Why dearth of Black heavyweights?

[Pirao]

Very few NBA players are 7 feet tall. Most are around the same height as the Klitchkos. Sure, you can claim all that but I think throughout history we know African Americans are far more athletic and just have better genetics(longer arms, more coordinated) than whites. Aren't the best soccer players black? I'm saying this as a white person btw.

Holy ****, you're really ******.

BTW, nice thread, original, it has never been done before.

[#1Assassin]

Look. Europeans are dominating increasinlgy in every weight class.

So, NBA NFL wont steal US middleweights or super mids, or even cruisers. But still Euros dominate those classes.

Heres the truth:

Euros are simply better at boxing these days. Better skilled & better trained thus they are defeating americans.

europeans dominate other weightclasses?

the best CW bar none in steve cunningham, an american.

the best lt.HW is up for discussion, a canadian of haitan heritage and three african americans (hopkins, cloud, dawson). or is shumenov and braehmer "dominating" the division in your opinion?

the best S.MW is up for discussion aswell, ward and bute are top of the heap. one american and one european bute being romanian and moving to canada in his 20's. if u want to add the toehr top guys its still even, abraham, dirrell, froch, anthony dirrel (he will be a force trust me) etc

the two best MWs are martinez, williams and pavlik. two americans and an argentine. sturm is a decent fighter but would get beat by all of them, hes the biggest duck in boxing.

i could keep going down the weightclasses, the lower i get the less europeans are around. im european myself btw, im just being objective and having common sense.

[Pirao]

If Ping Pong weren't so big in China the whole world's boxers would be dropping like flies.

Don't forget the debilitating effect Cricket has on the Indian athletic pool of potential HW world beaters.

LOL Brilliant... ****ing brilliant...

Those Ethiopian long distance runners would be feasting on these E. Euro HWs if running wasn't so big in their country...I mean feasting, literally...

****, you guys are killing me

[Pirao]

I really don't care about the color of the boxer myself either but I will root for an Ukrainian boxer over any other boxer, because I was born there, that's the way boxing is, you root for your color, nationality, your neighborhood. Having said that there is a very good black boxer born in Ukraine, Ismail Silakh. You should all check him out, he has promise.

I just hate it when Americans dismiss how good the E. Euros are by saying that all their big men are playing other sports. It's a cop out and not true. Boxing is on the decline but you still have qualtiy boxers in the US. But boxing is on the decline in other countries as well, it's not like boxing is that big in other countries compared to say soccer or hockey.

Some americans are so egocentric that they think every sport they used to dominate and they don't dominate now, it's because their athletes are playing other sports. It's the same in tennis, another sport I follow, as soon as Federer surpassed Sampras' record, the "weak era" excuses started to roll on.

And the sports they have never dominated, they just pretend they don't care about them, like football, which is the biggest sport world wide, it's so funny when they come up with **** like "if Kobe and Lebron were playing soccer we would dominate the World Cup", it's useless trying to reason with people like that

[paulf]

After Tyson name a black heavyweight that captured the AA community like that?

Holyfield? Nope. Bowe? Nope.

The end of Tyson was the rise of Michael Jordan. People forget that. NBA and NFL is king with the black community. Man every big kid or olde rkid or teen that has some size is either playing football or basketball. No one wants to grow up and be Heavyweight champ anymore. Those days are long gone.

Burner is on the money.

I went to a black high school and college and I will tell you strait: Black kids don't box anymore. Kids that are gifted athletically are pushed by their parents into Basketball and Football programs by the time they're 8-10 years old, in hopes they'll end up in the pros and hit the financial gravy train.

Black and white youths that box do so as a hobby or to stay out of trouble. For example, the black kid from Missouri that won the US Golden Gloves championship a few years ago got into boxing when the was 19 to lose some weight.

It's a different era, a different standard. You guys can tell yourself it's simply Europe rising up if that makes you feel good, but that's not really the case. The Klitschkos are excellent excellent heavyweights, but are there any quality Black American heavyweights to test themselves against as with past eras?? No.

The 70s-80s are long gone.

[Tyson.]

The Klitschkos are the only decent heavyweights right now. Vitali is past his prime though so Wlad is the only elite fighter there right now.

The Black heavyweights are alot worse than they were in recent times. Thats more to do with just how good the 60/70s and 90s heavyweight were though. You put Frazier, Foreman, Ali, Holmes, Tyson etc in any of the past eras they would dominate. If you say this heavyweight era is poor then so were all the other eras bar 60/70s and 90s.

When the Klitschkos retire the champ could well be an American, the eastern europeans bar the Klits arent that much better.

[Pirao]

Burner is on the money.

I went to a black high school and college and I will tell you strait: Black kids don't box anymore. Kids that are gifted athletically are pushed by their parents into Basketball and Football programs by the time they're 8-10 years old, in hopes they'll end up in the pros and hit the financial gravy train.

Black and white youths that box do so as a hobby or to stay out of trouble. For example, the black kid from Missouri that won the US Golden Gloves championship a few years ago got into boxing when the was 19 to lose some weight.

It's a different era, a different standard. You guys can tell yourself it's simply Europe rising up if that makes you feel good, but that's not really the case. The Klitschkos are excellent excellent heavyweights, but are there any quality Black American heavyweights to test themselves against as with past eras?? No.

The 70s-80s are long gone.

And you can keep telling yourselves that the NFL and NBA is the reason you don't dominate the HW anymore if that makes you feel good, but that's not really the case.

You guys just discredit yourselves with your double standards. America doesn't dominate the HW division because of the NBA, NFL, according to you. Yet when someone mentions that the potential european fighters from WW to LHW could be drained by soccer, you don't want to heard anything about it. Ok

[Jay Volcano]

The reason there is many successful african american athletes is not because african people have better genetics

I don't know if genetics is the reason or not for these many successful Afro-American athletes. But, the truth is that the Afro-Americans, all look like they were born with a six pack. In all sports, their body looks perfect. In tennis (Monfils), in Athletics (Bolt, Powell, Drummond, Chambers etc.), in football (you just have to watch the African Cup of Nations and convince yourself). Not to mention NFL and NBA. The Afro-Americans have a body of steel.

[Dan Vida]

The heavyweight division died when Lennox Lewis retired.You will never again see a great heavyweight.Kids in general just dont care about boxing anymore and two eatern eurobots are hardly going to get them interested in the sport again.

[Blubba]

race has nothing to do with domination of sports.

when a certain ethnic athlete dominates n becomes the face of the sport a million more ppl from the same ethnic background will aspire to bcome the next face of that sport. same with every sport.

it all depends on what time it is.