Does being physically fit give European heavyweights an advantage over Americans?

[Ben_London.]

I'll take the Julius Long comment as a joke. Because if you think Julius Long is an elite American athlete, you don't have cable.

Why would American athletes want to be a heavyweight when they can make more money with more endorsements in other sports? Without all the punches.

Why would Europeans want to be a heavyweight, for the same reasons?

The "they're playing basketball and football" is just an excuse. Those other sports were around back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It requires a different kind of athleticism to be an elite boxer than a basketball or football player.

Americans have fewer champions at the smaller weight divisions too - those guys are too small for pro football and basketball, so that excuse can't be used.

Look at the results of last year's Olympics: the US won ONE medal in boxing, a bronze at heavyweight. And the top fighter overall in the Olympics was a Ukrainian featherweight, Vasyl Lomachenko.

[dans]

Why would Europeans want to be a heavyweight, for the same reasons?

The "they're playing basketball and football" is just an excuse. Those other sports were around back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It requires a different kind of athleticism to be an elite boxer than a basketball or football player.

Americans have fewer champions at the smaller weight divisions too - those guys are too small for pro football and basketball, so that excuse can't be used.

Look at the results of last year's Olympics: the US won ONE medal in boxing, a bronze at heavyweight. And the top fighter overall in the Olympics was a Ukrainian featherweight, Vasyl Lomachenko.

America has never been big in the "small divisions". It's always been Latinos and Asians. The middleweight classes still have a lot of quality American fighters.

Another thing, the money wasn't the same in the 70's, 80's, and nineties for those other sports. Why do I care about some Ukrainian guy?

Do you honestly believe America's premier athletes are boxing right now? Because you could argue that 30 years ago maybe.

[dans]

Why would Europeans want to be a heavyweight, for the same reasons?

Sorry I guess I missed all the Ukrainians at the all star weekend. They don't play basketball, football, and baseball like we do. Those are OUR sports, therefore our best athletes are there.

[dans]

Who's the Ukraine's top paid athele? How about just their top athlete? Let's do some comparisons.

[Ben_London.]

America has never been big in the "small divisions". It's always been Latinos and Asians. The middleweight classes still have a lot of quality American fighters.

Another thing, the money wasn't the same in the 70's, 80's, and nineties for those other sports. Why do I care about some Ukrainian guy?

Do you honestly believe America's premier athletes are boxing right now? Because you could argue that 30 years ago maybe.

By smaller divisions, I'm also referring to the weight divisions up to 175, where the fighters are too small for pro basketball and pro football.

Americans used to dominate 154 to 175, although never the very small divisions like flyweight and bantamweight. But there are fewer and fewer American titleholders in those weight divisions, as the titles are now held by Sturm, Abraham, Dzinziruk, Kessler, Bute, Balszay, Froch, Erdei, Garay, Diaconu, ect.

[Naps]

Who's the Ukraine's top paid athele? How about just their top athlete? Let's do some comparisons.

Andrei Shevchenko. I think he's on about $200,000.00 a week for Milan.

[BattlingNelson]

Why would Europeans want to be a heavyweight, for the same reasons?

The "they're playing basketball and football" is just an excuse. Those other sports were around back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It requires a different kind of athleticism to be an elite boxer than a basketball or football player.

Americans have fewer champions at the smaller weight divisions too - those guys are too small for pro football and basketball, so that excuse can't be used.

Look at the results of last year's Olympics: the US won ONE medal in boxing, a bronze at heavyweight. And the top fighter overall in the Olympics was a Ukrainian featherweight, Vasyl Lomachenko.

There need to be a big crisis before young punks turn to boxing in America again. Boxing usually recruits from the lower class of poor people, which is why so many Eastern europeans are overflowing the rankings today.

[Ben_London.]

Sorry I guess I missed all the Ukrainians at the all star weekend. They don't play basketball, football, and baseball like we do. Those are OUR sports, therefore our best athletes are there.

There are several more popular and safer sports in Europe than boxing, such as soccer - different sports, but the same idea applies.

[ИATAS]

There need to be a big crisis before young punks turn to boxing in America again. Boxing usually recruits from the lower class of poor people, which is why so many Eastern europeans are overflowing the rankings today.

exactly.

And it's very true that young americans are simply going into other sports. I don't understand why that's not acceptable. Just look at how many boxing gyms there are in america. In the 20's there were dozens upon dozens of boxing gyms in new york city. Now days theres just a couple. That should tell you right there the state of boxing in america - fewer gyms equals less young people learning the sport.

[BattlingNelson]

lmao...Its generally good for HW boxing for them to be fit, But it seems like most europeans HW are fit while the american/north american one looks fat.

I guess the yanks remember the days when european HW's looked like this: