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Yeah and in the Aussies case its union, league AND AFL taking the majority of bigger athletes over boxing, and they have less than a tenth of the population of the US.
England has been doing well with HW boxers in recent times, they also currently have a UFC HW champ, this is in spite of rugby union getting the lions share of HW sized talent in the south and midlands of the country and rugby league getting it in the north, and again, the US has about 5x as many people.
Russia and most of the Eastern Euro countries prioritize basketball and hockey over combat sports too. Even when it comes to combat sports they put about as much into wrestling and MMA as they do boxing. Once again with smaller populations than the US.
Its all just excuse making. I'd say the main reason the US fell off initially was the fall of the iron curtain and subsequent influx of tons of fighters from some of the strongest hotbeds of combat sports. As well as just general globalisation across the board. The end of American dominance then lead to Americans losing interest in boxing, which in turn escalated the decline even further.
We've seen the same thing happen more recently and even more starkly in MMA. When the UFC first started expanding internationally in the late 00s almost every UFC title fight/main event featured at least one American, often both fighters were, and at least half of every divisions top 10 was American, now there isnt a single male champion from America.
England has been doing well with HW boxers in recent times, they also currently have a UFC HW champ, this is in spite of rugby union getting the lions share of HW sized talent in the south and midlands of the country and rugby league getting it in the north, and again, the US has about 5x as many people.
Russia and most of the Eastern Euro countries prioritize basketball and hockey over combat sports too. Even when it comes to combat sports they put about as much into wrestling and MMA as they do boxing. Once again with smaller populations than the US.
Its all just excuse making. I'd say the main reason the US fell off initially was the fall of the iron curtain and subsequent influx of tons of fighters from some of the strongest hotbeds of combat sports. As well as just general globalisation across the board. The end of American dominance then lead to Americans losing interest in boxing, which in turn escalated the decline even further.
We've seen the same thing happen more recently and even more starkly in MMA. When the UFC first started expanding internationally in the late 00s almost every UFC title fight/main event featured at least one American, often both fighters were, and at least half of every divisions top 10 was American, now there isnt a single male champion from America.
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