The Verbal Flatulence Of Earnest Shavers.....

Regardless - the 90 years of dominance was there... and it was emphatic. This country dominated this division from John L Sullivan, to Johnson, Louis, Rocky, Ali, Holmes and Tyson.

The next great American heavyweight is playing Linebacker or Running back in the NFL right now, or playing in the NBA, or they are doing the MMA thing because these were all things they could get scholarships into major Universities for participating in and boxing has become an afterthought for big time athletes here.

 

It's a pity there are multiple sports in Europe to choose from aswell, and there always was. It would suit the agenda better if there was an ancient sparta-like process going on in Europe, where newborn babies are being inspected, the retarded culled, and the strong processed into narrow and concerntrated boxing channels by the millions.

 

China more gold medals at the '08 Olympics than Cuba did...so that must be another country that no longer boxes.

(They were also China's first gold medals in boxing, but that's an unimportant side note.)

 

Thats right. Then Asia and Europe had a go at it and did OK.

Faeces. This is an excuse put out by the press. It is one of the most cultivated and nurtured crocks of shit ever seen. It would receive the very best fertilizer if it weren't already pure manure.

Mike Grant was one of these athletes, 6'7", 250lbs: Lewis decapitated him, and Golota should have. Had him down twice. Ed Jones.6'9" 270lbs. Former footballer, tried boxing, had a few wins, went back to football. Charlie Powell- former SF 49'ers Linebacker, 6'3", 230lbs, a giant of a man by the standards of the 1950's. Got a KO win over another big man, Valdes, then lost to just about everyone else.

This misconception being being bandied about by the press fails to take into account the sheer intricacy which exists in the fighter, across his physical and psychological make up.

Real fighters tend to be in fighting from day one. They don't come to it later. They are of fighting. They rarely rarely gravitate to it out of a passing interest or whim. They may think they do, but more often than not it's because they have the appropriate disposition. A man who plays basketball instead of boxing will rarely have what it takes to be a boxer, by dint of the very simple fact that he chose basketball over boxing in the first place

Ali joined the gym cos his bike was stolen, and he wanted to smack somebody out. Joining the gym was accidental. What's key is his response to the theft: reprisal.. Being of the mindset to respond to the theft was innate, inherent, a feature of his character so utterly removed from athleticism but so inextricably linked with being a fighter.

Consider further intangibles, which most fighters don't even know of. Fat around the kidney. Slight thickness of skull. A tendency to not cut as much as the next man. Blood vessels slightly deeper than normal. Stronger bones in the hand .Intangibles that make a massive difference, which cannot necessarily be detected by giving a basketball player the once over.

We don't know if Lebron James is a bleeder. We don't know if his kidneys will swell in a fight. We don't know if his hands are brittle. We don't know if the desire which allows him to negotiate games of bouncy-bouncy will also extend to the fight game. We know Mike Grant tried it, and failed. We know the moment killed him against Lewis, and that Lennox merely pushed around what was left.

 

Can you imagine what kind of linebacker or point guard Tim Austin or Mark Johnson would've been?

If only they were born a little later, we could've found out.

 

How did the Cuban basketball team do though??

 

:giggle:

 

About as well as the Ukrainian softball team.

 

Yeah but everybody in the Ukraine is boxing. If they weren't, the Ukies would kick ass at softball.:giggle:opcorn:

 

Well i don't really know where this has gone - its just a point of fact that the USA has dominated the heavyweights from 1900 to about 1993. Then there is Lennox and the Klitschko's.

 

I was talking about heavyweights... thought that was pretty clear

 

What press? The American press? The American press doesn't talk about boxing, they don't care about it

Michael Grant is an athlete who couldn't even make it as a pro NFL'er and then decided to turn to boxing after an encounter with Richard Steal and turned pro at 29 or 30 years old.

Guys like Brandon Jacobs, Al Wilson, Tom Zbikowski, Ray Lewis are all guys who are boxing fans and all boxed as young kids but recognized a dramatically better avenue to live a better life by goingn to American Football thru college scholarships then a pro career. Just as a sidenote going back further look at Ken Norton's son as well.

Just watching the athlete grow up here nowadays, the reason the american heavyweights aren't any good is because they are non existant in comparison to other eras.

 

The real question is, where does Ireland fit into all of this?

