what atmosphere contributed to the talent coming out of the 76 and 84 games

[rightsideup]

Some all time greats came from these Olympic team's. Any reasoning for the timing. For example in the mid 70's most world class pro's were outside the usa.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Boxing peaked in terms of popularity in the United states, more youths were drawn to it, hence more competition and athletes in amateurs which produced some great fighters..

Nowadays the youth is more drawn to the NBA and nfl,,, not boxing n baseball

[Ray Corso]

.........................................Ali!..... ...........

[rightsideup]

.........................................Ali!..... ...........

you may be right Ali was so colorful and popular.

[Ray Corso]

Kids loved Ali, women loved Ali men didn't!
After everyone heard his side of the draft and then realized the politics involved everyone understood his opinion even if they didn't agree totally.
He was a magnet, I worked for Ali Productions for all of 8 or 10 weeks and left because the people running it were incompetent and ripping the company off.
We did one show with Whimpy Halstead (I think) and backed out!

Ali brought boxing back from a Sat night TV show to live shows getting more attention as they aleways had done before TV. TV in the 50's hurt boxing on the base level because people stasyed home and watched the top tier guys for nothing.

All the east coast gyms were packed again after Ali appeared.
Ray.

[Tom Cruise]

This is a complete stab in the dark, but did the cold war have an effect? I mean boxing is a great chance for medals in the Olympics and the cold war in a sporting sense was played out in the Olympic games. Was funding for amateurs higher during this period?

Like i say just a stab in the dark

[JimEarl]

.........................................Ali!..... ...........

Not to be underrated as a factor. The fact that boxing was, once again, televised was a factor. (It wasn't for awhile after Benny Paret's death until Ali's era)

[saintpat]

Heavyweight championship fights -- those that weren't on closed circuit -- were televised in prime time by the networks.

(Later we also got prime time fights with Leonard and others, with undercards that gave exposure to exciting fighters like Victor Galindez and Danny "Little Red" Lopez and others.)

You couldn't turn on your TV on a weekend without finding a title fight.

The most well-known athlete in the world as Ali. The Fight of the Century was front-page news from coast to coast, around the world, really.

And to top it off, the movie Rocky came out and further popularized prizefighting.

I'd also point out that somewhere along there you also got a lot of amateur fighting on network TV on weekend daytime -- U.S. dual meets and the like ... so amateurs got big-time exposure and viewers learned who up-and-comers were before they even made their pro debuts.

[The Old LefHook]

I agree Ali was a big part of it. I was about to reply as Ray did when I saw that he had done it.

There may be other important factors too. Indeed, Tom Cruise, the cold war could be one. Whether the coaching for that Olympics was in any way special, I do not know, but that is another possible factor to be looked at.

Leonard himself was special in many ways besides his talent. The American boxing public had not yet witnessed a black middle class boy who lived like a white boy and sounded as clean as any white boy. Don't get me wrong, Leonard was no uncle Tom, he simply reflected his upbringing, as anyone does. The atmosphere that contributed to a kid like Leonard taking up boxing in the first place is an important part of the question. We know he was heavily influenced by Ali, but something other than that. There may have been funding that gave boxing programs long arms in those days.

In a time of racial upheaval and fierce tension America took a big sigh of relief when it met Ray Leonard, and put its collective arms around him. He was not a complainer. All of his greatness and popularity was acheived entirely without the political arena and mostly without reference to racial disparities and tensions. In retrospect Leonard was the boxing centerpiece of the 76 Olympics. Others went on to fame as well, but none acheived the all time status of Leonard as a pro. He crowns that Olympics for boxing, sitting atop a pyramid on the shoulders of the Spinks brothers, who sit atop others. Without Leonard the pyramid would not have a top, and whole legacy of that memory would not be what it is.

[rightsideup]

I have heard on one talk show that the tough economic times of the early seventies contibuted to more inner city kids to take to boxing. I am not an economist but a lot of great fighter's came from poverty. I think Ray Leonard came from a fairly poor family.