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Old 12-20-2008, 11:44 PM   #1
stevebydac
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The Future Of Boxing

I was going to post this in the Holyfield-Valuev thread, but since it is references a broader topic, I made a separate thread...

Boxing is coming to a tipping point. It is currently a medium-interest sport (it used to be high-interest) and dropping. In the next 10-15 years it will drop to minimal-interest outside of some hard-core areas (Mexico and some others) unless something dramatically good/intelligent happens.

Somebody has to pour money into a legitimate organization to oversee the sport. They need to keep rankings of judges, and declare fight results illegitimate if judges with bad track records get assigned to those fights. International oversight on safety issues and boxer health care and pensions need to be addressed. Much like Ring, true rankings and champions need to be declared.

Also, that organization should take advantage of web technology and build a strong website, similar to espn or abc, that comprehensively and attractively promotes and reports on the sport. AND have the guts to report on WBA, WBC and IBF shady business dealings point by point as they happen (example being this farce Holyfield-Valuev fight). State an official case after a joke fight like this about what went wrong, why the decision was poor, and declare the illegitimacy of Valuev's title.

Doing all of these things would give the organization a much stronger profile than the current alphabet organizations.

Boxing needs a savior like this SOON. I'm not a De La Hoya fan, but I wish he would get out of the promotion business and try this project on instead. I admit he is smart and known and respected by virtually all parties, plus he has cash and connections.

On a side note, I feel for Valuev. By all accounts he is a nice, respectful, intelligent man. He is making a great living taking advantage of his natural gifts. It must suck to be regarded as a freak show, to hear the boos after winning fights like this that you don't deserve, to be ridiculed in the press. He simply isn't blessed with the tools to be a great fighter. I hope the money he makes is worth putting up with all of this crap.
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Old 12-21-2008, 01:09 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stevebydac View Post
On a side note, I feel for Valuev. By all accounts he is a nice, respectful, intelligent man. He is making a great living taking advantage of his natural gifts. It must suck to be regarded as a freak show, to hear the boos after winning fights like this that you don't deserve, to be ridiculed in the press. He simply isn't blessed with the tools to be a great fighter. I hope the money he makes is worth putting up with all of this crap.
Primo Carnera anyone?

Steve, you make good points. These types of steps should have happened years ago, when there was a chance at resurgence.

Sadly, at this point, the likelihood of this happening is pretty slim, and even if it did, it would only save what interest is left in the sport. Most of it I fear is already lost for good.
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Old 12-21-2008, 02:05 AM   #3
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Boxing, for the most part is now support in the USA by a crowd that's over (for the most part) 40 years old. It is a niche sport and basically has been such for the past 15 or so years in this country. Thanks to the Internet, fans of the sport have been brought together over the past 8 years to form a sort of nucleus from (ultimately) a new foundation can grow and spread.

In the new world economy and within the framework of the 21st century, boxing will ultimately have to enjoy a revival amongst the under 30 crowd (as of today) to enjoy the type of fanfare it once possessed (world-wide) in the past.
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Old 12-21-2008, 11:49 AM   #4
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Boxing has a shot to get back on network TV, I read Arum is looking into that. Maybe with Arena football canceling this season, ABC has some open air time now?
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Old 12-21-2008, 01:47 PM   #5
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Right now, boxing hasn't been forgotten by the under 30 crowd so much as it's been pushed out of the way by MMA. Personally I just don't think that MMA is all that great of a sport, and eventually people will either become bored with it or it will change its rules to improve excitement and competition and make it more similar to boxing in the process. Either way, I think boxing gains some of those people.

The other thing to mention, of course, is that while boxing is dying in the USA, it's still pretty huge in other parts of the world, like Mexico, Russia and Germany (look at that crowd that saw that horrible Rahman-Klitschko fight), even England, to say nothing of the Philippines, Thailand, and Japan among the smaller belts. The decline in this country will mean a smaller and smaller percentage of fighters worth watching will be American, but the sport will live on.
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Old 12-21-2008, 02:13 PM   #6
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Another thing is; there's really not as many younger people who want to become fighters to begin with these days. Year ago, there were local youth boxing programs all over the place. Boxing is a tough, tough sport. There are many other options today and sports that a person has to choose from.

Being a world class fighter (and staying one) requires a lot of sacrifice that many aren't willing to make. Plus, the physical damage and long term affects of being a fighter are now well known by just about everyone. There will still be great fighters who come along as long as the sport exists as we know it. But the "old days" that are now part of boxing lore, those days are probably gone for good. The numbers participating in this sport have dwindled significantly in the English speaking world.
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Old 12-21-2008, 02:31 PM   #7
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To me Boxing is a victim of the "short attention span" mindset that we live in now. As has been mentioned there is not a strong following in the under 40 crowd because Boxing is not a grab you by the neck and make you pay attention sport like MMA. People want to see a trainwreck and MMA fits that definition, anything can happen at any given time.

