Re: The Recent Demise of American Boxing
I'll never buy the "all our boxers are in other sports" excuse. Every other country where boxers are coming from has other sports too. football's about a million times more popular than boxing here in England and we've still got lots of fighters coming up. The standard onf the new generations has been declining for a long time, the recent crop of guys, Bradley, Ward, Dirrell, Dawson lose or will lose depsite the red carpet match making.
I'd attribute the lack of quality Americans to a combination of more competition from overseas fighters and poorer chaff making poorer wheat look good, so when the stars of the up-comers, completely average guys like Danny Jacobs, lose people are suprised because they were supposed to be the best of what's coming up rather than acknowledging they're nothing special to begin with.
Re: The Recent Demise of American Boxing
This isn't just a case of US boxing being on the decline - it's the sport as a whole.
Britain currently has two fairly prominent world champions in David Haye and Amir Khan, but I will guarantee you that no one apart from hardened boxing fans could tell you anything about them.
In Britain there is no coverage of the sport on terrestrial television whatsoever - none. Most of the time the results of Khan and Haye's fights barely even get a brief mention on the news. In days gone by the BBC showed fights quite a lot as did ITV, but that stopped quite a long time ago. If you want to watch a top fight these days you have to pay for it on PPV and people who only have a passing interest aren't prepared to do that. There is no way of attracting new fans to the sport because you can't watch it without a satellite dish or without paying through the nose for PPV.
Then, of course, there is the ridiculous fragmentation of the "world title" belts. It's absurd that several people can call themselves the world champion and reign for literally years without ever facing the best fighters in their division. What with that and fighters being contracted to different TV networks, promoters etc they can all very easily avoid each other almost their entire career. It's not often you see two "champions" fight each other in their prime anymore. When the big names do get together it's usually when one of them is well past their best and the fight is a big disappointment.
Then there is the corruption and the fact that right now the heavyweight division is God awful. The heavyweights have always been the flagship division and when that is bad boxing as a whole always seems to suffer with it.
I used to be a huge boxing fan and it was by far my favourite sport, but it's not even close now. It just doesn't have the pulling power it once did. The end result is that it doesn't generate the interest it used to. Not as many people watch it and not as many people want to take part in it.
Re: The Recent Demise of American Boxing
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Originally Posted by
Nameless
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Originally Posted by
amat
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Originally Posted by
Fenster
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Originally Posted by
El Kabong
#1 These things are cyclical but due to there being no more USSR that deepens the talent pool. There are also more defectors from Cuba. The US has not been challenged to produce true great boxers for a while, it was a given we'd have them and look how our Olympic team has suffered. Never to fear, we'll be back, like I said its cyclical.
#2 The NBA and MLB have WORLD Champions because the best players in the world play in those leagues....anybody doubt that?
Outside of America no-one gives a shit about those sports. You can't compare a predominant American sport with one like football (soccer). Everywhere on the planet it is played and worshipped in astronomical numbers, by all walks of life.
Is being the worlds best baseball team any better than being the worlds best sumo?
That's actually incredibly ignorant, South America is baseball crazy and I doubt there is a single roster in the MLB that doesn't have at least 5 dudes who's first language is Spanish. Asia has also taken to baseball, so it's basically just Europe and Africa that hasn't.
The Giants last year won the World Series with Pablo Sandoval, Juan Uribe, Edgar Renteria, Guillermo Mota, Santiago Cassilla, Jonathan Sanchez (Puerto Rican but still spanish is first language) and Denny Bautista. That's 7 of 25 men not from America. And other teams have much more.
So yes, it is a "World Series" because not a soul would argue that any other baseball team outside of America would beat the Giants in a 7 game series. No German team would beat the Mavs because the best German is on the Mavs. When the best players come over, because the 50 best baseball players play in America no doubt. Well maybe Cuba has a few of those guys but you know the deal there. Just like the best Sumo are in Japan but that sport doesn't have anything close to the influence of baseball or basketball.
