Nations where boxing is a top 3 sport

Some people really care about ice skating. Holy fuck....

Yeah, Kickboxing seems to be huge in holland (glory)

 

A bit same in several East European countries. In places like Armenia, Moldova etc there is some fighting, but all the talented athletes take up wrestling instead of boxing.

Bulgaria has traditionally been an amateur boxing powerhouse. Football is the dominant sport there too, but boxing might make it to top-5

 

Speed skating is actually a bad-ass sport. The strength of those guys is unbelievable. I believe Netherlands is more interested in that than figure skating

 

I don't judge anyone on the sports they follow...







Unless it's golf. Can never see the fuckin appeal of golf.

 

Long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. Going as fast as possible in as short amount off time over fixed lengths. Completely obsessed about it, half the country is, with this sport.

Odd enough kickboxing is only getting the exposure it deserves for the last 10 years. While the amount of top quality fighters is at an all time low. At this point Rico Verhoeven is the only one with a torch, and I see nobody near his capabilities to take over this torch.

In the 90ties you had Ernesto Hoost, Peter Aerts, Sem Schilt, Rémy Bonjasky, Gokhan Saki, Badr Hari etc etc… insane amount of talent all born in Holland and all fighting each other almost every year. Boxing could learn from that, if there was an interesting fight to be made, it would be made, period.

 

Nathan mckinnon fucked charles hamelin (a 3 times olympic gold medalist in speed skating) in a race. These guys are pretty much second rate.athletes

 

It was some hybrid cross over thing they tried for fun. Not an Olympic distance. Still very impressive considering McKinnon was in full gear including a stick. Furthermore it was a straight line they had to sprint, for about what? 20 yards? If someone can drive a car very fast in a straight line, it doesn’t mean you should put him in a formule 1 car and let him loose on the Nürburgring.

 

Talking about the Nürburgring, given we now have Max Verstappen, needless to say, F1 racing is also huge in Holland nowadays. Almost rivaling Football. Because people love a winner and nationalism is a bitch when it comes to sports.

 

I would imagine thanks to Manny that boxing is probably top 3 in the Philippines.

Ghana is probably up there too.

 

Usually the poor countries that suck at everything else

 

No doubt. Shocking result at first sight but not so much when you stop and think about it. If someone has the physical aptitude to skate at an high level, more likely than not he will try, or get pushed into, playing hockey (as it has multiple leagues worldwide that pay huge salaries) instead of sticking to strictly skating and basically be guaranteed a life of poverty. Quebec is supposedly a power house in speed skating yet I never met a single mf that practices the sport in any of it's variation. As you said, second rate athletes that ' thrives'' on a small talent pool.

 

I was probably a unicorn in liking street hockey when roller blades came out in the late 80s.