My Boxing Rant

[Bitter]

I was taking in the analysis of the De La Hoya - Mayweather fight and it bring together several ideas I've had about boxing for a long time.
The last time I paid money to see a fight Mike Tyson knocked out Peter McNeeley. I went to get a drink, come back and fight was done.

A lot of people have theories about the decline of boxing, the most prevalent being:
1. Don King ruined Boxing
2. The Mexicans (various boxing organizations) ruined boxing
3. The decline of the American heavyweight ruined boxing.

I'll start at the top.
1. Don King is a crook, but knows how to sell, He's made some of the biggest fights in history. He's ruined boxers, but not boxing.
2. The various groups (IBF, WBC, WBA etc) have muddied the waters with all the alphabet soup titles, but in general more titles means more title fights and a quest  for unification is always interesting.
3. This really is a problem with Americans. If a sport doesn't feature an American it's value here is immediately diminished. Lots of people claim to love sports, but really just love seeing the flag flying high. Klitchko is a decent heavyweight, who, with good training should dominate the division the same way Lennox Lewis dominated. There's really no challenger in terms of skills, but he's got enough of a glass chine to make all fights potentially interesting.

For me the decline of Boxing can be traced to 1 major factor, which the pundits studiously avoid. 

Pay-per-view ruined boxing.

Huge paydays make fights riskier to schedule. Boxers don't fight contenders because there's either no profit, or too much risk of losing before the big payday. Boxers have fights 12-15-18 months apart. How can I follow a sportsman if he only shows up every 1.5 years and then wants me to pay $40 to watch him run away from some tomato can?

Competing networks make fights harder to make (HBO vs Showtime stalled a Tyson -Lewis fight). This means that while I can say, Man I'd love to see Clubber Lang fight Drago, I can't because Clubber is on HBO and Drago is SET for life.

And then the promotions never account for the undercard. HBO Boxing after dark is cool, but that's 2 fights, essentially free, so there is rarely a great matchup.

I don't see a solution. The money provides the incentive for Athletes to get beaten, Ali probably retires earlier if he's got $40 million in the bank.

[daryn]

I think yuh hit the nail on the head with the pay-per-view argument.

I remember when I was in primary school my father was a big boxing fan.  It used to have men like Leonard, Spinks, Holmes, Tyson, Hagler etc all fighting on free tv.  when PPV started to become prevalent it was lucrative in the short-term because these men had a well developed fan base who woulda pay to see them fight.

I really can't say for sure that american heavyweights are in decline because I can't afford pay-per-view. 

[Quags]

I just had a crazy theory .Hip Hop ruin boxing  ,cause the toughtest Guys from the hood turned into ,badmen rite there ,didnčt turn to boxing as a way out ,they just do like afroman .

[Bitter]

Your argument, and that of many of the boxing pundits, implies that there are no good fighters. I say that there are plenty of good fighters, but not a lot of good fights.

[ribbit]

bitter, that part about the different associations not preventing fights - i not so sure about that. didn't bowe duck lewis, jumping to another organization? it's good when there's a dominant fighter that is willing to unify the belts, but it also gives boxers a means to duck other boxers. i'd love to see a mayweather-hatton fight but they doh belong to the same organization - they can safely avoid each other and claim to be the "best".

[Bitter]

I didn't mean to say that they don't prevent fights, but that having more than one champion makes a unification tournament interesting. Multiple organizations can be a good thing.
However, your point is correct. They also are part of the problem by letting fighters duck each other.

I've always thought of Bowe as a punk b/c he ducked Lewis. Tyson ducked him too back in the day, and then went to jail, so it didn't really become an issue.