Here's a sobering and sickening thought about boxing in America today

[Grinderman]

The difference wih Lewis compared to Klitschko's was that Lennox still pulled in the PPV figures and Wlad/Vitali don't. Thats why the networks/critics/promoters etc aren't intersested.

Lennox Lewis was someone that the US audience could connect with whereas no one wants to know the Klitschko brothers because for a start they don't come off well in interviews, just come across as big robots with no personality.
As people and fighters they are dull, but I concede that the lack of decent US Heavyweight contenders is a major factor, do all they guys who would have become boxers in the past now just want to be rappers or have I got it wrong? seems to me like there has been a major cultural shift in the states over the last 20 years.

Lennox was never what I would call "popular" in America. He was usually compared negatively to Mike Tyson and called boring. To the extent Americans could relate to him, it was because culturally he is a Canadian far more than he's British.

I thought Wlad was pretty funny leading up to the Haye fight. Vitali is very funny in the Klitschko doc, but he's speaking in a foreign language. Try being witty in your second or third language sometime.

When Vitali fought Arreola in 2009, it was HBO's highest rated fight of the year, and I don't think it was because Arreola is a household name in the US, so they can draw if they have a good opponent and the fight is promoted properly.

If "dull" means they aren't biting off ears or raping women or getting popped for guns and dope, well, that's more of a statement on the reality TV mentality of America than on the K-Bros.

Actually, Wlad and Vitali represent all of the values Americans say they cherish: hard work, discipline, philanthropy, clean living.

Americans have become soft, and that's the biggest problem with boxers here today. They want it to come easy. Look how Arreola messed up for years being an overgrown child. They lack discipline, because the school system here doesn't teach them any. It all starts in school. "Child-centered learning" has just turned out a bunch of lazy narcissists.

[HUGEBOXINGFAN]

All Boxing needs to do is get back on national tv in America and than it will become a major sport in America just like it was from 1920-1980.