Why Boxing is so popular in UK and not in France?

[bojangles1987]

This is where most Americans like myself make some French are scared to fight joke, right?

I would assume it's mostly because boxing has gone downhill pretty much everywhere except the Phillipines, where it will stay popular until Pacquiao retires. Also, football is where most people put their attention around the world( and I mean soccer, not American football).

[pacmanis1]

because throwing in a towel is more of a pass time than a sport to them

[Spartacus Sully]

Tunney was french too right?

i dont think its declined as much as youd think. i just think their more interested in that free style running now a days

historically though french boxing (boxe savate) was not desinged to go up against people with an opposing stance like a righty vs a lefty. perhaps due to judo, karate and such's more versatile nature and ease of switching stances and not having to match the opponets stance more people chose to learn those arts and slowly they took over for the sport of boxing

[mickey malone]

As an observation, if you mix a Frenchman with someone else, it normally produces a half decent fighter.. IE: French/Canadian, French/Morocan, French/ Algerian.. The likes of Jean Pascal, Fabrice Tiozzo, Marcel Cerdan, Gratien Tonna & Louis Acares fall into these categories.. With regard to the thoroughbred Frogs, I have to agree with GJC on this one as I can't recall too many good'uns.. Georges Carpentier, Laurent Boudiani, Renee Jacquot & Lucien Rodriguez to name a few.. Featherweight, Fabrice Benachou was quite entertaining & often doubled up as a trapeze artist as part of a travelling circus.. And who was that mutant Gypsy that fought Lennox Lewis & Derek Williams?.. Was it Claude Jeanet or someone.. Had to be seen to be believed!.. Tough SOB though..
Johnny Famechan, a garlic cruncher who fought for Australia was a fine fighter though, & often ends up on my lists of underrated fighters.. Perhaps if the French were interested in fighting, they'd have produced more like him..

[BigMacFoster]

because throwing in a towel is more of a pass time than a sport to them

I suppose you think your disgusting country had a great factor in the outcome of World War 2 right?

While the real fighting was going on in Europe,America was out in south east asia commiting war crimes and commiting acts of terrorism.

America's war with Japan was like a prime heavyweight fighting a past it's prime welterweight,And struggling with that past it's prime welterweight for eleven rounds until commiting fouls which were permitted and ignored by the referee until stopping that faded welterweight in the very last round.


by the way,It was because of the Soviet Unions invasion that Japan surrendered,So not only did America not win on the western front,They never officially did the job on the eastern front either.


America is very much the Corrie Sanders of the world.

[GJC]

This is where most Americans like myself make some French are scared to fight joke, right?

Nooo you should leave it to us English we have a far longer and more glorious history at it than you Johnny come latelys

I think they could encourage more Frenchman into boxing by introducing easy to remove and drop gloves and maybe leaving one side of the ring without ropes. More than likely after round 2 they would join up with the other fighter and start hitting the referee.
That said they have produced some pretty fierce rugby players down the years and 2 of my favourite footballers (proper football )

[GJC]

I suppose you think your disgusting country had a great factor in the outcome of World War 2 right?

While the real fighting was going on in Europe,America was out in south east asia commiting war crimes and commiting acts of terrorism.

War Crimes and acts of terrorism? Namely?
I think you could possibly make a case for not dropping the second atom bomb and every country does things in war that they are not proud of but the Japanese and Nazi conduct in the second world war was far worse than anything the allies did.
America fought in Europe and the Pacific and many brave men died in both theatres and we should be grateful for their sacrifice. You should be ashamed of not acknowledging the American dead in Europe. America could have concentrated all their efforts in the Pacific as there was zero danger of Germany attacking them but they didn't.

by the way,It was because of the Soviet Unions invasion that Japan surrendered,So not only did America not win on the western front,They never officially did the job on the eastern front either.

I would agree that Russia were the biggest factor in deciding the European war but they declared war 2 days after the Hiroshima bomb purely to try and get some political influence in the Pacific and had zero effect on the Japanese surrender.

[LordessByron]

I see that the topic switched into more History than History of Boxing... well thanks though for all these information ! I appreciate

[hayazaki]

Why we don't like boxing... To be honest i'm not sure to know but i'll try to explain you.

First of all, you have to know that most of french people only like team sports like football (soccer for americans) and rugby. Individual sports aren't very popular in here except tennis, especially during Roland Garros...

On a second hand in France we're very... how to say... patriotic, i mean, if we don't have top champion(s) in a sport there is absolutely no way the sport can be popular, we don't have top ranked pound for pound so...
For example before Alain Bernard, Laure Manaudou, we didn't give a damn about swimming, now it's very popular and this sport is able to get media attention, which is my third point.

On a third hand Media. Boxing isn't popular, because there is no coverage of the boxing events (15 secs on a sport channel and the end of the news for Mayweather Marquez for example). We can watch the fights on Pay per view channel like Canal+, but you have to realize that this kind of fight are broadcasted at 3.30-4 am. Most of the people don't wanna wake up that early for boxing, I personnaly don't miss a big fight!!!! But trust me if the French football team is playing at 4am the people will wake up for sure.

And last but not least A lot of people don't like boxing because they consider boxing as a violent, dirty, brutal, bad, for ex prisoners (not a joke), and the list goes on and on, sport. They don't understand it, they don't see the beauty of the sport, the dedication fighters have, they'd rather see *******s playing with a ball on the grass, crying like babies everytime someone touch them, acting, cheating etc...

To sum up Boxing can't be popular because it's not a team sport, we don't have huge champion, and there is absolutely no converage from the media. And it won't change and the only reason is because as the sport is not popular no one wanna start training in boxing so...

Hope you'll understand my thought and my english.

Hayazaki, a french boxing fan.

[Sgt. Pain]

they have not so many great boxers as uk and the whole thing is about media, i don't know how the marketing in boxing is in france