USA Boxers are all talk, no walk

[thomasjkelley]

I remember reading a quote from some one (not sure who) that went along the lines of "you can be the 100th best American footballer in the world and you'll get paid more than the 2nd best HW boxer" that probably goes a long way to explaining the decline of the HW division which the U.S. Pretty much dominated for a century.

heavyweight is 1 out of 17 div., so it is not only nfl & nba stealing top black boxing talents.

That is a myth. The NBA & NFL only draft about 275 players a year. That's about 4000 over the last decade and a half. Never heard of a single one giving up a promising professional bocing career to play football or basketball. It coincides with the fall of the Soviet Union, so that is probably the number one factor. Secondly, I think the interest just isn't there anymore. I also don't believe athleticism translates seamlessly between boxing and other sports. They are two completely different crafts. You ever see Holyfield or Tyson play basketball? It's like they never picked up a ball in their lives.

[reggaereggae]

I remember reading a quote from some one (not sure who) that went along the lines of "you can be the 100th best American footballer in the world and you'll get paid more than the 2nd best HW boxer" that probably goes a long way to explaining the decline of the HW division which the U.S. Pretty much dominated for a century.

heavyweight is 1 out of 17 div., so it is not only nfl & nba stealing top black boxing talents.

That is a myth. The NBA & NFL only draft about 275 players a year. That's about 4000 over the last decade and a half. Never heard of a single one giving up a promising professional bocing career to play football or basketball. It coincides with the fall of the Soviet Union, so that is probably the number one factor. Secondly, I think the interest just isn't there anymore. I also don't believe athleticism translates seamlessly between boxing and other sports. They are two completely different crafts. You ever see Holyfield or Tyson play basketball? It's like they never picked up a ball in their lives.

It's a total myth. Look at the data:
• Average NFL player salary: $1.9 million
• Median NFL player salary: $770,000
• Average NFL career length: 3.5 years

3.5 years! Also the NBA and NFL have always been around, it's not like they suddenly appeared in the 90s.

[tigermoth87]

I remember reading a quote from some one (not sure who) that went along the lines of "you can be the 100th best American footballer in the world and you'll get paid more than the 2nd best HW boxer" that probably goes a long way to explaining the decline of the HW division which the U.S. Pretty much dominated for a century.

heavyweight is 1 out of 17 div., so it is not only nfl & nba stealing top black boxing talents.

That is a myth. The NBA & NFL only draft about 275 players a year. That's about 4000 over the last decade and a half. Never heard of a single one giving up a promising professional bocing career to play football or basketball. It coincides with the fall of the Soviet Union, so that is probably the number one factor. Secondly, I think the interest just isn't there anymore. I also don't believe athleticism translates seamlessly between boxing and other sports. They are two completely different crafts. You ever see Holyfield or Tyson play basketball? It's like they never picked up a ball in their lives.

This ^^^

Americans claiming their lack of success on "our best athletes play football and basketball" is ludicrous.

It's if Brits said "all our boxers play Rugby instead".



Completely different sports. Just because someone is good at basketball doesn't mean they'd be a good boxer. I doubt... I dunno, Leroy James or Kobe Beef, if they didn't play basketball would instead be heavyweight champs of the world.

[ikorolev]

It is just men in developed countries are becoming softer. Boxing is too tough of a sport for them.

[Tony1244]

It is just men in developed countries are becoming softer. Boxing is too tough of a sport for them.

That's true. I use to think it was because of color, but then when the wall came down, I realized that wasn't the case.

When the poor caucasian immigrants came to America about 100 years ago, there were many good boxers. The poverty today in America pales in comparison to what it once was. That's good, but not good for developing boxers.

[Tony1244]

I remember reading a quote from some one (not sure who) that went along the lines of "you can be the 100th best American footballer in the world and you'll get paid more than the 2nd best HW boxer" that probably goes a long way to explaining the decline of the HW division which the U.S. Pretty much dominated for a century.

heavyweight is 1 out of 17 div., so it is not only nfl & nba stealing top black boxing talents.

That is a myth. The NBA & NFL only draft about 275 players a year. That's about 4000 over the last decade and a half. Never heard of a single one giving up a promising professional bocing career to play football or basketball. It coincides with the fall of the Soviet Union, so that is probably the number one factor. Secondly, I think the interest just isn't there anymore. I also don't believe athleticism translates seamlessly between boxing and other sports. They are two completely different crafts. You ever see Holyfield or Tyson play basketball? It's like they never picked up a ball in their lives.

When a young Cassius Clay got his bike stolen, the cop recommended he go to a boxing gym. The rest is history as they say. Today, he would have been told to take up tae kwon do or try UFC. Foreman today would have gone into football. There are very few good boxing gyms left in America today. In the mid 20th century there were tons of them. It's cultural. If the economy in Eastern Europe improved dramatically, and/or other sports like rugby or MMA increased in popularity, the caliber of boxer there would take a nosedive.

[ikorolev]

When a young Cassius Clay got his bike stolen, the cop recommended he go to a boxing gym. The rest is history as they say. Today, he would have been told to take up tae kwon do or try UFC. Foreman today would have gone into football. There are very few good boxing gyms left in America today. In the mid 20th century there were tons of them. It's cultural. If the economy in Eastern Europe improved dramatically, and/or other sports like rugby or MMA increased in popularity, the caliber of boxer there would take a nosedive.

Today, he would be advised to buy a new bike and then apply for additional government money.

[Tony1244]

When a young Cassius Clay got his bike stolen, the cop recommended he go to a boxing gym. The rest is history as they say. Today, he would have been told to take up tae kwon do or try UFC. Foreman today would have gone into football. There are very few good boxing gyms left in America today. In the mid 20th century there were tons of them. It's cultural. If the economy in Eastern Europe improved dramatically, and/or other sports like rugby or MMA increased in popularity, the caliber of boxer there would take a nosedive.

Today, he would be advised to buy a new bike and then apply for additional government money.

Yeah, they'd probably send him to an anger management class.

[Badhusker]

You have to be an idiot to lump all boxers from any country and disrespect them in any way. They are all different, have different promoters, different skills, different goals, etc.

I think the shoe fits.

[asdfjkl]

It is just men in developed countries are becoming softer. Boxing is too tough of a sport for them.

TBH I think even most boxers are quite softies, if I look at kickboxers for example, they are a lot harder and the heavyweight league is pretty much dominated by (previous) kickboxers. Fury often trains with kickboxers, both Klitschko's used to be kickboxers in their youth, Povetkin used to be, Whyte used to be (I expect him to raise about 50 ranks), and those are just the guys I know about.

[bigman1968]

heavyweight is 1 out of 17 div., so it is not only nfl & nba stealing top black boxing talents.

That is a myth. The NBA & NFL only draft about 275 players a year. That's about 4000 over the last decade and a half. Never heard of a single one giving up a promising professional bocing career to play football or basketball. It coincides with the fall of the Soviet Union, so that is probably the number one factor. Secondly, I think the interest just isn't there anymore. I also don't believe athleticism translates seamlessly between boxing and other sports. They are two completely different crafts. You ever see Holyfield or Tyson play basketball? It's like they never picked up a ball in their lives.

It's a total myth. Look at the data:
• Average NFL player salary: $1.9 million
• Median NFL player salary: $770,000
• Average NFL career length: 3.5 years

3.5 years! Also the NBA and NFL have always been around, it's not like they suddenly appeared in the 90s.

The real advantage of basketball/football is not in pro leagues, but in NCAA!

Sport programs gives good chance for a lot of poor athletic big guys to get college degree and improve their chances in life.

The base of American sport today is NCAA, and boxing is not a part of it.

[SportsRatings]

I think what happened is pretty clear: the NBA and NFL became the path to real money, a spot formerly held by boxing.

Up through the 1970s, if you wanted to make millions of dollars in athletics, you had to be a boxer:

Jack Dempsey made...over $700,000 for his unsuccessful title defense against Gene Tunney in 1926. And Tunney made $990,000 when he defended the title (and survived the infamous "long count") against Dempsey the next year. Between the two of them, they earned more than the entire 1929 payroll of baseball's American League in their two championship fights.

Meanwhile, African-Americans couldn't even participate in the NBA and NFL until the 1950s, while Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali made millions as heavyweight champions.

The other sports closed the gap, however:

[Collective bargaining] helped average NFL salaries go from $198,000 in 1986 to almost $800,000 by the start of the 1993 season.

In the NBA, the average player salary rose from $35,000 in 1970 to $180,000 a decade later.

And salaries in the 1990s rocketed even further, to the point where the best bet for cashing in big on athletic talent was clearly in football, basketball, or baseball--or at the very least, they were competitive with boxing. Basketball and football players were the ones getting the big endorsement contracts, too.

That timeline foretells the big decline in U.S. dominance of boxing by the 21st century. Of course the USSR opening up didn't help either, adding competition and taking focus away from North America. But now there are a couple of generations of U.S. athletes who for the most part never even laced up boxing gloves, and in the 1930s or 1960s, they would have.

[Chepppaaa]

That is a myth. The NBA & NFL only draft about 275 players a year. That's about 4000 over the last decade and a half. Never heard of a single one giving up a promising professional bocing career to play football or basketball. It coincides with the fall of the Soviet Union, so that is probably the number one factor. Secondly, I think the interest just isn't there anymore. I also don't believe athleticism translates seamlessly between boxing and other sports. They are two completely different crafts. You ever see Holyfield or Tyson play basketball? It's like they never picked up a ball in their lives.

It's a total myth. Look at the data:
• Average NFL player salary: $1.9 million
• Median NFL player salary: $770,000
• Average NFL career length: 3.5 years

3.5 years! Also the NBA and NFL have always been around, it's not like they suddenly appeared in the 90s.

The real advantage of basketball/football is not in pro leagues, but in NCAA!

Sport programs gives good chance for a lot of poor athletic big guys to get college degree and improve their chances in life.

The base of American sport today is NCAA, and boxing is not a part of it.

nonsense. most nba players cant read properly and they dont do normal jobs after the nba career, even if it is short career in terms of years and money.

the base is not ncaa, ncaa is where athletes be rippt off money. playing basketball infront of big crowds for 0 money. thats why some young players go to china or europe or go straight from hs to nba.

[Tony1244]

"USA Boxers are all talk, no walk"

I didn't realize David Haye was American.