BoxRec

Sure the numbers of boxing gyms was declining, but we still had alot of great fights on TV into the 90's and that was just suddenly cutoff. It hasen't been any different with the great American past time either. If you're over 40 than you know very well that the numbers of kids playing baseball in parks has declined drastically. Yet baseball is as popular as ever as a spectator sport.

Don't expect many kids to want to take up the sport when not one top fighter of the last 15 years as ever been on free TV even once.

dempseyfire wrote:

Ambling Alp wrote:


However, not every boxer came from poor backgrounds.


.

The WIDE majority do. You always had exceptions like Tunney or some collegiate standouts who turned pro like Lou Nova (when boxing was still a major collegiate sport), but by and large the participants have been predominantly poor.

Also, if you look at registeries of boxing gyms, boxing actually started declining in the United States in the 1960s. You had a huge drop off in the number of operating gyms during that period. Now it's gotten to such a worse level it's impossible to ignore.

Yeah but so many white american males are gettting into MMA now and competing at a high level in the UFC.
The white guys getting into UFC arent from the traditional deprived poor background of many boxers historically in America.
Why do they go into UFC rather boxing even though boxing pays a hell of a lot better at every level than MMA/UFC in America.
As a sport MMA is probably harder or just as hard in terms of training and fighting as boxing so its not neccesarily the "they will take an easier option first". of course athletic young males will tend to gravitate towards the sport that pays teh most and they like the most.

Here is my point, young white american males as a demographic...there will always be some who enjoy fighting....and it seems to me this demographic today will be more likely to go into MMA than boxing for whatever reason.
Maybe MMA is cooler, they like the image? I dont know

The Rocky movie had a great effect in getting one last squeeze out of the Italian American community for boxers as italian american boxers had been declining after Rocky Marciano's time. After Rocky we had quite a few guys like vinnie pazienza, ray mancini,harry arroyo. Its a shame i had high hopes for joe mesi. My point is Rocky was cool and as an icon he bought white kids into the sport. These days they will all go to UFC

Like Tex Cobb once said many years ago.
"It Beats workin for a Livin".

MMA has grown but the number of young white males becoming MMA professionals is paltry, just look at UFC you have guys after 5-8 fights fighting for titles. That is called a lack of depth.

Here are some clips from the 1960's when Karate was becoming real popular in the West.
Check out the Hippy-Dippy Karate dude ,no doubt a badd assss liberal,(perhaps a student at Berkeley?)and a legend in his own mind.

(1964)
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=1822

(1969)
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=46308

dempseyfire wrote:MMA has grown but the number of young white males becoming MMA professionals is paltry, just look at UFC you have guys after 5-8 fights fighting for titles. That is called a lack of depth.

How dare you denigrate those "legends".

mugabi wrote:

dempseyfire wrote:

Ambling Alp wrote:


However, not every boxer came from poor backgrounds.


.

The WIDE majority do. You always had exceptions like Tunney or some collegiate standouts who turned pro like Lou Nova (when boxing was still a major collegiate sport), but by and large the participants have been predominantly poor.

Also, if you look at registeries of boxing gyms, boxing actually started declining in the United States in the 1960s. You had a huge drop off in the number of operating gyms during that period. Now it's gotten to such a worse level it's impossible to ignore.

Yeah but so many white american males are gettting into MMA now and competing at a high level in the UFC.
The white guys getting into UFC arent from the traditional deprived poor background of many boxers historically in America.
Why do they go into UFC rather boxing even though boxing pays a hell of a lot better at every level than MMA/UFC in America.
As a sport MMA is probably harder or just as hard in terms of training and fighting as boxing so its not neccesarily the "they will take an easier option first". of course athletic young males will tend to gravitate towards the sport that pays teh most and they like the most.

