What boxing ATGs were footballers/basketballers?

[Someone88]

It's a matter of degrees. The American amateur system is a mess at the moment and this can acount for their relatively poor showings at the last two Olympics. The amateur system over here is better organized but as a sport boxing is still way way down the list of things for kids to go into. In fact I'd even argue that traditionally, as a sport, boxing has enjoyed less popularity over here than in the States. Even now there are way more professional boxers in the States than in the UK.

If you're arguing that the States has fallen off the lofty pedastal from where it once was then I totally agree with you. If you're arguing that the US is now inferior to those other countries vying for boxing dominance and this accounts for its lack of success then I'll have to take umbrage with that. We're on a more even keel now, if anything.



I know. They play American Football and Basketball here in the UK too. But they aren't anywhere near as popular or prevalent in our culture. That's the point, isn't it?



And our culture is soccer, soccer, soccer and a bit more soccer for variation. Do you think we have crazy amateur systems for boxers in Europe, I mean on the scale you're talking about? Only in Cuba can I think of something even approaching that.



Fury, maybe some would, because he's a gobby shite who gets his (rather memorable) name out there. Chisora? No way. But if we're talking global name recognition then no Brit compares to Mayweather. And what about Pac? When a kid gets inspired to take up a sport they don't generally care about nationality or, in the case of boxing, weightclass. Growing up my favourite British boxer was Eubank, followed by Naz. My favourite international boxer was Tyson. I've spoken to boxers who were inspired by all sorts, not just fighters from their weightclass, obviously because when they're still kids they don't know what weightclass they'll eventually grow into as adults.



Yeah, but we're talking about heavyweights now, not heavyweights in the future. The guys fighting today would have seen plenty of HW fights in the eighties and nineties and early 2000s as well as plenty of exciting fights in other weightclasses to inspire them.

I think the drop off in HW boxing on HBO is down to a few things, general disinterest in the Klitschkos from high ups, investment in and subsequent poor showing of American fighters like Arreola, the growing interest in heavyweight fights on German networks. Obviously none of this is good for the future of the US heavyweight, but it doesn't explain the lack of success in the here and now.

Maybe the NFL does. But I'm not convinced, and what's more I find the whole argument a sham. It's nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse to account for lack of success by denigrating other nations and shifting the blame for your own problems onto things that you can do nothing about. It solves nothing.

Good points made

[New England]

I know. But none of them were ATGs or approaching ATG level. Carnera was probably the best of the bunch pre modern era and he wasn't an American.



Well exactly.

So where does this argument that all the best American heavyweights are now in the NBA come from? It's all well and good to speculate on what ifs, but so far as I understand the general argument it's that back in the day, from the seventies back, most big athletic American men went into boxing and not basketball or football. Right? Well if that's the case then why did we never see the type of athlete who's now competing in these leagues back then, especially in the NBA? And what basis is there for believing that these guys would have been any good in boxing at all?

It just seems to me that many people here are trying to have their cake and eat it at the same time. Either heavyweight American boxing has become weaker now prior to the seventies as a result of the NBA and NFL, or these leagues are now starting to produce hitherto unheard of athletes who would have eclipsed Ali, Louis, Holmes et al were they competing back in the day. If it's the latter then that's an enormous speculation that really needs hard results to lend it credence.



I'm perfectly willing to entertain the thought that there might be some potentially very good boxers lurking today in the NBA, just as there might be in any other sport or profession that requires strength, speed, endurance and manual dexterity. But like I said, it's all just speculation. Thus far the only evidence that this might have something more to it is Deontay Wilder, who's not exactly setting the heavyweight division on fire at the moment.

Besides why this constant obsession with athleticism anyway? How many boxing greats of any time were athletic specimens? Frazier? Duran? Locche? Pep? How many times do you hear of boxers having first taken up the gloves because they were small and puny and bullied at school? The last boxing great who got by on mostly athleticism was Roy Jones, and he was a sub six footer.