The only 2 spanish speakingcountries where baseball is really crazy popular are Domminican Republics, Cuba and Puerto Rico and none of them are in South America (rather in the Carribeans), which is not exactly he same thing. Spanish speaking player absolutely doesn't mean south america, you have tons of spanish speaking players in US and the others are from the Carribean countries I just mentioned. Baseball is played a bit in S.A but it is terribly, terribly marginal compared to football/soccer over there.
I should have said latin America but either way you forgot Venezuela and baseball also extends into Colombia.
Also, Japan has won the last 2 baseball 'world cups' or World Baseball Classics and their best players play, well yeah in America. Which is why the MLB can make the claim that it has a 'World Series'
Re: The Recent Demise of American Boxing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
amat
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Nameless
Quote:
Originally Posted by
amat
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fenster
Quote:
Originally Posted by
El Kabong
#1 These things are cyclical but due to there being no more USSR that deepens the talent pool. There are also more defectors from Cuba. The US has not been challenged to produce true great boxers for a while, it was a given we'd have them and look how our Olympic team has suffered. Never to fear, we'll be back, like I said its cyclical.
#2 The NBA and MLB have WORLD Champions because the best players in the world play in those leagues....anybody doubt that?
Outside of America no-one gives a shit about those sports. You can't compare a predominant American sport with one like football (soccer). Everywhere on the planet it is played and worshipped in astronomical numbers, by all walks of life.
Is being the worlds best baseball team any better than being the worlds best sumo?
That's actually incredibly ignorant, South America is baseball crazy and I doubt there is a single roster in the MLB that doesn't have at least 5 dudes who's first language is Spanish. Asia has also taken to baseball, so it's basically just Europe and Africa that hasn't.
The Giants last year won the World Series with Pablo Sandoval, Juan Uribe, Edgar Renteria, Guillermo Mota, Santiago Cassilla, Jonathan Sanchez (Puerto Rican but still spanish is first language) and Denny Bautista. That's 7 of 25 men not from America. And other teams have much more.
So yes, it is a "World Series" because not a soul would argue that any other baseball team outside of America would beat the Giants in a 7 game series. No German team would beat the Mavs because the best German is on the Mavs. When the best players come over, because the 50 best baseball players play in America no doubt. Well maybe Cuba has a few of those guys but you know the deal there. Just like the best Sumo are in Japan but that sport doesn't have anything close to the influence of baseball or basketball.
The only 2 spanish speakingcountries where baseball is really crazy popular are Domminican Republics, Cuba and Puerto Rico and none of them are in South America (rather in the Carribeans), which is not exactly he same thing. Spanish speaking player absolutely doesn't mean south america, you have tons of spanish speaking players in US and the others are from the Carribean countries I just mentioned. Baseball is played a bit in S.A but it is terribly, terribly marginal compared to football/soccer over there.
I should have said latin America but either way you forgot Venezuela and baseball also extends into Colombia.
Also, Japan has won the last 2 baseball 'world cups' or World Baseball Classics and their best players play, well yeah in America. Which is why the MLB can make the claim that it has a 'World Series'
Yeah Japan has been huge on baseball for years, I have a few japanese friends in Canada and they told me that everytime Dice-K or Ishiro Suzuki are playing, the matches are almost systematically broadcasted. I was talking more about South America though, baseball is played in Venezuela and Columbia, sure, but baseball in there is quite "marginal" compared to Soccer for example.
Re: The Recent Demise of American Boxing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Larryboy
I'll never buy the "all our boxers are in other sports" excuse. Every other country where boxers are coming from has other sports too. football's about a million times more popular than boxing here in England and we've still got lots of fighters coming up. The standard onf the new generations has been declining for a long time, the recent crop of guys, Bradley, Ward, Dirrell, Dawson lose or will lose depsite the red carpet match making.
I'd attribute the lack of quality Americans to a combination of more competition from overseas fighters and poorer chaff making poorer wheat look good, so when the stars of the up-comers, completely average guys like Danny Jacobs, lose people are suprised because they were supposed to be the best of what's coming up rather than acknowledging they're nothing special to begin with.
Pre-fukking-cisely!
