I used to get a big fight feeling that felt like the best feeling in the world. Fights like Mayweather vs Hatton even gave me that buzz. Nowadays I never get that feeling. Spence vs Crawford didn't give me that feeling. I think HBO was a big part of it. I don't really know what to say. I don't think I'll get that feeling back again which is a shame. I guess when you've lived through the build up of great fights and seen many great fighters, you kind of feel like you've seen it all and lose interest. Maybe guys who lived through the Ali era along with the Hagler/Hearns/Duran/Leonard era had the same feeling when it came to the 90s but I think those 90s fighters were very entertaining so I doubt it. Plus you could put Bowe, Tyson, Lewis etc up against Ali and other fighters of that time. Roy Jones was looking like one of the best of all time in terms of talent. There was a lot to be excited about. If there are guys alive who have lived through the Ali era to today, then I would wonder how they could really be invested in watching boxing today. I'd probably just rewatch old fights at that point.
My interest in the sport is still extremely strong, but it's no longer at peak level, and I think that's just natural.. My theory on sports is that your love and interest is at an apex when you're younger than the athletes youre following. When the athletes are older, you unconsciously form a sort of "hero" bond to them, which made it a lot easier for me to idolize guys like Mike and Roy (purely in a Boxing sense) because they're older than me. I can't attach the same level of fandom to guys like Boots, Shakur, and Fimo, who are basically kids compared to me. But my love for the SPORT in general is still robust. Still, he vast majority of my watching continues to be old fights on YT. I'll always follow the sport on a hardcore level though. I don't envision that changing. I just doubt I'll ever be as Boxing fanatical as I was in my youth.
Exactly as X said. A grown man still having the same level of attachment toward athletes that he had as a teen is just weird
It’s been harder for me to follow sports in general as I’ve gotten older. You just have other things to do and remember that sports is entertainment. I still get sad when my favorite teams lose though. I’m become much more of a casual boxing fan over the last decade. But when I happen to see a big fight, I still get into it and watch very carefully.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I still love boxing. But it’s hard to have the same connection with athletes today that I had back in the 90s/early 2000s. I still get excited for the big fights, but that PASSION that I used to have when I was a teen and in my 20s isn’t quite what it used to be. Even overall sports, I don’t watch like I used to. I lost interest in the NFL and NBA. I still watch boxing, futból, and occasionally tennis and baseball. But yeah it’s less than before and I see that a lot of us are going through that as well.
Back in the day life was simpler. Tuesday Night Fights and Boxing After Dark that was the shit. Now with the internet and 5000 channels it's too confusing and too many options what to do with your time
I have said that in similar threads. Not just in sports bit in all aspects of life, it's unnatural to idolize those younger than you. It's the reason old fucks still listen to old music & talk about athletes of their youth.
Going by the last few years, I'm a casual now. The job I started in 2021 has me working every Friday & Saturday night. So for me to have the chance to sit and watch boxing is rare. The best I can hope for is watching the prelims on ESPN cards while I am getting ready. What sets me apart from the casual is I had about 30 years of being a hard core fan. So I still know a lot about the sport and the fighters during that time period. But I take your guys' word for what's going on now.
That's essentially what I've become in basketball. A casual fan for the last 5 years or so, but I spent most my life as a hardcore, so I can still school most little knuckleheads in debate. I think a sign that I'm past my peak in current boxing is that I no longer watch full cards. Just the main event, and maybe the co-feature if it's a good matchup. The EXCEPTION to this is if it's a PPV card. If i paid for it, I watch the full televised card. But some random DAZN or ESPN+ card? Generally I just wait for the main event. That'd be unheard of for the X of 15 years ago. I watched everything boxing, without exception.
Also, that math ain't mathing: 15 years ago I was watching MORE old fights than I do today, and STILL watching more current boxing.
I have never seen a Boots Ennis fight, a Regis Prograis fight, or a Vergil Ortiz fight. I keep wanting to hit up youtube but just haven't gotten around to it. Most of the other big names, I have seen at least one of their fights. I was very high on Navarette since he won the 122 title and I knew he'd have a big future. It just so happens that he was up against my favorite fighter, Valdez, last fight.