 

And I think this is a good point... it hasn't always been like this in the USA, obviously for the most part there has been american football, basketball andd the like - but it has only in the last decade or so become as lucrative as it is now to focus your athletic abilities on something other than boxing. You can get scholarships to excellent schools for football, basketball, wrestling etc and translate those into professional athletic careers much more readily these days than vs. past eras

 

Right....I already explained, or offered my opinion thereof, why this may be the case.

Now I will throw a real spanner in the works.......Poland, South Africa, The Former Soviet Union......not exactly bastions of pro-white guilt and self-admonishment. Not exactly bastions of pro-Yankee sentiment.

Coincidence that they have produced the best white non-American heavyweights {and therefore the best white heavyweight since 1960, barring, possibly, Gerry Quarry?} ??????

How odd that the United Kingdom never produced a big white guy. I think the last time they came close, the last time a big whitey from England fought for the HW title was JL Gardiner, lost in 3 to Dokes, who lost to.....Coetzeer. From Ireland.....McBride. From Italy? Ha.

Mentality is key. Do white people in the States have the disposition towards fighting? Do they accept the perceived wisdoms as truth, and just pack it in??

 

See below/above ya 3 piece.

 

The last couple sentences describe Andrew Golota perfectly.

You guys have gone off on a different tangent, I am not even discussing Black or White... just that this country has dominated the heavyweight division for a 90 year period and I think it's a remarkably better division with a plethora of American talent populating it. I agree emphatically that the Klitschko's are excellent boxers and would be excellent boxers in any era, but I do think that Vitali's level of dominance has to been viewed within the proper context... that it has been over a very weak division, and even if its no fault of his own he hasn't even faced the best of the lot.

 

If they don't, do you ask why? And besides, I could dig you up some quotes from "eminent sources", if you want.

Michael Grant was an "E Lite" athlete who watched Bowe vs Holyfield and decided, in his own words, that "I can do that". No Mike, ya can't. His athleticism was good enough to get him into College, but not good enough to get him out of the 2nd round with Lewis.

Poles can't fight. Scratch Zbikowski. Never heard of the other 3. As for Ken Norton's "son"...what about George Foreman VIXICIVIV, he a great figher? Marvis Frazier? He a great fighter? Camacho Jr? Next thing you know Igor Klitschko will be stopping out of the game and people will want to know if he was as bad as his dad. Please.

So how do you explain the emergence of basketball teams like Greece, Spain, Argentina, who are able to stick it to the Americans and achieve more than respectable results? You seem happy to accept that the emergence of ex-Soviet and South African fighters and the decline of the dominant American champ is a pure, mere coincidence, supplemented as it is by there being better money in other sports.

Boxers have been traditionally ripped-off, abused, sold short and clowned by the fight game. In the 1950's, boxing in America was known as the "So-Called Sport of Professional Boxing". In the same decade, no fewer than 2 major Hollywood productions featuring the biggest actors of the day {Rod Steiger, Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart etc} focused on corruption in prize fighting {On The Waterfront, Harder They Fall}

Yet despite this, the HW division enjoyed stellar times from 1950-1980. Why didn't these ripped off, abused fighters try other sports to escape the brutality and the penury of the ring? Even better, why did the fighters who came from other sports to boxing in those same decades enjoy such a hard time of it?

Something does not add up.

Boxers now get better money, better terms, better prospects. Yet these improvements have brought a decline in the popularity of boxing?:boohoo:

 

Your 'proper context' only seeks to explain why it's not Americans now, when it has been for 90 years....it doesn't seek any explanation for why it's Ukrainians now, and has not been for 90 years.

Maybe next you can explain why US Softball lost to Japan in the last Olympics.

 

No they don't. What they describe perfectly is my point. Here was a guy who actually was cut out for boxing physically- there may never be a more physically adept guy- but who lacked the intangibles!! How do we know that Lebron James is not the same? How do we know that he won't fold like Andrew Golota did??? We don't know. Thats the point.

Why? It's the WORLD Heavyweight Championship. Not an American plaything.

Thats fine. I have no argument with that. My original premise always was that tradition, history, popularity and other vaguely defined concepts should not allow us to think that Klitschko wouldn't beat a guy like Ken Norton.

 

Precisely. It fails to take into account that the sport, or at least the division, was not fully global until 1990 on. Within 10 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we had a guy from Eastern Europe winning a title. It cannot be mere, pure, 100% coincidence.

 

I should've stated, it also doesn't state how and why the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB all came into existence in the last 15-20 years.

