Will the giants continue to dominate heavyweight boxing?

[Banderivets]

Maybe other countries got a similar situation with the meat market of more mainstream sports, but my assumption would be the support in their amateur farm system has grown & improved & is making better pro talent than they ever have. So the US's problem is twofold, we got the meat market + an unsupported amateur farm system.

I hear you, I guess...

My beef is with people that say something a long the lines of "if our big athletes were not in the NBA and NFL we WOULD dominate" and that just doesn't make any sense to me. It's along the lines of "if we wanted to, we would" its kind of silly......its like me sitting here behind my keyboard and saying, "well if I wanted to I could be a great running back, but I dont want to......I chose a career in IT instead sitting on my ass all day" And I see a lot of that.

If USA had a proper am system and yes, if there were less options in terms of sports to get into of course US prospects at having champs would go WAY up, but that doesn't mean that all of a sudden all these Cubans, Ukrainians and Russians would suddenly start sucking, and I know that is NOT what YOU are saying, but many are.

[Firefist]

I really don't understand, why for so many years now people keep bringing up this argument...

Sorry but America is not the only country with a monopoly on big athletes who competing in other sports.

Why is athleticism so stressed in boxing? What is athleticism? Again this is a term beat to death by American sports media. "explosive, fast, agile" that is your definition of athleticism? Again why is this so crucial to boxing? Again, 90% someone is "athletic" because he is flamboyant.

Boxing is about intelligence, strength, conditioning, toughness, mental state many things that your vertical leap and 100m dash numbers have no impact on.

Who cares how athletic a fighter is if he has Tyson Fury with the longest reach in boxing feinting and popping his jab all night. Nothing! Fury wins like Wlad won for so many years.

By attributing boxing to "athleticism" in the traditional American terms your dumbing the sport down.

What makes you for one second think that LeBron would be a great boxer? Just shows you how impressionable people are by looks.

I guess LeBron would be an 'elite' weightlifter if he just wanted to be one?

You fellas really have no understanding of sport in general.

It has to do with the talent pool. I remember reading somewhere that New York alone used to have as many registered boxers as there are in the world today during the golden age. Don't quote me on this though. The more people that box the more likely you are to find your golden goose.

Combining "intelligence, strength, conditioning, toughness, and mental state" with physical gifts like explosiveness, speed, and agility is how you get a great fighter. These types of fighters competing against each other is how you find an ATG. You cannot miss half of the equation.

Other sports soaking up the talent pool is why the heavyweight division has been suffering. No one has ever said that you can take any other athlete from any other sport and make them a successful boxer. That's an assumption on your part. All we've been saying is that the athletes with outstanding physical traits have for the most part moved onto other sports.

Also, other countries don't have the NFL generating something like 10 BILLION a year in revenue.

[Banderivets]

Other sports soaking up the talent pool is why the heavyweight division has been suffering. No one has ever said that you can take any other athlete from any other sport and make them a successful boxer. That's an assumption on your part. All we've been saying is that the athletes with outstanding physical traits have for the most part moved onto other sports.

Also, other countries don't have the NFL generating something like 10 BILLION a year in revenue.

Again I hear you, but as my post above, if 30% of the talent going into basketball and football in the states went into boxing instead I see the ODDS of having champs improving but I don't see US suddenly taking 90% market share of title holders just because 'Murica (don't take it the wrong way, I'm a pro USA fella politically speaking

[The Gambler1981]

It is called reach advantage for a reason, and learning how to exploit range is rather easy. Learning how to get inside a range advantage is difficult and requires a proper amount of technique along with a mindset and toughness to not be denied.

[Firefist]

Again I hear you, but as my post above, if 30% of the talent going into basketball and football in the states went into boxing instead I see the ODDS of having champs improving but I don't see US suddenly taking 90% market share of title holders just because 'Murica (don't take it the wrong way, I'm a pro USA fella politically speaking

I agree with you here because talent exists everywhere. If said scenario happened though and we poured the same amount of money into these athletes could you imagine how exciting that would be? Even without a world champion seeing that much talent showing up IN-SHAPE (because flab on a heavyweight peeves me) for a scrap would do it for me.

[Banderivets]

I agree with you here because talent exists everywhere. If said scenario happened though and we poured the same amount of money into these athletes could you imagine how exciting that would be? Even without a world champion seeing that much talent showing up IN-SHAPE (because flab on a heavyweight peeves me) for a scrap would do it for me.

I'm all for it, especially for HW boxing, because guys *****ing about 2lb this, size that in lower divisions is turning me off it all together.

[Firefist]

True, it's turning me into a more casual fan. I honestly avoided media for Canelo-Cotto until fight night for that reason and will probably do the same for Canelo-Golovkin.

[Godsfly]

in modern day boxing heavyweights all try to fight the same style......from the 6'1 to the 6'9. jessimgs and povetkin approach is slightly different. so in all, YES. shorter fighters don't bob and weave and look to cut off the ring anymore (like a fraizer) if you are short and fight a tall mans game against a tall man theres very little hope..............what made the heavyweight division so good back then was there was a multitude of styles.

[Eff Pandas]

I hear you, I guess...

My beef is with people that say something a long the lines of "if our big athletes were not in the NBA and NFL we WOULD dominate" and that just doesn't make any sense to me. It's along the lines of "if we wanted to, we would" its kind of silly......its like me sitting here behind my keyboard and saying, "well if I wanted to I could be a great running back, but I dont want to......I chose a career in IT instead sitting on my ass all day" And I see a lot of that.

If USA had a proper am system and yes, if there were less options in terms of sports to get into of course US prospects at having champs would go WAY up, but that doesn't mean that all of a sudden all these Cubans, Ukrainians and Russians would suddenly start sucking, and I know that is NOT what YOU are saying, but many are.

Yea nah I'm not saying that. In fact the Cuban situation kinda shows the opposite of what I feel is happening in the US with mainstream sports influence on the bigger athletically talented kids.

The Cuban amateur farm system is a boxing meat market from my understanding of how that operates cuz of Cuban's strong lean towards boxing & there advantages with that system were obvious for many years. And look at the level of talent they possess at its highest levels. They got a strong iron sharpening iron situation going on there. And for a comparison there might be some Cuban basketball players (I don't believe basketball is very popular or important there but I could be wrong) getting screwed over cuz Erislandy Savon & their big guys are punching guys in the head & would dribble a basketball like my grandma if given one at this point in their lives.

[Godsfly]

you could be 8 foot tall. larry holmes jab, good speed. a true specimen of a man. but larry holmes had all he could handle against a smaller earnie shavers. not because earnie was better then larry but because guys fought in all kinda ways and it didn't take much for you to run into some awkward **** in the heavyweight division. earine was no where near the fighter larry was but it didn't matter because the more styles in the division the more likely you are to find that one style that kinda has your number. short or tall...........it's all about the styles. lewis was a prime specimen of a man. tall, fire jab, massive power and uppercuts. if we got into the motion of just looking at what he was on paper (which is what u should not do but many of do anyway) we would call him a top 3 heavyweight of all time. but with all of his pros, little short mercer gave him all that he could ever handle. not because mercer is anywhere near lewis but because lewis just ran into some awkward ****. it's just one of those styles that doesn't mix with your own.

in short, the reason why there was so many successful shorter guys they knew they were short and made up for it with extreme durability, stamina, cutting off the ring, working the inside getting to the head and body kinda like a hollyfield. the holyfeild approach is basically dead............