Gene Tunney is not an all time great HW

[Master]

Boxing was massive back then it was way bigger audiences. Know your history.

Boxing was massive in America then. It is massive everywhere now.

I know Dempsey vs Tunney set a record 120,000.

I am not sure if say Klitschko has ever made higher than that, but the relevant factor is this.

Klitschko (for example, modern champ compared to ancient champ) fills stadiums to capacity. He could easily match the figures of attendance then by having more seats and adjusting the price.

Obviously your olden days attendance totally neglects pay per view and television.

When the announcer says "to the thousands in attendance and the MILLIONS watching around the world, what does that tell you?

ONLY local and somewhat more distant Americans MAINLY could watch those fights first hand. Today, I can watch the HW championship live stream from my living room!

You see where I'm coming from? 100 years ago you would not be talking to an Australian about it right now.

Not sure about popularity on numbers
Theres more people in America and the world now than there was back then so the numbers dont really compute well.

Matching numbers up without taking into consideration the vast difference in percentages is pointless.

Same thing when people try to match up champions per head per capita in each country,it balances out the whole false assertion some have "that we are better than you (cause we have got more than you) thought process."
Its down to the size of the gene pool.

Yeah that is true.

@Master may have a case for it being more popular in America, I don't know and don't have figures for that on hand to compare with populations in the US at the time, so I'll decline to comment.

Worldwide I'd confidently say it's a white wash with boxings popularity now. But that would come down more to media development anyway I guess.

You are a muppet, with technological advances of course it is bigger now because of the world wide audiences. At that time these fighters were household names, people can not name the top ranked US fighter let alone the current champion in the heavyweight division.

Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey were not pub fighters.

You want to know why Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney were known names and current top US boxers less so? Because Dempsey and Tunney were the CHAMPS! And they were heralded as testaments to nationalist pride!

Today, Jennings, Arreola, PErez, Thompson and Wilder, they are second fiddle to European boxers like Klitschko, Pulev and Povetkin. It should come as NO SURPRISE.

The moment let's say, Deontay Wilder beats STIVERNE (if possible), let alone Wladimir, the media in the US will be lit up with his picture all over the news and EVERYBODY who doesn't even follow boxing will learn very quickly who the new champ is, trust me!

And if a US boxer ever beats WK or otherwise becomes a unified champ, boxing will undergo a stark "revitalisation" like never before.

Everybody knows who Floyd Mayweather is don't they? That's because he is the champ!

Floyd is famous because he was on strictly come dancing - nothing else.

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