Boxing is slower paced, more strategic and is an "acquired" taste if you will. It also is not as user friendly as it used to be. No big fights on network TV, no larger than life characters like Sugar Ray, Hagler, Duran etc. It is also a morass of politics, greed and confusion. Too many belts, to much BS and it will never grab the attention of the "core" sports audience if that does not change. I don't know what the answers are, but I do know good fights need to be more accessible and fighters have to made more appealing.

Be honest, of those of us in the over 40 crowd. Are you really as enamored with the sport as you were in the 70's and 80's when you were growing up. I know I am not and just speaking for myself, I think I may follow it now more out of nostalgia for those days of yore, then I do because of any commitment to the sport as it exists today.
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Old 12-21-2008, 03:10 PM   #8
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I'm under 40 but I basically took up watching it to replace basketball (I live in Seattle ). I think that train wrecks are just as likely to happen in boxing, it's just that those train wrecks occur deep in the undercards. In MMA, where there really are only a handful of fighters at each level and few if any fighters have built up records that serve as a testament to their skill, it's not always easy to find a fight that isn't a complete mismatch. That being said, I find an actual, non train-wreck MMA fight to be incredibly boring compared to boxing.
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Old 12-21-2008, 04:27 PM   #9
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I love MMA and boxing. Of the two, I'd rather boxing was the sport of choice right now and the one getting all the publicity. Sadly it isn't. And with stuff like Holyfield last night, people I know on other message boards are already banging the nails into the coffin of boxing once more due to the fight being "fixed".

I think boxing COULD get a foot hold IF it was promoted by people who can see the bigger picture beyond their own wallets. UFC style promotion. But the problem then is that boxing wouldn't hold up to the great unwashed, because in boxing people don't get kicked in the head.

I don't think boxing will ever go away, but I'm not sure it can EVER come back due to the greed involved. I know one big problem is the price of PPV's. When they're double the price of UFC events, that right there turns a lot of people off. And while I see bars around where I live pimping that they're showing UFC PPV's, I have NEVER seen a bar promote a boxing event.

Boxing is seen as corrupt and greedy by pretty much everyone I know outside this board, and until it gets over that stigma (and stuff like last night really doesn't help), nothing can be done IMO.
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Old 12-21-2008, 04:33 PM   #10
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Right now, boxing hasn't been forgotten by the under 30 crowd so much as it's been pushed out of the way by MMA. Personally I just don't think that MMA is all that great of a sport, and eventually people will either become bored with it or it will change its rules to improve excitement and competition and make it more similar to boxing in the process. Either way, I think boxing gains some of those people.

The other thing to mention, of course, is that while boxing is dying in the USA, it's still pretty huge in other parts of the world, like Mexico, Russia and Germany (look at that crowd that saw that horrible Rahman-Klitschko fight), even England, to say nothing of the Philippines, Thailand, and Japan among the smaller belts. The decline in this country will mean a smaller and smaller percentage of fighters worth watching will be American, but the sport will live on.

I agree, when 2 MMA strikers go @ it, that can be entertaining - maybe because it reminds me of boxing. We talk about hard core boxing fans who can appreciate a pure boxer with little to no KO power. Fans like that are probably rare, like MMA fans who like the ground game. If the wrestling aspect is so popular, why isn't NCAA college wrestling more popular?

Most fans like the home run in baseball or the KO in combat sports - a decisive play or ending. I know submission tap-outs are part of MMA but I've talked to a # of MMA fans & they're not too pleased with those endings - a little like a shoot-out to determine the winner of a soccer match. A part of the game, sure but not a satisfying ending. That 41 second Fedor Affliction PPV "fight" was like Tyson/Spinks - practically over before it began.

Also, good points Jim & Lee.

Last edited by hamed2; 12-21-2008 at 04:34 PM.
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Old 12-21-2008, 04:37 PM   #11
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I love MMA and boxing. Of the two, I'd rather boxing was the sport of choice right now and the one getting all the publicity. Sadly it isn't. And with stuff like Holyfield last night, people I know on other message boards are already banging the nails into the coffin of boxing once more due to the fight being "fixed".

I think boxing COULD get a foot hold IF it was promoted by people who can see the bigger picture beyond their own wallets. UFC style promotion. But the problem then is that boxing wouldn't hold up to the great unwashed, because in boxing people don't get kicked in the head.

I don't think boxing will ever go away, but I'm not sure it can EVER come back due to the greed involved. I know one big problem is the price of PPV's. When they're double the price of UFC events, that right there turns a lot of people off. And while I see bars around where I live pimping that they're showing UFC PPV's, I have NEVER seen a bar promote a boxing event.

