"Potential Heavyweights are now 'Football Tight Ends' and 'NBA Forwards'

[rjj tszyu]

Bottom line is that the more popular a sport is, the more super athletes you're going to get gravitating to it.

Anyone who follows MMA knows this. If you look at the UFC pre-2005 and then UFC 2005 onward (after it became popular), there's no comparison in terms of the athletic talent that is dominating the sport.

So yeah, for many years football was taking a lot of super athletes that could have ruled the HW division, and in recent years MMA has taken a lot of those as well.

I disagree with the MMA part. I do occasionally watch MMA and I rarely see someone in the heavyweight division and think they could have been a great boxer!! I think Dos Santos could have been ok, although I seriously doubt he'd be "elite". Also if you look at it from another perspective, so many of the guys who have been great in HW division in MMA have come from backgrounds that create good smaller boxers but certainly not bigger guys. For example Cain Velasquez, although he is actually an American fighter he comes from a Mexican background. As we know Mexicans have made up some of boxings greatest ever Champions but only in the smaller divisions. Also Velasquez I think it's fair to say is the man right now as far as HW's go in MMA but I don't see him as being anywhere near the natural athlete that Wladimir Klitschko is or to be fair any of the great boxers throughout history.

I think it's also fair to say that America has somewhat ruled the top division in boxing barring the very early days and the last 15 years, with the emergence of Lennox Lewis the Klitschko's and the decline in top American Heavyweights playing a huge part in this in my opinion. I don't see anyone in MMA like the guys we are now missing in boxing, people like Liston, Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton, Holmes, Tyson and Holyfield. I just don't see anyone in MMA that is that kind of athlete. I'm not knocking MMA here just basically pointing out that it's a different sport that requires a different set of athletic qualities.

I think the reason behind it all is money though. If you reach the very top of boxing you have, down the years been able to earn more money than any other sport and that is an undisputed fact!! It is still the case now, look at Floyd Mayweather the highest earning sportsman alive, again and for 72 minutes work!! The problem is reaching the very top of boxing requires a lot of luck and when all said and done it is dangerous too. You need to be lucky enough to have been blessed with the natural athletic qualities required for boxing and then the training is very hard too. Then the danger factor comes into play.... I have a friend who trains a childrens football (soccer) team and he was telling me the about some of the really athletic young lads he gets down there and was also saying that a couple of their mums have been telling him they have been struggling to control their sons lately. He suggested getting them to go boxing a couple of times a week as it is excellent training and it helps teach discipline etc. The immediate response was "It's too brutal". The point I'm trying to get at here is people are very rarely encouraged to go boxing because of the dangers associated with the sport (unfairly in my opinion, certainly at amateur level) and whereas in years gone by the £££ used to be a big factor, lots of other "safer" sports have certainly bridged the gap financially now. I know that in the 60's a top international footballer was earning around £2000 a year and when converted into todays equivalent that is around £75,000 a year. Well in 1974 Ali and Foreman both received a whopping £5 million each for the Rumble which equates to around £53 million now. Although football doesn't quite reach that level just yet there is certainly a lot more money to be had now!! I am using "soccer" as an example here as it is a sport that I have knowledge of rather American Football which I have no clue of other than I know that they too now earn ridiculous amounts of money and I feel these are the reasons that Basketball and Football seem to be taking the big athletic guys away from boxing in the states.

Maybe not so much in the HW division. You'd have to look at guys like JDS, a 6'7'' giant like Travis Browne who is so light on his feet and fast for his size, Stipe Miocic, Mark Hunt (who was a kickboxing world champ and would have been entertaining in the very least), Matt Mitrione, ect. Those guys spent all their time training everything from striking, wrestling, submissions, ect. You have to wonder what would have happened if they dedicated 100% of themselves to boxing.

Jon Jones is the best example though. He fights at 205 but walks around at 230 or more. He started training MMA and threw a punch until he was 20, but went in and just started dominating seasoned guys right away and was a champ by the time he was 23 or 24. Jon Jones is the kind of guy you want in boxing: a super athlete who's mentally/physically tough and picks up skills and techniques almost immediately.

I agree with you as far as Jon Jones goes, supreme athlete who is also clearly a sponge as far as absorbing information etc! I would have loved to have seen him in a boxing ring.

[Beanflicker]

He's got a great build for boxing. SUPER long arms, tall and lanky but with superhuman strength.

Jones isn't a KO puncher but he could have been a master boxer IMO, his understanding and use of range is incredible.

[ykdadamaja]

It's true. This is why I was high on Andy Ruiz- he is one of the few organically grown HW's in the American ranks. Everyone else has switched sports late.

But, I think, anyone that starts the fight game before 15-16 and has, at least, 60 plus fights, can be considered a organically grown HW.

With that said: The only luck the American HW scene can have is IF they, by accident, start a guy off at about 8 or 9 and he looks like a runt, and by the time he gets 15/16/17 he shoots up about 5 or six inches from 5'10 or something.

Pray it happens...

[ykdadamaja]

btw: Who says a HW has to be over 6'4 and 240 lbs plus? You guys are just scared of the Klits, but no one ever talks about how skilful they are. Has nothing to do as much with height, it has to do with their skill.

I like Amir Mansour's style- he is hard to hit and has sneaky hand speed and tremendous power and he knows how to corner guys.

There are benefits in staying low!

[El Kabong]

I don't buy this argument, I think the "next potential heavyweights" are getting too late a start in boxing AND the US Amateur boxing scene is just crap at developing proper fighters at the moment because of their rules and regulations.

Late starts in boxing....this happens for a few reasons but A#1 is head injuries, everyone is big on them these days but soccer and football have head injury issues as well however they are not as stigmatized as boxing for example "Punch drunk" or "Pugilistic Dementia" ...those things aren't JUST boxing related anymore as we continue to find head injury problems in other sports.

The US Amateur boxing scene is devoid of good trainers as those professional trainers aren't allowed to train amateur fighters for some reason....hopefully something can be done or some benefactor can go in and really train up our youth to be better boxers and not just sluggers or dependent on their own natural skills