No boxer in history was ever built in a lab. Their successes can all generally be attributed to hard work, determination, and acquired skills, and the whims of fate that thrust them into a sport that most sane individuals would never think twice about getting into.

Maybe that'll change in the future. But it won't change in the past.



And if I were to pick my next champ of any weightclass outside of America I'd go for soccer, due to the sheer mass of numbers, physical diversity and popularity in third world countries that have historically produced great fighters. Those things are more important I think than the more obvious but ultimately surface skills of a top football player or the physical dimensions of a basketball player.

Because despite their general toughness, a hit in the NFL is very different from a punch straight on the jaw; it's more like a full body slam and dependent on physical mass to withstand. And the nature of the sport requires you to excel in a few key areas, depending on your position, with endurance not really one of the most important areas. That's one thing where innate potential plays a part, because great endurance, like great speed, is something that you either have or you don't. It can be improved of course, but the type of guys capable of running ninety minutes (with short bursts of sprinting and jumping) are not likely to be drawn to the League in the first place.

And as for NBA, again there really are no examples of American guys that height doing well in the past. There are at least examples of athletes from those other two sports having decent success.



Cool. But from the way some people are talking it seems like we'd enter not merely a golden age but by far the greatest heavyweight era there's ever been were these athletes to enter boxing, one which makes Ali's era look like bum of the month club twenty times over. Sorry, but I need more than just fancy stats and idle speculation to be convinced of that.



Are you saying that those big American men of the past would now be making millions in the NFL and NBA? This is what I thought we were talking about earlier but your comments above seem to contradict that. I apologise if I'm getting the wrong end of the stick, but so many people seem to be arguing about different things here.

For clarification let me ask you this question: if the best athletes from the NFL and NBA had gone into boxing as youths do you think we would now be looking at by far the greatest heavyweight era in history?



I don't quite understand this. When did anyone approaching those dimensions ever box like that? If you're saying that athletes competing in big money sports now have more innate potential than the greats of the past then I suppose a case could be made for that, though again it would involve a hell of a lot of speculation and at least a degree of hard evidence to back it up.



I agree with you here, but as I said in another post it seems that the NBA has only become a factor now after the rise of the dominant foreign superheavyweight has shown that athletic big men can excel in the sport. Suddenly all the great potential heavyweights from the States are in the NBA, despite past greats barely topping the six foot three mark at the most. What if the Klitschkos were both short and fat and addicted to hotdogs? Would we be blaming MLB for the same thing?

first bold:
no. there's no way to say that they would even make good amaeurs. now that is a "hackneyed supposition." lol
i think they would make for very talented boxers and a very talented division, but there's no way to tell if they would be great. there's so much more that goes into making great boxers than simply having the talent.

i am confident that the current division would improve. when i'm at the fights and can name 10 guys at my gym in better shape than the HW journeymen plodding around it's hard to think otherwise.


i was referring to large and athletic men no longer boxing, not men in the past of that size.
like we discussed, guys that size used to be exclusively of the petuitary type (lets say 100 years ago,) and are now becoming more common with athletic quality.


and i do think that a changing talent pool, growing in size, would allow for the large athletic men with NBA type athleticism to translate into boxers with athletic gifts.

men are getting bigger and stronger and faster, and when you dont have a weight limit that's going to be an advantage.

[New England]

But where are the big athletic non-American kids going then? Boxing? You've gotta be kidding. Rugby? Some, but not nearly as many as you think. Tennis? See above. Soccer? You know, you might just be onto something there.

Unless you actually live outside the US it's hard to fathom the sheer popularity soccer has as a global sport. Here in the UK it dominates the sports pages of all the major tabloids almost every day. It dominates the sports channels. It dominates schools up and down the country. And we're far from the best in the world. In countries like Brazil and Argentina it approaches something akin to a religion. I'm not joking.

