This neatly illustrates the only reason you desperately cling to the idea that the overall quality of the sport hasn't drastically declined (at least above 126 or so): resentment
I think you're more harsh on Thurman than I am... because Thurman is a GOOD welterweight. Of course, there's a shit load of welters in history who would beat him, but Thurman ain't a scrub.
Nah, it only illustrate your ignorance since the decline in boxing popularity is pretty much strictly an american thing (if it is at all real). In pretty much every other regions (countries), pro boxing is more popular than ever
Says it all really ... this is a compulsion for you, you need it to be a thing... it isn't, of course, as even a cursory knowledge of boxing history should illustrate but you feel you must fight the power and validate your views of Americans as fevered jingoists without PhDs
Globally, pro boxing is probably more popular than ever, since it wasn't a thing in the former Soviet states and is now wildly popular (China too to a much lesser extent). But then again, to see this, you need to remove your ethnocentrism glasses, which is probably impossible
I must admit, Cdogg is a little too doom and gloom when it comes to the current quality of the sport. Boxing is in better shape now in the US than it was 5-6 years ago, and the overall talent in the sport is better now than it was 5-6 years ago. Circa 2010-2011, it was getting BAD! You had guys like Khan, Ortiz, Berto, and Bradley who were considered elite fighters. And the heavyweight division was COMPLETELY dead. Fast forward to now, and we have young guys in their primes like Craw, Spence, Mikey, and Loma, who are WAYYY better than the Khan's and Berto's, and thanks to AJ and Wilder, the heavyweight division is in an improved state.
yeah. We're definitively not in a golden age of boxing, but it's far from the wasteland some old timers claim it is. But then, in every sports and in every era, there always been some nostalgia driven persons who claims that everything was so much better in their days.
Bivol is another young guy who HOPEFULLY lIves up to his potential. He's only like 26-27. At least guys like Crawford, Spence, and Loma have exceptional skill. In the Khan/Berto era it seemed like leap amateurism was gonna take over the sport. It didnt.
Sure a little better and I've said as much but it's not good ... we're a long way from the void being filled in I don't give a fuck who fills it in eventually but I'm not gonna pretend it's filled just because I like boxing any more than I'd pretend that Celtic belongs on a pitch with Real Madrid in modern football just because I like Celtic and wish their annual Scottish championships were worth more That's what this silly twat never gets despite it being explained to him 100 times... I don't care if 40 years from now there's not a single American in the top ten in any weight class so long as whoever is there is performing at a high level ... like it or not, the dramatic decline in popularity and participation of boxing in the country that dominated its professional ranks for most of its history is a big deal and created a large crater that needs filling in (and probably will be filled in eventually by non Americans) ... JOM needs to believe that no such thing occurred because he despises Americans Would the NBA be where it is right now if in 1993 David Stern decided to put 90% of its games on PPV and people stopped letting their kids do it? Boxing in the US was severely hampered by PPV which completely turned off casual fans and by the very public deterioration of some of its most famous practitioners, especially Ali... the scandals of Don King going all the way back to the 1978 "tournament" fiasco, later the dramatic fall of Tyson, the disgrace of Golota/Bowe... these things over time had a massive impact on how the sport was viewed by the public... die hards like us often don't notice this stuff because none of it made us stop watching but it gives a really unrealistic idea of how popular the sport actually is It wasn't until I learned a lot more historically that I realized the scope of it ... boxing was fucking ENORMOUS in America, more mainstream than anything any of us have experienced outside of those of us who grew up in places like Puerto Rico Even guys old enough to remember when Ali was still active fighting still didn't experience boxing the way a kid in say, the 1930s did... boys boxed in gym class for Christ's sake ... my mother's father was totally uninterested in sports but he had to box in school and he had no trouble remembering literally a few dozen fighters who were popular in the era because it was everywhere ... it was dramatically different and it's nothing like that anymore ... for fun I was checking out this old phone book for Waterbury CT where I live... it was from the 1950s ... I was able to find 6 different boxing gyms in there ... a small city of just over 100,000 ... today all I can find is one in operation and it's really more of an MMA gym Point is, it started to very gradually decline from a peak of popularity going all the way back to the 30s and 40s and then fell off a cliff in the 90s and has left a void where other countries have to fill in the gap ... in sure it'll eventually be filled but I'm not going to pretend that it has been or that it's even close yet... I'm not going to ignore what my eyes tell me every time I watch fights just for the sake of some feel good bullshit
