is white boxing the weakest its ever been in america?

[jamamb]

im not looking to make this a racist issue, but in another thread i said caleb plant might be the best white us boxer and it got me thinking

has there ever been a weaker pool of white usa talent? genuinely curious.

[Enlightened-One]

It's not really an issue about skin colour.

It is no coincidence that the last American to win a gold medal at the Olympics was Andre Ward, who achieved this feat in 2004.

Barring a few exceptions to the general rule, the sport of boxing in America has been on the decline for the last 15 years or so.

There are currently fewer American's being regarded as the best of their respective division than there ever has been.

[gilgamesh]

There ain't a whole lot of meaningful White American boxers that I can think of off the top of my head, I figure the sport just doesn't appeal to a lot of young White kids for various reasons, but there are a few that still go for it. Caleb Plant seems like a solid talent, not sure how he's gonna do overall, but I'd say he's at least earned a Top 15 spot at the moment at 168.

[Lackeos]

I'd say that Joe Smith is the best white American, and barring Adam Kownacki (born in Poland), I don't think it's very close.

Nevertheless, jamamb's point kind of stands. You can go through boxrec's top 75 American boxers p4p and find like 3 white guys. In a country that is 70% white, that is freaking insane. I prefer not to look for patterns based on race, with the exception of where it can help identify institutional racism. However, this degree of disproportionality, going from 70% to 4%, is just mind-boggling.

I'd have to think that the factors involved are...
-Lots of white people gravitating towards MMA.
-Poverty in America disproportionately affecting minorities. Although, there are a lot of rural poor whites in red states; but most rural red states can't support much of a boxing market.

[jamamb]

oh right i forgot about joe smith. ya he could be the #1

good post

[KiwiRider]

I hope to see boxing make a recovery in the near future in the US. The Mexicans who are making their home there are behind a surge in popularity in the sport and there is an increasing presence of MexAmericans in the professional ranks. California seems to host almost as many fights as New York these days.
Anyway, no matter the colour, I hope to see a lot more greats coming out of the USA. Possibly in the lighter classes

[marvelous marv]

Chris Algieri is planning to return to 140. He has been sparring with Daniel Jacobs.

[boxing_rocks]

Algieri sucks.

[SenorPipino]

Quickie Quiz:
Who's the last white American boxing star?


He was certainly not on the Mayweather/Pacquiao level of celebrity, but he gained quite a bit of attention.

I suspected that it was because of his skin color.

[mjeffers365]

I would say Kelly Pavlik was a pretty good white American fighter. That is just off the top of my head.

[asdfjkl]

I think they just aren't that interested. I only know one black iceskater, Shani Davis, and he has one amazing carreer. So it's not like they just aren't able to do it. I've never seen a black guy in the tour de France, but when it comes to running I barely ever see a white person on the podium. So I would be surprised if white people are naturally better cyclists.
In football it's 50/50 I guess, I think it's a bit of a cultural and local media thing as well.
The Netherlands have dominated the (super)heavyweight kickboxing league for almost 30 years in a row, somehow they haven't produced a great boxer... Well ever have they? Last week there was a kickboxer against a wotld champ boxer in a boxing match, the guy wasn't even that good, but the UK fans seemed to be quite impressed by him actually, so it's not a lack of talent.

Rico Verhoeven is the current heavyweight kickboxing champ, a 270 ish pound guy with an awesome stamina, maybe they should make him a boxing offer he can't refuse against Chisora or so, just for the fun of it.

[HomicideHenry]

I was talking about this a few days ago. When you have a 1,000 black guys in the sport there's maybe 100 white guys in it. If there's 750 Latinos, there's 500 orientals.

The oddity for me is that in boxing you have these lengthy black championship reigns, but in MMA black champions have relatively short reigns.

I used to hear black boxers go on and on about "the system" or "the man" or "whitey" holding them back in boxing, but I always say it's supply and demand. If you have 1,000 black guys in boxing and only 100 white guys, whose gonna get more noticed? The white guy because he's a rarity. If anything blacks hold back other blacks, cus you have too much competition and representation.

But I tend to disagree in a worldwide view, as we have more white champions and contenders than we've had in years. Kovalev, GGG, Fury, Saunders, Lomanchenko, etc. whereas the blacks are dominating the lighter weights.

As for America, I think on the whole, no matter color or region, the level of ability and worth has dropped off dramatically over the passed two decades. There's many factors for it, but it's a reality.

The only guy America has that's worth anything is Crawford, essentially. Unless Ward comes back, but basically we're a nation of fringe contenders.

[Best Coast]

I'd have to think that the factors involved are...
-Lots of white people gravitating towards MMA.
-Poverty in America disproportionately affecting minorities. Although, there are a lot of rural poor whites in red states; but most rural red states can't support much of a boxing market.

Great points. Poverty has always provided a steady flow of boxing talent in the US. In the early 1900s there were loads of poor Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants. Since the black middle class has grown, the ranks of great black American HWs (as well as Cruisers & Light Heavies) has steadily shrunken: The late 1990s was the last "golden age" of black American HWs. Middle-class blacks are MUCH more likely to pursue a career in the NFL (70% black) or NBA (70+% black) because top-notch black NFL/NBA stars' salaries DWARF the salaries of all but the most elite boxers like Floyd.

Latinos in the past 5 years have surpassed blacks as THE largest minority group in the US and that is clearly reflected in the boxing rankings as Hispanic boxers gradually increase their dominance of the sport over black fighters.

Ever notice how few top-notch Asian-AMERICAN boxers there are? That's because Asian immigrants put a lot more emphasis on education than other minorities. Black & brown teenagers/high schoolers who get good grades in school and excel academically are often teased & mocked by their peers as being "too white". Asian-American teens dont have time for that nonsense because they are too busy studying to earn college degrees and getting into medicine, law, science and other white-collar professions. They dont get locked into the ghetto/barrio mindset that keeps black & brown kids trapped in an endless cycle of poverty!!

[HyacinthusTurnipseed]

Quickie Quiz:
Who's the last white American boxing star?


He was certainly not on the Mayweather/Pacquiao level of celebrity, but he gained quite a bit of attention.

I suspected that it was because of his skin color.

Kelly Pavlik, right? He was the last really good fighter I could think of that is a white American anyway. Unless I've just forgotten someone.

Then again, how many really good w/A boxers have there been since after the 70s? You're looking at guys like Lalonde, Morrison, Mancini etc... Pavlik might even be the pick of that whole bunch. Now I've got to be forgetting someone.

[jamamb]

van horn, czyk, o grady

and of course there was paulie to recently join them

top ones now off my head:

joe smith
algeiri
caleb plant
mike gavronski

kownacki if hes american, though he was born in poland and claimed in an interview that he considers himself polish

[dickbelden]

JOE SMITH JR

[armageto]

Quickie Quiz:
Who's the last white American boxing star?


He was certainly not on the Mayweather/Pacquiao level of celebrity, but he gained quite a bit of attention.

I suspected that it was because of his skin color.

Tommy Morrison

[armageto]

I think the best current boxer potential wise would be Caleb Plant. Joe Smith has good power, but is too one dimensional.

Algieri, Kauffman, Karpency, and Mike Lee are a step below those two, but decent enough to have some upsets, or hold a title briefly in Algieri's case....

[squiggy]

I think, as already pointed out, poverty is largely non-white in America -- and if you do grow up poor and white, you probably live in a small rural town with no boxing gym and no boxing tradition. There's just no Kronk Gym in Dubuque, Iowa. If you're poor and black, you probably live in a city, where the gyms are.

[jamamb]

ya good points about that

also agree above that plants got better potential then smth even though joe may have the stronger record for now

[ValMar]

It is different topic, but boxing in Europe is half-dead, the only exceptions are UK, ex-USSR countries, Poland and Germany.

[asdfjkl]

I don't know that much about the league in America, but I thought Tye Fields did reasonable.

[asdfjkl]

Kownacki, even though he's not a real American, but up to what point are the Americans themself? As far as I know there is no American who lives there for over 20 generations, all the native Americans are murdered aren't they?
Molina, sort of
Joey Abel, who faced better opposition as Wilder has till today for example, Tyson Fury, Pulev, Oscar Rivas, name them

[SenorPipino]

Quickie Quiz:
Who's the last white American boxing star?


He was certainly not on the Mayweather/Pacquiao level of celebrity, but he gained quite a bit of attention.

I suspected that it was because of his skin color.

Kelly Pavlik, right? He was the last really good fighter I could think of that is a white American anyway. Unless I've just forgotten someone.

Then again, how many really good w/A boxers have there been since after the 70s? You're looking at guys like Lalonde, Morrison, Mancini etc... Pavlik might even be the pick of that whole bunch. Now I've got to be forgetting someone.

Kelly Pavlik is who I was thinking of.

I recall that the week of his 2008 fight with Hopkins, ESPN's SportCenter had a daily feature story on Pavlik.

And ESPN wasn't prone to giving boxing much attention unless it was a SuperFight or one that was televised on their network.

Not much was mentioned about Hopkins during that ESPN buildup, however. I figured that it was simply attention given Pavlik because he was a curiosity--a white American champion.

If Pavlik had won that fight he may have morphed into a superstar. But Hopkins schooled him and Pavlik began a freefall to obscurity.

Armageto mentioned Tommy Morrison which is a pretty good selection. Being white and a heavyweight he was certainly a media darling.

But his glory days preceded Pavlik's, so Kelly is my choice.

[BitPlayer]

There's some good white boxers at the moment, and there's been some very good ones, and very good American ones in history, but I can't think of any good white American boxers at the moment.

American boxing in general is pretty weak at the moment, still some very good fighters, but not close to what there's been in the past.