Nearly every kid who wants to be anything in sport gets into soccer at an early age. Some might drop off due to lack of talent, others might seek their calling in another sport, but look at the best players and you'll see they've invariably been playing the sport since they were fresh out of diapers.

And because of that fact you'll find soccer players of all shapes and sizes.



The UK's actually punching above its weight at the moment as far as heavyweights are concerned. But besides Haye, there are very few really big names in the sport. Mention the names Tyson Fury and Derek Chisora to an average Brit and they'll wonder who the fuk you're talking about.



That's funny, because I find most people who side with this argument tend to be firmly within the confines of the United States and operating under the mistaken belief that boxing is alive and well and tremendously popular everywhere else in the world.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on American sports because I'm not. But you need to get over thinking you're alone in having boxing as a second tier sport. Boxing gets the chaff, wherever you are. We need to appreciate what we've got and not lay the blame on popular sports that, whatever their effect on boxing's talent pool, aren't going to go away any time soon.

i certainly appreciate the athletic quality of soccer players
they are some of the most well rounded on the planet, striking a balance between serious anaerobic sprints and long periods of steady activity.

the NFL and NBA stick comes from the size.

guys of all sizes can find a niche in soccer, and do play soccer, as you outlined.

basketball and football exclude small guys
they just cant be effective given the nature of the games and the rules

the rim in the NBA is too high. if you arent tall you're too easy to defend.

the other guys in the NFL are too large. if you arent big and strong you'll be unable to produce effectively on offense or defense and you'll also get injured.


so you get sports with guys who are exclusively HW, or close.
they arent more athletic than soccer players. in fact i'd say the average NBA'er is on par athletically with the soccer player and the average american footballer is less athletic (given the inclusion of the "linemen" who are often well over 300 lbs and)

they're just larger

and the sports are getting more popular by the minute
especially among young people and in scholastics.

[nomadman]

first bold:
no. there's no way to say that they would even make good amaeurs. now that is a "hackneyed supposition." lol
i think they would make for very talented boxers and a very talented division, but there's no way to tell if they would be great. there's so much more that goes into making great boxers than simply having the talent.

i am confident that the current division would improve. when i'm at the fights and can name 10 guys at my gym in better shape than the HW journeymen plodding around it's hard to think otherwise.

Anyone can get into good shape. You mainly seem to be saying here that the problems with the heavyweight division stem from poor conditioning, and if so I can get behind that, because that's a feasible problem and something that can be addressed.

I've said in the past that I think this current division has some talented guys who are just lazy and unwilling to challenge themselves or who fight for corrupt promoters unwilling to let them lose to potentially good challengers. Those are the problems, IMO, not lack of talent. Look at Boytsov. Talented guy, good explosiveness, fast hands: totally wasting his prime years in the wilderness with his phantom hand injury. Look at Solis, really talented, looked to have all the goods: let himself get horribly obese whilst taking on soft touches and ended up with a potentially career ending knee injury when he challenged for the title.

In the past guys like this would have been in shape and fighting regularly against decent quality opposition. They may have won some, they may have lost some, but they would have improved regardless and been better prepared if their time came to challenge for the title. That's why I still respect Helenius. He may be getting massive stick now, but prior to his loss to Chisora he was taking on all sorts. Same with Chambers. These guys are throwbacks and should be commended as such, not shat on from a high height.

So long as this culture of laziness, cherrypicking and inactivity infest boxing you can pump as much hypothetical talent as you like into the talent pool, but you're unlikely to see much of that talent made manifest. All this NBA NFL talk is like hoping for the magic fairy to appear and make everything better. The problems are internal, not external.

i was referring to large and athletic men no longer boxing, not men in the past of that size.
like we discussed, guys that size used to be exclusively of the petuitary type (lets say 100 years ago,) and are now becoming more common with athletic quality.

You mean guys who trained in boxing at a young age but gave it up later to pursue big money sports? Could you name any names here? Not putting you on the spot, just curious.

and i do think that a changing talent pool, growing in size, would allow for the large athletic men with NBA type athleticism to translate into boxers with athletic gifts.

men are getting bigger and stronger and faster, and when you dont have a weight limit that's going to be an advantage.

