An interesting little tidbit.

[BennyST]

Boxing was a talking point on that episode of the **** Cavett Show because Joe Frazier was also a guest on that show, and he came on right after Cosby.

Frazier had recently gotten back to the U.S. after being knocked out by George Foreman. Frazier losing to the Olympic champ Foreman was THE big sports story of the moment. The bout had just been shown on a delayed basis on ABC with Howard Cosell's classic "Down Goes Frazier!" call. The clip is shown again when Frazier comes out.

Everyone knew Frazier and Foreman and Ali at that point. It was a unique moment in time.

I don't think that clip shows anything other than people being aware of what's the big story of the week, and they're "oohing" because they know Frazier is backstage listening.

That's all.

He spent eight of the nine minutes talking about jazz, but that doesn't mean everyone in the audience knew a lot about jazz.

By the 70's, no they didn't, but that's because it had significantly decreased in popularity from the hotbed of activity it was in the 20s, 30s and 40s, just like boxing today.

Although Frazier was on the show, it was just an example. Everything else stands. It was more popular, on national free TV, weekly etc etc. Frazier was a known face, and as you yourself pointed out, it, and boxing in general, was the biggest sports story in the US at the time and someone like Ali was as known across the world as any face. That was major international sporting news.

If Pac loses to Bradley, you think it's going to make any major networks, apart from a brief ten second clip on a sports dedicated show? That Pac losing will be a national news worthy story apart from in the Philippines?

Like I said initially, it's a small thing, but I think it's also quite significant and as you yourself mentioned, and this just shows the difference, boxing was a major topic then. Big enough that one of its champs, not even it's most famous one, was on national talk shows after losing.

[BattlingNelson]

I follow you Benny. Boxing was way more popular back then with plenty of household names. PPV killed boxings popularity and place among the premier sports.

What is to be remembered as an important part of the picture is that the fighters on ABC, NBC and CBS was paid pennies as for example Matthew Saad Muhammad who, as far as I remember, often fought for less than 100K.

So the evolution has given a tradeoff between popularity and money. Todays elite is less popular with the average Joe, but makes significantly more dough.

[wmute]

The U.S. had half the population in the 40's that it does now and worse yet most of the talent came from the North East U.S.. Furthermore, most of the males of boxing age were off in WWI, WWII, Korea, or Vietnam(or starving during the great depression). Their were boxing programs in the service but the boys were either in the battlefield with unsatisfactory nourishment and hydration or in support units where they partied very, very hard in European and Asian cities and couldn't conquer enough women. In other words, participating in a a phsysically gruelling boxing program was the last thing on their minds. Americans continued to participate and dominate from the 50's until today in the approx middle-heavy divisions but that is also the time when the enormous talent pools from Latin America and Asia began dominating the Americans in the lower weights. This Latin/Asian domination began exactly right after the "golden era" of boxing in the 50's. In other words, at a time when there would be more American fighters than in earlier decades(due to popularity) but even waaaaaaay more Latinos and Asians. This is a very easy subject and the Latinos' and Asians' fighters have been overlooked by biased or xenophobic American boxing "experts"(These facts will be enthusiastically accepted by those Latinos/Asians). Those same carpy "experts" are the ones who say Mexicans have alot of champs because they have alot of fighters. Unfortunately for those Mexiphobes, they didn't know they were putting their feet in their mouths with their ******, carpy comments. My Mexican brothers fight to eat. Diminishing their ability and popularity with lies takes food from their babies' mouths. On the other hand, exposing the overrated American fighters from the old days merely hurts the delicate egos of the biased American Mexiphobes. Americans that have made these mistakes should learn from this the way a man should, change their ways and move on. You wouldn't like it if some dude with little balls took food from your kids' mouths so don't do it to others. Hve a great ****in day! I know I will.

Are you an alt of the same guy who used to write all his posts in purple a few years ago? can't remember the name, used to call him captain purple, but he was talking a lot of similar **** too...

[kendom]

The U.S. had half the population in the 40's that it does now and worse yet most of the talent came from the North East U.S.. Furthermore, most of the males of boxing age were off in WWI, WWII, Korea, or Vietnam(or starving during the great depression). Their were boxing programs in the service but the boys were either in the battlefield with unsatisfactory nourishment and hydration or in support units where they partied very, very hard in European and Asian cities and couldn't conquer enough women. In other words, participating in a a phsysically gruelling boxing program was the last thing on their minds. Americans continued to participate and dominate from the 50's until today in the approx middle-heavy divisions but that is also the time when the enormous talent pools from Latin America and Asia began dominating the Americans in the lower weights. This Latin/Asian domination began exactly right after the "golden era" of boxing in the 50's. In other words, at a time when there would be more American fighters than in earlier decades(due to popularity) but even waaaaaaay more Latinos and Asians. This is a very easy subject and the Latinos' and Asians' fighters have been overlooked by biased or xenophobic American boxing "experts"(These facts will be enthusiastically accepted by those Latinos/Asians). Those same carpy "experts" are the ones who say Mexicans have alot of champs because they have alot of fighters. Unfortunately for those Mexiphobes, they didn't know they were putting their feet in their mouths with their ******, carpy comments. My Mexican brothers fight to eat. Diminishing their ability and popularity with lies takes food from their babies' mouths. On the other hand, exposing the overrated American fighters from the old days merely hurts the delicate egos of the biased American Mexiphobes. Americans that have made these mistakes should learn from this the way a man should, change their ways and move on. You wouldn't like it if some dude with little balls took food from your kids' mouths so don't do it to others. Hve a great ****in day! I know I will.

Someone needs to delete this ridiculous post ruining this thread

[BennyST]

Someone needs to delete this ridiculous post ruining this thread

I don't even have the slightest clue what he's talking about. After two sentences I moved on to the next post.