Here is my point, young white american males as a demographic...there will always be some who enjoy fighting....and it seems to me this demographic today will be more likely to go into MMA than boxing for whatever reason.
Maybe MMA is cooler, they like the image? I dont know

The Rocky movie had a great effect in getting one last squeeze out of the Italian American community for boxers as italian american boxers had been declining after Rocky Marciano's time. After Rocky we had quite a few guys like vinnie pazienza, ray mancini,harry arroyo. Its a shame i had high hopes for joe mesi. My point is Rocky was cool and as an icon he bought white kids into the sport. These days they will all go to UFC

Most of the white guys in MMA today have mostly a background in collegiate wrestling no?

dempseyfire wrote:MMA has grown but the number of young white males becoming MMA professionals is paltry, just look at UFC you have guys after 5-8 fights fighting for titles. That is called a lack of depth.

I don't know about that . . . As I recall, on the James Toney-Randy Couture card, there wasn't a single black guy except Toney.

On Ultimate Fighter this season, I can only recall one black guy. Certainly, the majority were white.

Panzerfaust wrote:

mugabi wrote:

dempseyfire wrote: The WIDE majority do. You always had exceptions like Tunney or some collegiate standouts who turned pro like Lou Nova (when boxing was still a major collegiate sport), but by and large the participants have been predominantly poor.

Also, if you look at registeries of boxing gyms, boxing actually started declining in the United States in the 1960s. You had a huge drop off in the number of operating gyms during that period. Now it's gotten to such a worse level it's impossible to ignore.

Yeah but so many white american males are gettting into MMA now and competing at a high level in the UFC.
The white guys getting into UFC arent from the traditional deprived poor background of many boxers historically in America.
Why do they go into UFC rather boxing even though boxing pays a hell of a lot better at every level than MMA/UFC in America.
As a sport MMA is probably harder or just as hard in terms of training and fighting as boxing so its not neccesarily the "they will take an easier option first". of course athletic young males will tend to gravitate towards the sport that pays teh most and they like the most.

Here is my point, young white american males as a demographic...there will always be some who enjoy fighting....and it seems to me this demographic today will be more likely to go into MMA than boxing for whatever reason.
Maybe MMA is cooler, they like the image? I dont know

The Rocky movie had a great effect in getting one last squeeze out of the Italian American community for boxers as italian american boxers had been declining after Rocky Marciano's time. After Rocky we had quite a few guys like vinnie pazienza, ray mancini,harry arroyo. Its a shame i had high hopes for joe mesi. My point is Rocky was cool and as an icon he bought white kids into the sport. These days they will all go to UFC

Most of the white guys in MMA today have mostly a background in collegiate wrestling no?

That's probably true. I'll ask my sons. They'll know.

Panzer, my youngest son replied to my question whether most white guys in the MMA have college wrestling experience:

"I don't know if its as simple as 'white fighter = wrestler' but I also don't think its a terribly bad assumption to assume that a white fighter probably has a wrestling base. Wrestling is the dominant 'style' in MMA right now regardless of race. Rashad Evans, Cain Velasquez, Mark Munoz - all great non-white wrestlers enjoying success.

"Wrestlers are just dominating right now, so you see a lot of them. I would say its particularly true in the UFC, at the elite level."

Don King!?

raylawpc wrote:Panzer, my youngest son replied to my question whether most white guys in the MMA have college wrestling experience:

"I don't know if its as simple as 'white fighter = wrestler' but I also don't think its a terribly bad assumption to assume that a white fighter probably has a wrestling base. Wrestling is the dominant 'style' in MMA right now regardless of race. Rashad Evans, Cain Velasquez, Mark Munoz - all great non-white wrestlers enjoying success.

"Wrestlers are just dominating right now, so you see a lot of them. I would say its particularly true in the UFC, at the elite level."

