WHY DOES AMATEUR BOXING SUCK?
14 January, 2008 by Pedro Fernandez
CURING BOXING ILLS BEGINS IN AMATEURS
San Francisco, CA- Having just watched a press conference involving a woman held hostage for six years in Colombia, now free and reunited with her family, I was thinking how could one top that? The subject is boxing. Once the champion of sports, the “minor league” system is so flawed and corrupt, at least here in the United States, that there is no way that the game of boxing can truly grow.
EMANUEL STEWARD & ALI AAU CHAMPS!
Since 1888, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) was the sanctioning body of all amateur sports in this country. (Muhammad Ali 1960, HBO commentator/trainer Emanuel Steward 1964). In 1978, the AAU decided to “give up its jurisdiction with the decline amateurism.” From that point forward, various amateur sports formed sanctioning bodies individually. In 1979, the United States Amateur Boxing Federation (USABF) took over. They soon mandated headgear in Golden Glove fights and the like. At first, this wasn’t such a bad idea. Headgears were designed to prevent cuts and reduce injury. But soon they became “boxing helmets.”
HEADGEARS HIDE MORE THAN ROBBERY MASKS
Big, cumbersome and most importantly ineffective, as it does nobody any good in taking repetitive the headgear has become such a helmet that you can’t figure out who is boxing! In other words, we could introduce Fighter A as Fighter B, and few would know the difference as these headgears are better than the masks employed by some bank robbers.
DECLINE OF AMATEUR GAME HUGE FACTOR
A while back, the incomparable Johnny Bos was talking along these lines. This intrigued me. Having attended some amateur shows since, I studied the crowds and soon realized that nobody outside of the sport itself really likes amateur boxing per se. It is boring, unentertaining, and excites fewer people than ever on a national scale. The style of the sport makes it more like “fencing with gloves” than any an act of aggression between two combatants.
NEW NAME, SAME OLD BORING GAME!
Having had scandals that reached the upper core of the folks running the USABF, this involving millions of dollars missing and unaccounted for, the organization tried to ditch its tarnished reputation with a new name. They now call themselves USA Boxing.
MAKING GAME EXCITING & ACCEPTABLE
It is too late for the 2008 Olympic Games to eliminate headgear. My prescription to cure amateur boxing would also be to change boxing from the summer to the winter games. There are just too many sports that draw better than boxing in the summer competition. Back to the headgear, the masking of the fighter’s facial features makes amateur boxing a thoroughly impersonal experience. We need to go back to amateur boxing circa 1968 (George Foreman at the Olympics) when clean punching and bloody noses ruled!