I'm not an "old days" guy in any other sport I watch... hockey is fucking awful to watch these days but the players are better than ever... NFL players are way better now ... Baseball players are pretty much the same except more guys are really big because of weight training... modern footballers are on average way superior to their predecessors, to my eyes (but I still feel too uninformed to really say so) Literally the only sport I watch where I say "fucking hell, so and so (from 1993 or whatever when I was young) would rape this clown" is boxing
Drastically smaller talent pool, far fewer teachers, an amateur scoring system in place for literally decades that retarded strategy completely The first two are the biggest, the third just icing
Do you have any data to back up the declining number of participants argument?? You do know that the population of the US has pretty much tripled since the 30's (a good number of them coming from mexico where boxing is huge), so I would be very surprised if the absolute number of participants declined, even if the proportion declined (pretty sure you don't, which make your whole argument baseless) And again, you whole argument is tainted by your ethnocentrism. You once again only consider what happened in America, and not the rest of the world. Where the popularity of boxing has improved by leaps and bounds. And for your Waterbury example, maybe you should have look on the net, and not in a phone book. There seems to be several boxing gym over there.
Man just shut up There's one "boxing gym" in Waterbury, Norm's I didn't use a fucking phone book to look up the modern ones FUCKING OBVIOUSLY
I would have to think Paul V. Ciochetti Boxing Center is a boxing gym. And even then, Waterburry is terrible to use as a microcosm of the US, since it's population pretty much stayed the same since the 30's, while it almost tripled in the whole country in the same time span.
And nice cop out btw. But then, after all these years, I've came realise that you're too much of a dimwit to have a serious discussion with.
It's actually a PAL gym that's usually vacant ... you're not very bright, I actually live here There's got to be more milkmen in America now than there were in 1930... the population has tripled... therefore more milkmen There has to be more tailors in Manhattan than there was in 1950... the population has increased so much
yeah, I'm not very bright cause I don't know about the details of a small shitty gym in a smaal shitty town. Damn you're one sad insecure loser And it's easy to prove that your two statements are false. I've asked you to do the same for boxers and you resorted to insults.
Everybody knows about the level of popularity of boxing in the US in the 30's compared to now. You're so much of an idiot that you think that this common knowledge is actually something that only you, and a few enlighted ones, know. But, as I said, even if the popularity has declined in proportion, it doesn't means that the absolute number pf particpant is lower, since the population has tripled since then. And once again, because of your ethnocentrism, you only consider the US example, and fail to comprehend that it is not generalisable to the whole planet.
But that's totally retarded and shows that you actually DON'T know and certainly don't comprehend The US produced the vast majority of the world's best fighters north of featherweight for basically a century while boxing was still huge worldwide not just here ... it's not ethnocentricism, it is objective fact... if Canada or Russia stopped playing hockey, the effect would he devastating for a long time ... this is a very simple thing to grasp Also there's got to be more kids playing marbles right now than on this day in 1940 ... population and stuff
YOu do know that something called the dissolution of the Soviet Union happened in 1991? And again, you never proved that the absolute number of particpants in the US has declined
In 2016, 6,4 millions americans were participating in boxing according to Statista. Considering that the US population in the 30's was about 100 millions, I'd be very surprised if there was that many at the time (and even if it was higher, the difference is probably marginal). Sure this is not the whole story (participant is without a doubt a lot higher now in women than in the 30's, for example), but it seems to point that this decline claim doesn't hold up to facts.
6.4 million Americans "participated in boxing" Lol, meaning what? They must give PhDs away up there ... I'm unimpressed with your intellect
