So compared to past U.S. heavyweights... Wilder's not very popular in the U.S. Why?

[El Kabong]

I'm not expecting a Foreman Lyle shoot out. Lets repackage it as a fight of great significance

100% Agreed, it means a lot....I think it'll be one of those chess match fights, but we'll see who knows, maybe we will get Foreman vs Lyle, but what we know for certain is it's a meaningful heavyweight fight and those are rare. Meaningful fights in general for boxing are rare and this is one of those where it's happening in the prime for both fighters, both undefeated, they have everything to fight for and everything to lose.


Focusing on the fight itself rather than the aura surrounding it....I think Wilder only has 1 way to fight which is to swing for the fences. I think Fury is a slick boxer, he's a lot slicker than I initially gave him credit for. I don't believe Wilder allows Fury to fight a negative style fight the way he did vs Wlad and to be quite honest I don't think Fury's ego is stable enough to accept criticism of fighting another negative style fight. I think Fury will try the mind games with Wilder and hell maybe it'll work, but Wilder isn't a fighter that's in his own head all that much, he's more of a guy with heart and instinct so I think mentally, emotionally, psychologically Wilder and Fury are mirror images of each other but 1 is all power and the other is about just boxing.


It'll be interesting to see what happens...it would be better if we knew more about how Fury was doing in training and so on, there's obviously troubles under the surface (else he wouldn't have take the time off...and of course there's the PEDs question) but you wonder how deep those go.

[mikeeod]

There are a couple of reasons, in my opinion. First, and most painful for me to admit, is that boxing is no longer a major U.S. sport. At one point kids who were poor dreamed of becoming Ali, Louis, Dempsey, Holyfield...etc. U.S. heavyweight champs transcended the sport and used the platform to make political statements that had global impacts. Unfortunately, the media took on the mission of ending the violent sport of boxing in the 80s and eventually achieved their goal (in the U.S., thankfully it is a global sport so it remains popular everywhere else).

The second reason is that Wilder, like Ward, just doesn’t have that “it” factor necessary to pull in casual fans. Floyd is an ATG fighter, without a doubt, but his biggest fights were not a result of people wanting to watch him fight for his skills, it was because he was so damn good at eliciting emotions and creating spectacles. The only way a heavyweight reaches the levels of previous decades is if he is extremely charismatic.