interviews.:warning:

American fighters suck. Therefore boxing is dying. This is the American viewpoint, which they then, rather rudely, transpose onto the rest of the fucking world.

The Klitschkos are fighting on free TV in Germany in front of 45,000 people.....so the restructuring you refer to already exists.

PPV, especially for shit, splintered titles, is killing boxing. Where does it exist in it's most rampant virulent form? The USA.:boring:

 

And???????????

What's your point?

I said that the impression that boxing was dying was derived from internal American issues, and then transposed onto the rest of the fight game.

It was this I was disagreeing with. The failure of certain favourite American fighters to make the grade does not mean the sport is dying.

That was the point. That alone was the point.

 

I disagree. PPV without titles on the line hurts the sport far more than title fights being on the cards.

 

I think you are missing the point.

The question pertains to whether we are the last generation of boxing fans.

Clearly, the answer is no. The world has a population of 7billion, rapidly rising. The United States constitutes 5% of that.

Whilst the Pinoys once satisfied themselves with the Gerry Penalosas and the Luisito Espinosas of this world.......they have now made a National Treasure of Manny Pacquaio.

Was Penalosa-Mania or Espinosa-Mania akin to Pacquaio-Mania? Were the fans of Elorde, of Penalosa, of Espinosa the last fans of boxing in the Philippines? Clearly not.

The fact that the fans of Pacquaio have not heard of Mosley is irrelevant. They watch Pacquaio in their tens of millions. They are a generation of boxing fans who DWARF the generation that followed Penalosa etc.

In a backhanded way, you prove my point. Muay-Thai, as over-bearing, and all consuming a national sport as it is, still cannot stop the emergence of many World Champions in the sport of boxing. In fact, it has often thrown up many converts to the sport of boxing, who then attract many fans.

The very fact that there is a website called "MexiFANATICS" would indicated there are fans.:hump:

And still, at that, it produces champions and champions means fans.

Yes. 50,000 rich social elites.:giggle: As if. We are talking motherfucking FANS here. Are the the last generation of fucking fans? NO!! There was no mention of their social class, age, colour, wealth, health etc.

British and Irish amateur programmes are thriving. Boxing is now televised in Ireland on a regular basis, with free live streams on the national website. That never used to happen. Bernard Dunne, an average fighter, was packing in the fans, 7000 at a time. W

No way we are the last generation of fans.

But HBO has milked the cow dry and now thinks shakes are a thing of the past. GO FIGURE.

 

I thought the Klitschko regularly do above 10 million viewers in Germany for their fights...well, at least with Vitali, I've read some of his fights do 12-13 million viewers.

 

Lethwei > Muay Thai

However, yes it is in a bad state in America. It is thriving elsewhere, it's a world sport you have to remember. This has been a particuarly bad year for boxing which makes it looks even worse, but there will be a huge surge in interest if the biggest fight in history ends up happening somehow. Things will get better.

 

They do on the tele. I was talking stadia attendances.

Vitali vs Arreola, did 2m on HBO free.

There is no shortage of fans.

Everyone loves a good clean fist-fight.

What we have is an American-centric concern about the state of AMERICAN boxing, which they confuse with REST OF FUCKING WORLD

 

I know, I was talking about the 12-13 million "30+ year old, rich, social elites" that can't get in.

 

Irish did you read the Boxing Monthly article about how the Klitschkos are ruining German boxing by putting on entertainment shows before their fights?

 

Boxing is not as strong in the USA as it used to be, and the problem has been augmented by three things:

1. Denial and confusion. First they deny there is a problem. Then they confuse the problem as involving the rest of the world, which it doesn't.

2. Profiteering in the TV sector, producing cards which are not fan-friendly and which sponsor non-progressive promotional outfits, like Oscar and his recent ripping off of Ortiz in NYC.

3. Refusal to grant credit to the non-American opposition, preferring to make up excuses about basketball and football etc etc. Americans think that because they have fallen out of love with their fighters that everyone else has too.

Shit fighters have fans, the same as good fighters. People need to note this. Joe Calzaghe was no Bob Foster but he had as many fans as Foster. The fact that they weren't American fans is irrelevant. The question pertains to fans, period, and yes, boxing has plenty of them.

 

No. Who wrote that. I'll bet it was Steve Bunce.

Basically they have these huge marquee tents with nosh and vino and you pay like €100 in or something.

It's for the Hob-Nobbers.

Obviously Steve and Frank Maloney prefer people like Patsy Palmer at their fights, with some knifing and bottling afterwards out on the cobbles. Hey, each to their own.opcorn:

 

It will be interesting to see what overall impact the World Series of Boxing has on the future of the sport, in both the paid and unpaid ranks.

Amateur boxing is certainly spreading...the question is, how does it spread, especially in countries like China and India, where it's beginning to develop (primarily at the amateur level).

It will also be interesting to see what happens with the inclusion of women's boxing in the Olympics...what kind of coverage will that bring to both women's and men's boxing in all countries, not just domestically on NBC, but that too will be interesting to watch.

 

Oh yeah. Germany, that veritable millionaires row of the World. They were sat at home wondering what to do with their extensive wardrobes and their money and then the Klitschko's came along.:giggle: