BoxRec

DaveyMac wrote:I do some work inputting fights for Boxrec, mostly fights from Oklahoma in the 1900-1935 range. Sometimes other places and times, but most come out of the Daily Oklahoman archives.
I can tell you this there were lots of weekends in that period where there would be 6-7 cards IN OKLAHOMA, I'm guessing today that's about the average for the country. Many of the old cards we don't have recorded, and may never be, because although the fact there were fights made the paper the results never made it.
You will find a newspaper mention like "Joe Opponent fought last week in Sapulpa" or " Big card tomorrow night in Ada" or "weekly show in Chickasha cancelled" and of course we don't have results from any of these so they aren't included in the Boxrec database.

If I had to guess, Chuck's numbers (which I found very informative) if anything are low as pertains to old time fights because we don't have all of these cards. There were definitely more even than those totals in the older days, and maybe significantly more.

Another way to see that there were way more fighters back in the day is their boxrec points. To a certain degree boxrec points are relative to the total amount of fights in the universe because every fight has the ability to create points. If you look at the '50's or '30's most decent fighters had more points than world champions do today. This doesn't mean they were better fighters per se, it just means there were a lot more fights and hence a lot more boxrec points to go around.

The biggest culprit of course was TV. If you look at any of the old Ring annual books Nat put attendance at the Garden and other places in the back (and I think even a number of shows) and with the advent of TV both numbers started to drop. Live entertainment went down in every industry with the advent of TV.

Bundana wrote:1000 BoxRec points is actually quite a lot! I don't think the norm these days are 6-9 guys at the same time with 1000 points. Right now, only 2 boxers have more than 1000 points: Canelo and Pacquiao. When did we last have even 6 boxers with 1000 points at the same time?

I would be surprised, if there were really way, way more than 9 boxers in 1955, who had 1000+ BoxRec points.

Also... as much as 95% of the fights in BoxRec's database for the year 1955 probably took place in the US? That's another figure I would be very hesitant to accept - in fact, I'm certain that must be very wrong!

Ambling Alp II wrote:

DaveyMac wrote:I do some work inputting fights for Boxrec, mostly fights from Oklahoma in the 1900-1935 range. Sometimes other places and times, but most come out of the Daily Oklahoman archives.
I can tell you this there were lots of weekends in that period where there would be 6-7 cards IN OKLAHOMA, I'm guessing today that's about the average for the country. Many of the old cards we don't have recorded, and may never be, because although the fact there were fights made the paper the results never made it.
You will find a newspaper mention like "Joe Opponent fought last week in Sapulpa" or " Big card tomorrow night in Ada" or "weekly show in Chickasha cancelled" and of course we don't have results from any of these so they aren't included in the Boxrec database.

If I had to guess, Chuck's numbers (which I found very informative) if anything are low as pertains to old time fights because we don't have all of these cards. There were definitely more even than those totals in the older days, and maybe significantly more.

Another way to see that there were way more fighters back in the day is their boxrec points. To a certain degree boxrec points are relative to the total amount of fights in the universe because every fight has the ability to create points. If you look at the '50's or '30's most decent fighters had more points than world champions do today. This doesn't mean they were better fighters per se, it just means there were a lot more fights and hence a lot more boxrec points to go around.

The biggest culprit of course was TV. If you look at any of the old Ring annual books Nat put attendance at the Garden and other places in the back (and I think even a number of shows) and with the advent of TV both numbers started to drop. Live entertainment went down in every industry with the advent of TV.

I agree with with except for the last line. In other sports such as the NFL, NBA, MLB and major college football and basketball, attendance has actually gone up since TV. TV promotes the sport at he highest levels.

On the other hand, Minor league baseball attendance has been hurt by TV.
It does make sense that smaller boxing cards would be hurt by TV. People don't want to spend money to watch no names in person when they could be watching big names on TV. So it is not surprising that there are many less boxing shows than there used to be.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:The casino and premium cable allowed promoters to make money without promoting. So instead of building talent with local shows they just fought on Vegas undercards.

Ambling Alp II wrote:

DaveyMac wrote:I do some work inputting fights for Boxrec, mostly fights from Oklahoma in the 1900-1935 range. Sometimes other places and times, but most come out of the Daily Oklahoman archives.
I can tell you this there were lots of weekends in that period where there would be 6-7 cards IN OKLAHOMA, I'm guessing today that's about the average for the country. Many of the old cards we don't have recorded, and may never be, because although the fact there were fights made the paper the results never made it.
You will find a newspaper mention like "Joe Opponent fought last week in Sapulpa" or " Big card tomorrow night in Ada" or "weekly show in Chickasha cancelled" and of course we don't have results from any of these so they aren't included in the Boxrec database.

If I had to guess, Chuck's numbers (which I found very informative) if anything are low as pertains to old time fights because we don't have all of these cards. There were definitely more even than those totals in the older days, and maybe significantly more.

Another way to see that there were way more fighters back in the day is their boxrec points. To a certain degree boxrec points are relative to the total amount of fights in the universe because every fight has the ability to create points. If you look at the '50's or '30's most decent fighters had more points than world champions do today. This doesn't mean they were better fighters per se, it just means there were a lot more fights and hence a lot more boxrec points to go around.

The biggest culprit of course was TV. If you look at any of the old Ring annual books Nat put attendance at the Garden and other places in the back (and I think even a number of shows) and with the advent of TV both numbers started to drop. Live entertainment went down in every industry with the advent of TV.

I agree with with except for the last line. In other sports such as the NFL, NBA, MLB and major college football and basketball, attendance has actually gone up since TV. TV promotes the sport at he highest levels.

On the other hand, Minor league baseball attendance has been hurt by TV.
It does make sense that smaller boxing cards would be hurt by TV. People don't want to spend money to watch no names in person when they could be watching big names on TV. So it is not surprising that there are many less boxing shows than there used to be.