What exactly do you mean by "changing talent pool" here? Bigger men doing well? This would be an advantage for bigger men from other sports because trainers would already have experience dealing with men this size, divising gameplans and training regimens etc. I think that if Michael Grant had come along now he'd have had a bit more success, not because the division is weaker now (it is) but because he'd have had more opportunity to get training that took advantage of his physical traits.

[New England]

Anyone can get into good shape. You mainly seem to be saying here that the problems with the heavyweight division stem from poor conditioning, and if so I can get behind that, because that's a feasible problem and something that can be addressed.

I've said in the past that I think this current division has some talented guys who are just lazy and unwilling to challenge themselves or who fight for corrupt promoters unwilling to let them lose to potentially good challengers. Those are the problems, IMO, not lack of talent. Look at Boytsov. Talented guy, good explosiveness, fast hands: totally wasting his prime years in the wilderness with his phantom hand injury. Look at Solis, really talented, looked to have all the goods: let himself get horribly obese whilst taking on soft touches and ended up with a potentially career ending knee injury when he challenged for the title.

In the past guys like this would have been in shape and fighting regularly against decent quality opposition. They may have won some, they may have lost some, but they would have improved regardless and been better prepared if their time came to challenge for the title. That's why I still respect Helenius. He may be getting massive stick now, but prior to his loss to Chisora he was taking on all sorts. Same with Chambers. These guys are throwbacks and should be commended as such, not shat on from a high height.

So long as this culture of laziness, cherrypicking and inactivity infest boxing you can pump as much hypothetical talent as you like into the talent pool, but you're unlikely to see much of that talent made manifest. All this NBA NFL talk is like hoping for the magic fairy to appear and make everything better. The problems are internal, not external.



You mean guys who trained in boxing at a young age but gave it up later to pursue big money sports? Could you name any names here? Not putting you on the spot, just curious.



What exactly do you mean by "changing talent pool" here? Bigger men doing well? This would be an advantage for bigger men from other sports because trainers would already have experience dealing with men this size, divising gameplans and training regimens etc. I think that if Michael Grant had come along now he'd have had a bit more success, not because the division is weaker now (it is) but because he'd have had more opportunity to get training that took advantage of his physical traits.

"no longer boxing" meaning not boxers,

not heading to boxing

heading to other sports. not guys that gave up boxing, lol! i cant say if there are any of those.

the talented big men of the world used to head almost exclusively to boxing
after all, the HW championship of the world used to be the greatest sporting prize

now they've got plenty of options that are much more attractive than boxing.

conditioning aside, i dont think the division is anywhere near where it used to be in terms of attracting raw talent.


and of course you even find guys in the top ten who could spare 20-30 lbs

[nomadman]

"no longer boxing" meaning not boxers,

not heading to boxing

But that supposes they would have headed to boxing in the past, had they been around in those days, which they never were. That's what I'm confused about. In your own words people like this never existed before now, so why do you suppose they would have headed to boxing back then?

the talented big men of the world used to head almost exclusively to boxing
after all, the HW championship of the world used to be the greatest sporting prize

now they've got plenty of options that are much more attractive than boxing.

We're not talking just big men, we're talking huge freaky men who were never seen anytime in boxing's history. Do you get me? Basketball's always had giant athletes even during Ali's time, plenty skilled as well. Had they been that cut out for boxing they would have had success at it then, considering the money they could have made. Why was it then that a sub six footer in Frazier, and not a particularly athletic man at that, became one of the greatest fighters of the 70s?

Sorry to be harsh, but if you're going to argue that NBA players would have had some success back then you need to provide examples.

conditioning aside, i dont think the division is anywhere near where it used to be in terms of attracting raw talent.

No it's not, but there are still enough talented guys out there to make a decent division were they to get their acts together.