Comments Thread For: Boxing Without Boxing: The Great White Hype

[Bronx2245]

I remember seeing that in the cinema. Funny movie and very indicative of boxing at that time. The idea of a white heavyweight that was actually good was a novel idea. Fast forward to 2020 and it’s the norm. Not because heavyweights in general are so much better these days, quite the opposite, it’s because heavyweights these days are inferior to those of earlier eras.
Thank both the NFL and the NBA for taking the best big man athletes from boxing. Why go into boxing when one can get a guaranteed college degree and immediately sign contracts worth millions, have a defined season, and make millions more in advertising?
Boxing will never again get the best of the big men from the USA. The heavyweight division will be the domain of european big men....who have no other big money sport.

I've been saying this for years! I'm 50+, so I remember a time when an older AA person referred to someone as a "ball player," it meant MLB. NBA and NFL players were making peanuts! The only athletes in higher regard than a Baseball Player was the Heavyweight Champion of the World! Once the NFL and NBA starting cutting those big checks, most American men (especially Black men) over 6'3 with speed, strength, and agility, became NFL or NBA players! American boxing, especially over 200lbs., has suffered because of that! Had Wilder followed Mark Breland's path, instead of trying to be a Football Player, he might still be the HW Champion of the World.

[EDDIE SPERM]

Why is this site promoting racially motivated BS?

They let u post your crap against "minority" fighters while hyping ducks like Triple Stain or Lomachenko that got dropped by scrub Linares so why not? It's their site LMAO

[kafkod]

White Americans were at the mayweather mcgregor fight with Ireland flags. You couldn’t have made it up.

Lol! Yea, because fury could be in the nba with a guaranteed $1-200 million contract plus endorsements/fame but he’d rather be beat in the face and body for a living for a fraction. The thing that irks me is the cowardliness of it all. They refuse to admit the truth even to themselves. The girl you’re referring to couldn’t just say ”because he’s white” and just own it. They like to play this game with themselves.

The even funnier part is, the same people who root against black Americans in favor of non black non Americans(Serena and Venus experienced this throughout their careers) are the same folk who feigned outrage of Kaepernick and him kneeling during the anthem lol. All that patriotism BS goes tight out the door when it’s a black American vs a white non American.

Likewise sir. Your posts are refreshing to me as well. We’ve got to hold it down for the truth. Respect.

You're full of it man. You have no understanding of basketball or what it takes to be successful. You don’t understand that there are millions more people vying to get to the nba vs being a pro boxer. The talent pool for basketball is infinitely bigger than the talent pool for boxing. It’s much harder to even reach the nba than to be a champion in boxing.

Y’all know all of this deep down, but y’all are so caught up in race and your other ulterior motives that you end up talking out of both sides of your mouth. When it comes to wilder you have no problems discrediting him as a fighter despite him being a world champion for years. You don’t even respect his reign as a boxing champion. You accuse him of cherry picking fights and feasting on weak competition. Y’all basically categorize wilder as being unskilled as a fighter. Yet, here you are in this thread literally saying that it’s easier to be a top basketball player than to be a boxing champ lol. Just no shame.

Wilder himself was a junior college basketball player who became a heavyweight champ with supposedly “limited skill”. You know good and well that he had no shot of reaching the nba let alone being a top player. Wilder didn’t even take up boxing until he was 20 lol. I think AJ started at like 18. What does that tell you? Do you have common sense? Do you really think a kid could pick up a basketball at 18-20 and go on to become a top nba player? Come on people. Y’all can’t be this racist.

Of course there are many more people wanting to be basketball players in the US than boxers, because it's such a piss easy game to play! All you need is to be tall and able to catch a ball and stick it through a hoop.

Boxing is a much more mentally demanding and physically punishing sport than basketball, and it takes talent to be able do it well, not just physical size and athleticism.

As for your racial bullshit ... mate, you are so lacking in self-awareness it's actually funny! Look at the comments you have been posting in this thread alone - black this, white that, race, race race - and it's the same damned thing all the time with you!

Wake up and look at the man in the mirror, ffs!

[kafkod]

I was actually agreeing with you until you said it’s easier to play basketball than to box. I’m sure it’s a lot easier to throw a punch than anything you have to do in basketball.

After reading that, I hope you never agree with me on anything again.

[kafkod]

I gotta call BS. The best fighters from 154-HW are not black, so why not? You mean to tell me all those 154, 160, 168, 175, 200+ lb blacks are in the NBA/NFL? lol.

It's quite simple really if you know world history. What happened in the '90s in regards to communist nations and what affect did that have on boxing?

True, and what happened in the UK during the same time frame - the deliberated decimation of the coal mining, car manufacturing, steel making, ship building industries by a succession of right wing Tory governments - has denied 2 generations of young working class Brits something their forefathers once took for granted .. jobs.

I've been saying this for years! I'm 50+, so I remember a time when an older AA person referred to someone as a "ball player," it meant MLB. NBA and NFL players were making peanuts! The only athletes in higher regard than a Baseball Player was the Heavyweight Champion of the World! Once the NFL and NBA starting cutting those big checks, most American men (especially Black men) over 6'3 with speed, strength, and agility, became NFL or NBA players! American boxing, especially over 200lbs., has suffered because of that! Had Wilder followed Mark Breland's path, instead of trying to be a Football Player, he might still be the HW Champion of the World.

I gotta call BS. The best fighters from 154-HW are not black, so why not? You mean to tell me all those 154, 160, 168, 175, 200+ lb blacks are in the NBA/NFL? lol..

