sad state of boxing

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Originally Posted by bigmike

last night after watching vitale stumble around the ring and listen to jim lamply and emanual stewart blow smoke up everyones ass about vitales greatness, i cant help but think how desperate hbo is . My wife who knows nothing about boxing was watching with me and asked who are these guys I said hes the heavy weight champion of the world, she thought i was kidding. maybe we are all kidding ourselves.

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I know your problem. You're sentimentalist and imaging Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano and Floyed Patterson were much better fighters than Klitschko brothers. The truth is that 10 cm (4") and 20-30 pounds bigger brothers are much, much better than most of the "good old times" champions. They are technically, physically, tactically better, bigger than those you are worshipping.

That's very human. We don't like champions of our time but when they have retired we start to miss them much. We all are falling in love with our past time fantasies. But if you take a look several times those old videos of Ali, Foreman, Frazier etc.. you'll easily find some new - not so bright - perspective of past time heroes.

We tend to overrate old champions. That's the fact. Then there is one thing - people especially in USA can't stand the truth that white european could be real worldchampion of heavyweight. And that white european champion can be very, very great boxer indeed.

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Originally Posted by Howlin Mad Missy

Welcome. You're an idiot.

You don't like their style but they keep on winning don't they.;)

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Theory:

Black american (or british) champion - media hype them
Easteuropean champion - media underrate them as much they can. So people start to talk about "sad state of boxing".

So the problem is not boxing but self-importance of so called anglosaxon culture. We have seen this phenomenon before in other sports too. Nothing new under the sun.

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Originally Posted by Matias64

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Originally Posted by bigmike

last night after watching vitale stumble around the ring and listen to jim lamply and emanual stewart blow smoke up everyones ass about vitales greatness, i cant help but think how desperate hbo is . My wife who knows nothing about boxing was watching with me and asked who are these guys I said hes the heavy weight champion of the world, she thought i was kidding. maybe we are all kidding ourselves.

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I know your problem. You're sentimentalist and imaging Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano and Floyed Patterson were much better fighters than Klitschko brothers. The truth is that 10 cm (4") and 20-30 pounds bigger brothers are much, much better than most of the "good old times" champions. They are technically, physically, tactically better, bigger than those you are worshipping.

That's very human. We don't like champions of our time but when they have retired we start to miss them much. We all are falling in love with our past time fantasies. But if you take a look several times those old videos of Ali, Foreman, Frazier etc.. you'll easily find some new - not so bright - perspective of past time heroes.

We tend to overrate old champions. That's the fact. Then there is one thing - people especially in USA can't stand the truth that white european could be real worldchampion of heavyweight. And that white european champion can be very, very great boxer indeed.

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I don't think race has anything to do with it. Nationality might, but even that is minor. I think the criticism of the Klitschko's comes down to two things: they're style and the excitement level (or lack thereof) in their fights, and their level of competition.

Actually it wasn't question about race but culture. I remember the era when especially europeans had no chance to win the tittle. During 1970's it looks like any european (white) boxer will never win the heavyweight champion of the world. But after collapse of USSR and eastern socialist countries times have changed totally. If we take a look at professional boxing nowadays there are more and more especially eastern european high class boxers in ranking list of several divisions.

People in west hardly remember that boxing was well appreciated sport taught to pupils in soviet schools. So there are still great knowledge of boxing in countries like Russia, Ukraine, Belo Russia, Armenia, Poland, Romania etc...

No need to wonder why even the team behind Robert Helenius (Finland) is mostly "ossie". And guy named Adnan Ćatić - he's better known as a highclass technical boxer Felix Sturm.