ALLTIME AMERICAN GREATS WHO NEVER FOUGHT OUTSIDE USA!!

[Jaclem]

..jake lamotta fought laurent dauthuille in montreal in 1949 and lost a decisiion. the oddity about this is jake was allowed to re-enter the united states.

[oliverfennell]

i guess i'm not getting thru in terms of what "PER CAPITA" means!! PER CAPITA, means "with the population difference factored in"!! for example (and i dont have the actual stats handy, but will dig them up later) in 2006 the USA had about 2.6 live fight shows PER MILLION PEOPLE (about 800 shows yearly in a population of 300 million), while japan had something like 2.4 live shows per million people and germany had something like 2.2 shows per million people...will get the exact numbers when i get a chance, but hope you get the idea of PER CAPITA meaning MORE FIGHTS HERE WITH THE POPULATION ALREADY FACTORED IN!!

surely, it's not an end-all, be-all kind of statistic, but an accurate picture of the general health of the sport in a particular country---ESPECIALLY WHEN COMPARED WITH WHAT THE STATS WERE FOR 20...40...60 YEARS AGO IN THAT SAME COUNTRY to show whether the sport is on the UPSWING, DOWNTURN OR JUST HOLDING GROUND!!

OK, OK, but still, I'm NOT saying boxing is dying in America. Haven't we established that yet? It's just that others are saying it, and it's a fairly common theme.

What I am contending is that it's much stronger in other countries. The total may be .2 or .4 million more compared to Japan and Germany, but I insist the impact of the shows on the general public in Germany and Japan is greater than in America. Obviously there's no way to quantify this, but let's say Japan has seven shows on terrestrial television and America has 10 on PPV, which of those figures is a better indicator of the health of the sport and its penetration into the mainstream consciousness?

according to recent ring magazine, 2006 saw 158 (i think) live televised fight cards in the usa...that's everything telecast LIVE---PPV, basic cable (espn,fox), premium cable (HBO, SHOWTIME), etc. but NOT counting the contender taped shows or the numerous rebroadcasts of latin american fights on fox espanol, galavision, etc. i would be interested to know how many LIVE cards total were televised in japan in 2006!! japan has about 127 million people to america's 300 million, so if japan had over 67 live televised cards for 2006, they would have more fight cards televised PER CAPITA than usa!!

OK, how about viewing figures of boxing events per capita? You might have more televised US shows, but you're talking a lot of PPV, subscription channels and regional TV. I'm talking terrestrial TV, when audiences are in their millions rather than thousands.

[The Great John L]

…in 2006 the USA had about 2.6 live fight shows PER MILLION PEOPLE (about 800 shows yearly in a population of 300 million)…

Geez is that depressing. Only 800 fight cards in 2006. Is that number correct? There were probably close to 800/year just in the greater New York area back in the 40’s & 50’s.

true...but most every country (except japan & asian nations) had many more fight cards in 1940s and 50s than they do today!! what surprised me is that the number of live fight cards in america is roughly the same as it was in the 1970s...when most people assume there were more live shows just because boxing was more prevalent on terrestrial (network) TV back then!!

Having grown up with a father who was a boxing fan who regularly took me to fight cards, I find that VERY hard to believe. I know for a fact that in my region of the country there are a lot less fight cards than there were in the 60’s and 70’s. Where did you get your information that the number of cards today is roughly the same as it was in the 70’s?

And looking at amateur boxing, it is almost completely gone from the scene today, while in the 60’s and 70’s amateur boxing cards were held all the time, and it received extensive media coverage. How can there be as many boxing cards today when there are virtually no boxing gyms outside of the major metro areas? Where are the boxers coming from?