REED Here! Joe Frazier was the Heavyweight Champion of the World When REED was Born, 3 Months AFTER Ali-Frazier I...Earliest Boxing Memory is Standing in an Aisle, Watching Ali-Frazier III On Closed Circuit, Throwing Punches Towards the Giant Movie Screen...Would've Been 4 Years Old @ the Time... REED's Boxing Fandom Has Changed and MATURED as He Has, But it'll ALWAYS Be There... REED Adored Ali Because His Old Man WORSHIPPED Ali...REED Liked Sugar Ray Leonard Because He was Basically the Lower Weight Ali and Openly MARKETED as Such...Sweet Pea Whittaker was the THE 1st Fighter REED Watched, Studied as Best He Could and Liked WITHOUT Needing to Be Told WHY He Should Like Him...1984 Olympic Box-Offs, REED Would've Been 12-13 By Then...& Then There was Roy, '88 Olympic Box-Offs, 16-17 Years of Age... To X's Point, There's DEFINITELY Something to the AGE Aspect of Boxing Fandom, Not That REED Enjoys the Sport Any LESS, But Unequivocally, REED Will NEVER Be as INTO Any Other Fighter to the Degree He was Into Ali and Roy...REED Has a FATHERLY Reverence of Ali and a BIG BRO Reverence for Roy...Roy-Tarver 2 and Roy-Glen Johnson was LITERALLY Like Watching a Close Relative DIE and it CHANGED REED Forever... REED Has a SLIVER of a "Relationship" w/Errol Spence (Moreso his Family and Derrick James, These Days) and the Crawford Beatdown Was PAINFUL to Watch, But the Hurt DIDN'T Approach Watching Roy Get KO'ed...Or Ali-Spinks I, Or Ali-Holmes ... That Said, the Pre-Fight Nervousness was in FULL Effect...REED Couldn't Have Been More ANTSY If He Were Fighting Bud Himself...There were TRACES of the Ol' HBO Feeling You Speak Of; Whenever Lamps Said "Tale of the Tape", That's PRECISELY When that FEELING Typically Hit REED and it Did as Spence and Crawford Walked to the Ring...Tank-Ryan, Dev-Loma (Not Sure WHY Because REED Isn't Really a "Fan" of Either, Per Se), Teofimo-Josh Taylor...REED Got That Same FEELING Just Prior to Those Fights... REED's Really Excited Whenever Boots, Shakur, David Benavidez, Teofimo or Naoya Inoue Fight; Ain't Missing the LIVE Broadcast of Their Bouts, INCLUDING Waking Up EARLY AF, Mid-Week For Inoue Broadcasts from Japan... Can't Explain It, But UNLIKE 99.9999% of "Ol School" Boxing Fans, REED AIN'T the Good Ol' Days, Get Off My Lawn Dude...For Whatever Reason, REED's Always Been Able to ACCEPT Each Era of Boxing for What it IS, w/Out the Pressure of COMPARING/RANKING the Era's....Probably Why REED Doesn't Frequent the Mythical Matchups Forum More Often Than Others... To Answer the Question (FINALLY) Posed in the Title of Your Thread, REED Wouldn't Say His INTEREST In Boxing Has Changed @ All, But His Emotional INVESTMENT in the Sport Definitely Has... REED
That last paragraph REED typed summed it perfectly for me as well. I'm far less emotionally invested now. After Tyson-Holy 1 and following Jones-Tarver 2, I was actually emotionally depressed for several days. I wasn't too depressed after Lewis-Tyson, because I fully expected the outcome, but those two losses hit me HARD. I could never again be emotionally invested enough in a fighter to feel any sense of depression or sadness when they lose a fight. I'm far too invested in family and career life now to devote that level of emotional attachment to any sport, not just boxing. But will I always have love and respect for boxing? Absolutely.
Same feeling for me after Hopkins-Trinidad. Mind you I was turning 20 THAT very day. I felt sick. It was that feeling like the bad guys won. I was still sad, but the passion for the sport was still there. But I’ve never been able to feel that CONNECTION to any other fighter after Trinidad. I respected Cotto. But he just wasnt Tito.
Yeah, I never got the sense that Cotto was an icon in Puerto Rican in the way that a Trinidad or Gomez was. Miggy is just too bland and off-putting of a person.
Yep. In all fairness, the shoes were too big to fill. Trinidad and Gomez were national heroes. Same way Pac is for the Philippines, and the way Duran was for Panama. Chavez for Mexico. Cotto didn’t have the charisma and charm that those guys had but he didn’t help himself. Whereas Trinidad was always that God fearing country boy who was another man of the people, Cotto always came off as arrogant and as someone who thought he was too good for the people. Even in the way they conducted themselves in interviews, it was way different.
All I'll say is when there's fights scheduled for the upcoming weekend I look forward to watching. And when there's not, it is a slight bummer.
Boxing has always been the only sport I have ever cared about and that started when I was born, I guess. My mother was a fight fan and took me to the fights at the Olympic from the time I could sit upright and my father was a fight fan and told me about Billy Conn and Fritzie Zivic- he grew up in Pittsburgh during the 30s- and Rocky Marciano. I followed baseball and football in the 70s, and bet on baseball and basketball in the 80s and 90s so I am conversant on those eras, but I never loved those sports. I would always watch every fight I could see but, once I started teaching it, I started watching them differently. The downside of that is that I very rarely get excited watching a fight any more. When I was in California a few months back, I spent hours every day in gyms. I don't do that as much up here; I did for about 2 years but none of these guys do the work and none of them are going to fight anybody so I just walked away. I have some pretty decent opportunities out there to work with some fighters that are just starting out as pros- one was a 2 time national champion as an amateur, the other won 7 national titles- and 20 years ago I would have just relocated and figured it out. Now, I won't make that move unless I can transfer my career too. But there is a kid I have been following since he was 7 and he is almost 16 now. When he turns pro in 2 years we will see what happens. The game is different than it was, the fighters and the trainers and the managers. Right now I am an addict that is doing well but could relapse at any time.
You hear similar things from people involved in movies for example. It's not that they don't enjoy watching them, but when you know so many technical details it's hard to be detached like spectators are.
I imagine that's why Stinger got so testy. He saw so many things in the ring that a mere mortal would overlook. Must have been torture for him.
Ohh. Well don't I feel like a fuckin idiot. I thought you were saying you were on that Oscar or Kelly Pavlik.
If I counted it up, I reckon I have done as many stupid things pursuing my boxing habit than they have pursuing drink and drug...except for the fishnets and heels trip.