 

1. If they don't, do you ask why? And besides, I could dig you up some quotes from "eminent sources", if you want.

Please do dig up some quotes - I am not saying they don't exist, but there is no "conspiracy" being spewed out by the American press about any of this that I have heard... no one cares enough about boxing (there is no need to ask why, they just dont care).

2. Michael Grant was an "E Lite" athlete who watched Bowe vs Holyfield and decided, in his own words, that "I can do that". No Mike, ya can't. His athleticism was good enough to get him into College, but not good enough to get him out of the 2nd round with Lewis.

Michael Grant's E Lite atheticism couldn't get him out of the second round against Lennox, it couldn't get him out of the first round against Jameel McCline, it couldn't get him into any major athletic sport either - he wasn't that good at any of it so it is not a good comparison imo.

3. So how do you explain the emergence of basketball teams like Greece, Spain, Argentina, who are able to stick it to the Americans and achieve more than respectable results? You seem happy to accept that the emergence of ex-Soviet and South African fighters and the decline of the dominant American champ is a pure, mere coincidence, supplemented as it is by there being better money in other sports.

Just like the American Heavyweights have declined because they don't box as much anymore - other countries are getting better at basketball because they are playing it more. BTW, the USA still dominates basketball overwhelmingly and they are by far and away the best basketball team and country on the earth.

4. Yet despite this, the HW division enjoyed stellar times from 1950-1980. Why didn't these ripped off, abused fighters try other sports to escape the brutality and the penury of the ring? Even better, why did the fighters who came from other sports to boxing in those same decades enjoy such a hard time of it?

Something does not add up.

Boxers now get better money, better terms, better prospects. Yet these improvements have brought a decline in the popularity of boxing?

Because it was a great option in the 1950-1980. And boxers may be getting better money/terms etc now than vs. the past, but there are MUCH better options now in this country across the board for bigger American athletes and it's not even close.

About Norton Jr. and the other NFL players - the whole point was that they grew up loving boxing and boxing as young people but didn't try it because there were much better options.

 

gtg - be back later but definitely am enjoying the discussion so far

 

Yeah take care.

 

yet, aren't you the same clown, that defended Dempsey and Greb, when I said that we should revised theyr historical standing since they were only fighting white boys (except for flower)

 

Fixed.

 

This is the most important point. The Iron Curtain definitely played a huge part in Americas dominance of the heavyweight crown. Obviously they had great fighters too, but it was a significant portion of the globe cut off from producing professional boxers. Considering how since the curtain fell the Eastern Europeans have been dominating it would be foolish to brush this off as coincidence.

 

I reckon it is a bit of both....a dip in American standards but a rise in the standards of others.

I have no doubts, none, that within the next 10 years Europe will provide at least one heavweight better than both Klitschko's.

Remember what Jim Lampley said when Rahman stopped Lewis?

"We got a brand new heavyweight champion....and he's from...the USA".

Even Lewis got on their tits.

And when Maskaev stopped Rahman? Forget about it. The fucking plotzed big time that night. They only Yank who got any sleep that night was Rahman.

 

No they don't. What they describe perfectly is my point. Here was a guy who actually was cut out for boxing physically- there may never be a more physically adept guy- but who lacked the intangibles!! How do we know that Lebron James is not the same? How do we know that he won't fold like Andrew Golota did??? We don't know. Thats the point.

True. We don't know what James' mental makeup is and I am not saying just because he is a great athlete he will be a great boxer. I do believe that there are a bunch of NFL players who would have been good boxers, however. The fact that the majority of the country's better athletes (who are of proper size) are going to other sports depletes the chances of the US getting another great heavyweight boxer.

Why? It's the WORLD Heavyweight Championship. Not an American plaything.

Because the division is worse for it. It is a global sport, but I strongly believe that this is a much weaker division now than it had been in 40 years... and it has gotten worse from around 2000 up to now. Not anything against Lennox & the Klits, they are as good as any of them imo... but the division is worse for wear.


Thats fine. I have no argument with that. My original premise always was that tradition, history, popularity and other vaguely defined concepts should not allow us to think that Klitschko wouldn't beat a guy like Ken Norton.

In the end I absolutely agree with you here - stylistically Vitali would defeat Norton. I don't see a real sound argument against it when you look at the sizes, styles and tendencies of both combatants. But at the same time I don't believe Vitali blows him away, and Norton would be by far the best contender Vitali would have fought, maybe even the best fighter he wouldl have ever fought besides Lennox.