I believe the answer to be that why the MMA guys come from more ''furnished'' homes rather than the deprived background lot of boxers come from lies in college wrestling ,And would explain the bigger % of top white fighters in mma than in boxing .Who knows how the boxing scene would look with highschool and college boxing. Its a interesting socio economic situation imo

Seamus wrote:Sure the numbers of boxing gyms was declining, but we still had alot of great fights on TV into the 90's and that was just suddenly cutoff. It hasen't been any different with the great American past time either. If you're over 40 than you know very well that the numbers of kids playing baseball in parks has declined drastically. Yet baseball is as popular as ever as a spectator sport.

Don't expect many kids to want to take up the sport when not one top fighter of the last 15 years as ever been on free TV even once.

That sort of is what I mean. It did not happen overnight; gradually the promoters and governing bodies stopped putting matches on the networks in the mid-1980s. By around 1990 it was never on. (For example Tyson never had a title fight on free TV.)

You could have just same socio-economic situation as pre-World War II, if the NBA and the NFL would not have grown so much, if you could have sport that did not have all the corruption (with the governing bodies, promoters etc.), and if decent fights are not on free-tv regularly it still is not going to be popular.

All of those these other factors things have contributed to the lack of interest in boxing. However, you absolutely have to have a sport on free TV for it to be be popular. That is a must.


If boxing would have continued to have good, competitive matches on free TV (CBS,ABC, NBC, FOX) in the 1980s, 1990s and this century, boxing would be much more popular than it is today. No it would not be like baseball, basketball, or football. However, even with all of the other problems, it could have still been at about the level of NASCAR, Golf, Tennis, and Hockey.
Right now, it is not nearly as popular as even those sports. And it probably never will be again. Its doubtful the networks would want to broadcast it anyway. The fan base is probably isn't 1/10 of where it needs to be.

Does anyone know what the last heavyweight title fight was on free TV?with any of the various hwy belts).

It ddint help either that some well known promoters were able to constantly cheat and double bill their fighters over 30 years.
and and were able to getaway with it,despite all the complaints of the fighters themselves.
Can u imagine how great and the depth of field boxing would have been if Harold Smith(of MAPS-Muhammad Ali Professional Sports,Inc)
was still promoting?
I mean a dufflel bag of $300,000 in cash just as a signing "bonus" .

Boxing is a tough sport. Today, kids are not apt to pay the price, so they are not participating. Then as potential fans, they do not have a connection. From the 1920s through the 1950s, most kids either had to box in school in physical education, fought on organized school teams, or fought in the backyard. They had a connection to boxing and would follow it.

I think the same thing is happening in amateur wrestling. That's a tough sport and participation is decreasing. If you look in the stands, most of the fans are former wrestlers. As the number of wrestlers decreases, I suspect the number of fans will decrease in the future as well.

I'm not entirely certain, but I think Mike Tyson's 1987 title defense against Tyrell Biggs may have been on free TV.

Too many titles- Without a proper hirachy, a lot of "title" fights are seen as meaningless

Lack of coverage on free TV

Lack of obvious matchups being made. In UFC, the best fighters fight each other almost as soon as a matchup is deemed appealing. In other sports, the best are pitted against each other all the time, in boxing, the big fights are procrastinated forever or don't happen at all. Pacman and Floyd should have happened 2 years ago and we should be now moving on to the next big fight (or several). Boxing has declined IMO because the big events take years to happen or don't happen at all.

A lot of emphisis in the last 30 years has been to keep a fighters record perfect,otherwise one loss and its seeminly your a perpetual loser and its to the scrap heap.
Unlike back in the old days,were they fought each one another numerous times like a series.

Seamus wrote:I'm not entirely certain, but I think Mike Tyson's 1987 title defense against Tyrell Biggs may have been on free TV.

I think the Tyson vrs Biggs fight was on HBO,which was only free if u were one of those people who
had a illegal reciever box like OJ Simpson or went out side at night and climbed up a telephone pole and routed the cable connection to your house,without the knowledge of the cable guy.

I think the Mike Tyson vrs Buster Mathi,s jr .fight was shown live on a Fox network primetime special in 1995,but that wasnt a title fight even though scheduled for 12 rounds.