This is a point that US fans blaming basketball and grid-iron football for the down turn in US boxing dominance don't address. The same thing that happened at HW also happened in all the other divisions. Unless the US introduced midget league NFL and NBA during the 90's, another explanation is needed.

The most obvious explanation is that the standard of pro boxing outside the US improved considerably during the same time frame. As a proponent of Occam's razor, that's the explanation I'm going with.

['b']

This is a point that US fans blaming basketball and grid-iron football for the down turn in US boxing dominance don't address. The same thing that happened at HW also happened in all the other divisions. Unless the US introduced midget league NFL and NBA during the 90's, another explanation is needed.

The most obvious explanation is that the standard of pro boxing outside the US improved considerably during the same time frame. As a proponent of Occam's razor, that's the explanation I'm going with.

Truth.

And just wait until you see the talent that comes out of India, China, the Middle East once the youth take up boxing. Gonna need a new excuse.

[Boxing Goat]

The instant I read the title I just knew, this would follow.

By Cliff Rold

[Jab jab boom]

It's not a promotion angle that's done for MOST boxers, definitely NOT Black and Latino boxers! If you think that's so, then you're most likely not Black or Latino.

September 16, 2011:

Notre Dame's Mike Lee: Boxing's Latest 'Great White Hope'

Notre Dame graduate Mike Lee has been in the boxing news a lot lately. Really, a ton, when you consider that Lee is a novice of six professional fights without a truly decorated amateur background.

He's a Subway spokesman, alongside Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, and Ryan Howard in new commercials that air constantly during NFL games. He's been promoted heavily by his big-time promoters at Top Rank, arguably the biggest boxing firm in the United States.

And on Friday night, he and Top Rank bring professional boxing to the University of Notre Dame for the first time ever at the Joyce Center. Top Rank will even be streaming the card live on their web site starting at 9 p.m. EDT.

Lee (6-0, 4 KO) is in a six-round fight with a lesser novice named Jacob Stiers (4-1, 2 KO). Stiers, a 32-year-old from Kansas City, lost his pro debut back in 2003, and was out of the boxing game from 2004-2009. The combined records of the four opponents he's beaten? 4 wins, 20 losses, 1 draw.

So why the attention?

Because Mike Lee, as luck would have it, is your new Great White Hope.

It is foolish, naïve to believe that Lee being a handsome, well-spoken, white, 24-year-old boxer with a Notre Dame background isn't the reason he's being pushed so hard. I will note once again that, no, there is nothing particularly special about Mike Lee as a boxing prospect. He's not a blue chipper. He's not one of the best American prospects.

But again: He's a handsome, well-spoken, white, 24-year-old boxer with a Notre Dame background.

It matters. And don't kid yourself into thinking it does not. It's the reason that over the years, many white, American fighters have been given opportunities that they may not have truly deserved in terms of talent or true in-ring potential.

https://www.badlefthook.com/2011/9/1...ope-next-fight

I clearly remembered Juan Diaz being promoted as someone who was pursuing his law degree while boxing. Calvin Brock was someone who was promoted as having a degree in finance. Patrick day who recently passed was known as someone who obtained a college degree in nutrition, similar to algieri. So that elimantes your theory right there as none of those boxers are white.

If a boxer is well educated period, that's something that will be marketed, regardless of race, because it's not all that common. The reality is, the vast majority of boxers got into boxing due to the necessity of trying to make a living based on coming from poverty stricken neighborhoods, and education wasn't as much of a priority.

Again, yes race is utilized to promote boxers, but your example of algieri being selected for pac because he's white.. When they were fighting in China and he was just as credible as many of pacs opponents faced during that time frame is just plain inaccurate. No matter how you try to spin it.

[Citizen Koba]

I remember seeing that in the cinema. Funny movie and very indicative of boxing at that time. The idea of a white heavyweight that was actually good was a novel idea. Fast forward to 2020 and it’s the norm. Not because heavyweights in general are so much better these days, quite the opposite, it’s because heavyweights these days are inferior to those of earlier eras.
Thank both the NFL and the NBA for taking the best big man athletes from boxing. Why go into boxing when one can get a guaranteed college degree and immediately sign contracts worth millions, have a defined season, and make millions more in advertising?
Boxing will never again get the best of the big men from the USA. The heavyweight division will be the domain of european big men....who have no other big money sport.

Are you of the impression that American Big Men are intrinsically superior and would dominate Heavyweight boxing if they so chose or of the belief that genetic potential and the character traits which determine success in boxing are fairly evenly distributed around the globe? Are Americans 'supermen' (or the rest of us untermenschen) in short, and if so, what makes them so?

I ask because when I compared achievements in other divisions it turns out that national success in terms of belts and rankings is pretty much directly proportional to the number of fighters a nation had in the professional sport across the established boxing nations. The former Soviet bloc nations (and Cuba) had disproportionate success - relative to their numbers in the pro game that is - in recent years, but this is easily explained of course by the fact that fewer boxers had professional opportuniities and those that have done so have frequently been elite amateurs.

Far as I'm concerned boxing potential and natural fighting talent is pretty much evenly spread throughout humankind, though of course there are advantages to be gained from having a strong tradition and good training opportunities.

[Citizen Koba]

Truth.

And just wait until you see the talent that comes out of India, China, the Middle East once the youth take up boxing. Gonna need a new excuse.

I for one am really looking forward to boxing becoming a truly Global sport and would like to imagine that one day we'll see the emergence of new ideas and philosophies in the sport, maybe even a Chinese or Indian 'school' or 'style' of boxing. Could be I'll be dead before that actually happens though at this rate..