American Heavyweights...where are they?

[Dickagon]

I don't think there's any real interest in boxing. Kids that are athletic will get pushed into something like football or basketball. On the amateur level it's like baseball in the Dominican, if you can play you get pushed to the top. Boxing just has some gyms you can try to find.

[ViperSniper]

With Wilder losing the WBC title..all belts are in England!

Which group of fighters are better

US
Tyson
Holyfield
Briggs
Wilder

UK
Lewis
Haye
Fury
Joshua

[blackbelt2003]

Definitely UK. Whilst I think Holyfield is the best out of all of them, in the time frame you're inferring Holy was past his prime and Lennox was ranked above everyone on that list.


Plus Fury and Joshua are above Briggs (and Fury definitely over Wilder).



Black

[BGv4.0]

Boxing as a sport has smothered itself here in America, that's why we no longer produce really awesome stars anymore, for sure where the HW division is concerned.

Back in the day, Boxing was seen by all....Thru the 80's...Tyson would KO a guy on HBO on Sat night.....People would talk about it for a week....the next Sat it would be re-broadcast to the masses on free ABC Wide World of Sports. This formula kept even the poorest of kids in front of the screen and able to see the HW champion of the world destroy his opposition and walk out to the thunder of the crowd with his shining HW belt on one shoulder and his hot arm candy chick on the other.....not to mention earning millions to do it.

Guys that wanted that....went to the gym....trained hard and then once they created a buzz....got showcased by basic cable....ESPN, USA's Tuesday Night Fights, ABC....it was not unusual for a guy to catch a huge following simply by fighting every 6 weeks or so on TNFs.....Bowe, Moorer, Foreman, Morrison, all created HUGE fan followings by KOing guys on USA. And even though that was a basic cable channel, every kid knew a buddy that had basic cable, even if you were too poor to have it.

It was just so easily viewed.

This all started to die off when the Champions started to sign exclusives with the Premium Cable Networks....HBO, Showtime, which in turn led to PPV, then exclusive re-play rights. Which shrunk your audience by quite a bit. Once USA cancelled TNF, and there was no outlet for up and comers since the networks could no longer afford to air fights....boxing became a niche sport.

Add in to this shrinkage the birth and expansion of the popularity of MMA, NFL, NBA (all of which were either easily available on network or basic cable). Kids naturally are going to gravitate toward what they are exposed to....

Hence Baby Tyson 2.0 in Queens instead chooses to play football or roll around on a mat at a MMA club.

And the sport itself is the ONLY one to blame for this. It became to greedy. Hell even HBO cashed out.

I was excited to hear that deals had been inked by ESPN and NBC to bring boxing back to the masses. However, from what I've seen it's been spotty at best. ESPN is still a "Premium" channel as most providers now force you to pay extra for a sports package. And the coverage I've seen from NBC has not been well advertised IMO.

AND....lets not forget DAZN coming in and snatching up top fighters for the BS streaming services...which again....is NOT going to allow for proper exposure to a younger generation of poor but talented athletes.

This is why we are no longer represented as much as we were back in the day. And I don't see that changing any time soon.

[Dickagon]

I think MMA attracts different people. All of the kids that wrestled or did some form of martial arts growing up finally have a chance to do something lucrative like fight in the UFC.