Boxing is seen as corrupt and greedy by pretty much everyone I know outside this board, and until it gets over that stigma (and stuff like last night really doesn't help), nothing can be done IMO.
Valid points Bone but Dana's doing all he can in regard to the greed dept., etc.
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Old 12-21-2008, 05:38 PM   #12
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I think a couple of things have caused the decline in boxing today, no big personalities who become rivals and no big name American-born fighters in the heavyweight division.
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Old 12-21-2008, 07:57 PM   #13
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To Lee's point, no, I'm not nearly as interested in the sport as I was even a decade ago, let alone the 70's. Time was I would make sure I either pooled with my buddies to get PPV, or went somewhere to watch the fights. Now I almost never do, and skip a lot of TV bouts.

Why? Well no clear champ is probably the biggest part of it. If you lose one belt, you can always go grab another from a weak sister somewhere.

And, yeah, lack of compelling personalities to either love or hate.
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Old 12-21-2008, 09:13 PM   #14
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And, yeah, lack of compelling personalities to either love or hate in the heavyweight division.
Fixed. There are certainly lots of personalities in the lower weight classes - even light heavyweight has Bernard Hopkins, who may not be a compelling fighter to watch but definitely is someone people "love to hate". Below him you've got Pac-Man, Ricky Hatton, ODLH... Pretty Boy Floyd's talking about coming back... the sport itself isn't bereft of talent/personality, just the heavyweight division. And I still say that it's always darkest before the dawn. I'm sure that David Haye would destroy Valuev if Evander beat him so soundly. Chris Arreola needs to lose some weight but even as a fat guy he could probably beat anyone in the division who doesn't have a brother in there too.

That being said, I've made the call for a governing body in the past and I may as well re-make it. Somebody in there needs to be able to do things that are good for the sport as a whole, not just for the individual fighter. Joe Calzaghe making his next fight (if he has one) on broadcast television would be good for the sport but probably not so good for Calzaghe, as even a poorly sold PPV will probably get him more than what he'd get from a broadcast match (not only will the station itself probably not be able to sell as much in advertising as Calzaghe gets from direct viewers, but the people making the deal would probably have to make fairly large concessions to get NBC or whoever from pushing "The World's Biggest Loser" from its schedule for a week). A governing body would be able to pass down regulations and requirements to all levels of the sport, not just the ones that somehow tie in to the title picture or the ones that happen to operate in a particular state. A governing body could probably be corrupted, but it's not as if boxing is pristine right now anyway; even a corrupt governing body would be better than the anarchy we have right now.

The other thing that could come out of a governing body (which need not be the government itself) is directed advertising and publicity. Not just advertising for one particular fight or from one particular venue, but the entire sport. One thing that boxing has going for it is its multiculturalism; if you can fight, it doesn't matter where you are from. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are already attending a lot of fights, but what about Puerto Ricans? Cuban-Americans? There are lots of demographics that boxing can appeal to, and not just when Kermit Cintron or Manny Pacquiao are about to fight.

All that being said, boxing could also bounce back just by cleaning its own houses and waiting for MMA to fall apart/change to something so much like boxing that it eventually merges (although the *last* thing I want to see is boxing allowing submission holds).
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Old 12-22-2008, 01:57 AM   #15
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Boxing, for the most part is now support in the USA by a crowd that's over (for the most part) 40 years old. It is a niche sport and basically has been such for the past 15 or so years in this country. Thanks to the Internet, fans of the sport have been brought together over the past 8 years to form a sort of nucleus from (ultimately) a new foundation can grow and spread.

In the new world economy and within the framework of the 21st century, boxing will ultimately have to enjoy a revival amongst the under 30 crowd (as of today) to enjoy the type of fanfare it once possessed (world-wide) in the past.

Yup, and the youth is in love with MMA. With their lower salaries and pretty much centralized league they are able to put on higher quality cards.

As a fan of both. I can't complain about the inring product that boxing is putting on. Big fights are getting made. I do my part to try and rally younger friends for fan friendly fights.

It sure would be easier if they weren't on at 11 on saturday night. i really think HBO should let bars show these fights.

But more important than anything else is make good fights on these PPV undercards. And i don't want to hear about the money the maineventers get.

There are plenty of low budget fights like that mtagwa fight that you can put on and have guaranteed fireworks. Instead of trying to build future stars against creampuffs. They should be trying to build fans of the sport.

Knowing the names would not be relevant under a card like Manny/Oscar. No casual fan will remember Ortiz or lopez for those mismatches. But they would remember a brawl between two fringe contenders.

Next time you should come watch the fights. Mickey ward is on the undercard. Who? The bloody white guy that fights like Balboa. Cool

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Old 12-22-2008, 05:43 AM   #16
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Valid points Bone but Dana's doing all he can in regard to the greed dept., etc.
Oh agreed wholeheartedly, but he's also not doing it at the expense of UFC. Dana White is more Vince McMahon than Don King.

I agree with Bogie. No big stars. One thing UFC have been good at is making stars, and making great use of those known from outside, such as Brock Lesnar. MMA fans mock wrestling, and yet Dana uses old school wrestling booking tactics all the time.

I'd love to watch more boxing, but I'm screwed. None of the channels I get on TV show it. (I don't have cable, but I do get a few channels for some reason. None of them show boxing.) That leaves illicit downloading options, and while UFC is everywhere, boxing is almost nowhere. The only site I know is closed to membership.

I would love a regular, weekly boxing show I could sit and watch. I don't care if it just shows highlights, full fights, old fights, whatever. I'd just like to watch some boxing!

As it is to get my boxing fix I'm stuck with books. (Just picked up a couple that Amazon amazingly had in stock! Nearly died of shock given I almost never see a boxing book actually in stock on Amazon Canada.)
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Old 12-22-2008, 12:29 PM   #17
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That's true Bone but in the tradition of Don, the MMA fans I know all hate Dana too.
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Old 12-22-2008, 03:25 PM   #18
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It's interesting when you look back at the history of modern boxing as we know it today. It took root in a big way in North America and the UK with incredible fighters coming out of the USA, Canada and the UK. John L. Sullivan became the first sports hero in the history of the US and brought a type of mystique to the title - The Heavyweight Champion of the World.

Fighters like Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Ray Robinson were role models within society - respected, honored, looked up to as hero's who through hard work and discipline worked their way out of poverty to acheive a type of immortality in the ring.

Even in modern times, kids looked up to larger than life figures like Ali. And then Leonard. How many kids turned pro after watching Ali?

What do you have today? People hate highly paid athletes who act like thugs and punks in public and live in million-dollar plus homes.

Manny Pacquiao is to his native Philippines a good example of how fighters used to be perceived by the public.

Mike Tyson could have carried that mantle but he made the wrong choices and there's no going back. Boxing's main stream popularity - the kind it had when just about everyone on the street seemed to know who the champions were, will not likely return anytime in the foreseeable future.

I still follow boxing though, because even a crappy fight is better than no fight at all. Like most things, the level of quality has deteriorated to the point where "passable" is the new "good," and good is the new great.

When you're in your early 20's, it can be easy to look this sort of opinion as that of someone who's living in the past! But the thing is, back in 1969, fighters like Louis, Marciano, Dempsey, etc., they acknowledged fighters like Ali, Liston, Frazier, etc. as being great fighters. Even Archie Moore and Ray Robinson acknowledged Ray Leonard as an all-time great. Today, what do you hear? DeLaHoya, Mosley, Hopkins, etc. - none of these guys would have accomplished anywhere near what they did had they fought in the 70's or 80's. They didn't have the level of competition that Leonard, Hearns, Hagler or Duran did.

So I really believe that it's not just a generation-gap type of thing where you favor the fighters you grow up with. I liked watching DeLaHoya, Mosley and Hopkins throughout their careers. I don't think they would have been bums had they fought in the 70's or 80's. I just think they would have had -
  1. more losses
  2. less defenses
  3. less title belts in their collection
Conversely, had someone like Duran come around today, he would have more belts at more weights - more times, than any other fighter in history.

There are exceptions. I believe Manny Pacquiao could have fought in any era successfully. Juan Marquez is severely underrated, too. The quality of fighters in the lower weight divisions is still pretty strong. And it's no coincidence that these guys are coming out of Mexico, too, where the old-school type mentality and training methods are still practiced.
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Old 12-22-2008, 04:00 PM   #19
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That's true Bone but in the tradition of Don, the MMA fans I know all hate Dana too.
I don't really know any other fans beyond the morons on Sherdog. Oh they were awesome to read when Brock won the title.
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Old 12-22-2008, 04:33 PM   #20
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Phases come and go.....likewise with fads......and the death of this or that (including boxing) has long been suggested many times before.....

All sorts of reasonable suggestions for why boxing is where it is at (currently) have been listed above.

I will say, the notion that Don King has been bad for boxing is foolishness. On the whole Don King puts on the best cards and in reality since he has come into boxing....boxers today make more money (top to bottom) than they ever did in the 20s, 30s, 60s, 70s and most other time periods.

Valuve is just one example of a guy that is paid incredibly well today, that couldn't dream of such purse numbers prior to Don King days...... And that includes guys all the way down to Fly Wt level. Those at the top are making much more today (than before Don King) and even in the mid-range levels they are making more per fight than in prior eras.
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