St McComas wrote:Boxing is a tough sport. Today, kids are not apt to pay the price, so they are not participating. Then as potential fans, they do not have a connection. From the 1920s through the 1950s, most kids either had to box in school in physical education, fought on organized school teams, or fought in the backyard. They had a connection to boxing and would follow it.

I think the same thing is happening in amateur wrestling. That's a tough sport and participation is decreasing. If you look in the stands, most of the fans are former wrestlers. As the number of wrestlers decreases, I suspect the number of fans will decrease in the future as well.

I was gonna argue will look at all the white guys in the UFC and Pro Wrestling. Those are tough, tough athletes and talented to the hilt. One way or the other they take hits for a living too. Having done both boxing and a wrestling art in Judo I honestly couldnt tell u which is harder to take.
But when you actually break it down a lot of the white stars in the UFC are older guys like randy couture, rich franklin, chuck liddel. Its debatable if the kids are still coming through. Im not an American i wouldnt know but id be interested.

dempseyfire wrote:MMA has grown but the number of young white males becoming MMA professionals is paltry, just look at UFC you have guys after 5-8 fights fighting for titles. That is called a lack of depth.

Not really if you consider a lot of them come from other martial arts backgrounds where they may have had loads of fights.
Even old man couture hasnt had that many fights on paper but he had dozens and dozens of wrestling contests. I would say it is similar to these cuban/ ex soviet block amateurs who fight for titles these days after 10-11 pro fights,the fact is they might have had 200 amateru fights, its a different era these days
Of course overall it doesnt have 10% of the depth of boxing worldwide .

Brutu wrote:

Seamus wrote:I'm not entirely certain, but I think Mike Tyson's 1987 title defense against Tyrell Biggs may have been on free TV.

I think the Tyson vrs Biggs fight was on HBO,which was only free if u were one of those people who
had a illegal reciever box like OJ Simpson or went out side at night and climbed up a telephone pole and routed the cable connection to your house,without the knowledge of the cable guy.

I think the Mike Tyson vrs Buster Mathi,s jr .fight was shown live on a Fox network primetime special in 1995,but that wasnt a title fight even though scheduled for 12 rounds.

You are right, Tyson-Biggs was on HBO. Tyson-Mathis Jr was on FOX but was not a title fight. It was the first time in several years that any boxing match was on free TV in primetime. I'm not sure if any has since then.

As far as the last heavyweight title fight on free TV, not sure exactly but I can tell you this:
The Holmes-Williams fight was on NBC in 1985. That was the last IBF heavyweight title fight on free TV.
I know that the Tubbs-Page WBA title fight was on free TV. (I believe NBC). That may have been the last WBA heavyweight title fight. Tyson won the WBA title in 1987 and that was not on free TV.

Holmes made his last WBC defense on TV against Scott Frank in September of 1983. Not sure how many of the WBC title fights were on free TV before Tyson won the WBC title in 1986.

Whatever the exact answer is regarding the very last heavyweight title fight on free TV, boxing was starting to be broadcast less by the mid-1980s. By the early 1990s, it was almost completely gone from free TV.

The Larry Holmes vs Marvis Frazier fight was on also on free network television(NBC)in November 1983,only a few months after the
Scott Frank title defense .
But I think one of the last(if not the last) free television network heavyweight championship fights was
Larry Holmes vs Carl"the Truth"Williams which aired on NBC-TV primetime in May 1985.

Lennox Lewis vs. Justin Fortune was televised on CBS July 1995 from Dublin Ireland.
Lewis was a former WBC hwy champion then of course,but I remember feeling it was strange watching a hwyt fight on free tv even back then.

I think Shannon Briggs breaks down part of why Boxing isn't as big as it used to be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4e7j_O0 ... re=channel

The lack of organization that the NBA has in basketball or the NFL in football definitely helps, because they have virtual monopolies of talent an so the sport is essentially corporatized to the fullest.