Is Boxing a "niche" or minority sport now?

In it's hey day boxing was as popular or even more popular then football is today. Play grounds would be full of kids chanting Bruno or discussing the next big fight! Now I'm sure most people would be unable to name more then 2 to 3 boxers (apart from the ppl on these forums) it's a shame as the most interesting and busiest place on 606v2 forum is the boxing section. It has the most posts and most interesting reads even if you're not a massive fan. What caused the decline in the universal popularity of boxing? Is it the lack of free terrestrial TV coverage? Is it the lack of personalities like Ali Tyson or Naz? Or is it a lack of quality fighters these days?

Boxing has never been a major sport Mate..............

Football, Basketball, Baseball are the major sports back home...........Over here......Football and cricket are..........

Boxing is a big second tier sport and always will be........But it's not a major one..

Mixture of the three with the additional decline of the heavies. Even then around half a billion viewers for Haye wlad world means that its always one possibly compettitive contest for top dog in heavies = return of many - and if the fight turns out to be magnificent, you create a legion of new fans.

Boxing would be bigger If there were less titles............Then title fights would become EVENTS.......Personalities would grow........

Little surprise when people see Barker who was well beaten by Martinez defending a world title at the same weight.......People can't be bothered.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Boxing would be bigger If there were less titles............Then title fights would become EVENTS.......Personalities would grow........

Little surprise when people see Barker who was well beaten by Martinez defending a world title at the same weight.......People can't be bothered.

Very true.

Agree with Truss. While boxing was certainly bigger in the past then it is today, it was never the number one sport in Britain or the States.
From what I remember growing up as a child (during Tyson's pomp), boxing had a small hard core following but a vast casual following. The same applies today but to a lesser of an extent.
I think PPV is what damaged boxing more then anything. Once fights became less available and mainstream, the interest started to decrease.

boxing would be bigger if it was on free to air tv. At present all the big figh are hidden on PPV and average around 500k viewers which is rubbish for a major sporting event. The klitschkos figt on free to air tv in Germany and average something like 15 million viewers.

If you put boxing on free to air tv the sport will become more popular. Only problem is that the 500k people who will buy a ppv fight will create more money than the 15 million viewers who watch it on free to air, and as we all know the big people in boxing only care about money.

Agree with Truss. Good point.

Should be one champion per weight class, would grow more popularity.

Klitshcko should be the champion at Heavy with no fake World Straps.

Bit like Rigo.....but yet Quigg is also champion of the world?

Too many belts hindering the credibility of Boxing.

One world title per division sounds good but it doesn't work.

Take welterweight as an example. Floyd would have been sole champion for the last 6 years fighting a total of 4 times. How is one title fight per 1 1/2 years in a stacked division going to improve anything?

Carl Froch would never have been a world champ either.

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:One world title per division sounds good but it doesn't work.

Take welterweight as an example. Floyd would have been sole champion for the last 6 years fighting a total of 4 times. How is one title fight per 1 1/2 years in a stacked division going to improve anything?

Carl Froch would never have been a world champ either.

Thats the thing though, PBF would have been forced to fight more often due to the amount of challengers available (or else be stripped).

Froch would never have been a world champ because he simply wouldnt have been good enough. In the past, better boxers than Froch have never held a title due to the single belt era.

Boxing and baseball were the major sports in the United States for over half a century.

catchweight wrote:Boxing and baseball were the major sports in the United States for over half a century.

Very true got to go back some years but boxing was certainly on a par with baseball in the 20s and 30s. Hockey was more a Canadian thing, basketball had not really caught on and football (their version) was still seen as very much a college sport. Boxing was, if not the biggest then certainly a clear second.

J.Benson II wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:One world title per division sounds good but it doesn't work.

Take welterweight as an example. Floyd would have been sole champion for the last 6 years fighting a total of 4 times. How is one title fight per 1 1/2 years in a stacked division going to improve anything?

Carl Froch would never have been a world champ either.

Thats the thing though, PBF would have been forced to fight more often due to the amount of challengers available (or else be stripped).

Froch would never have been a world champ because he simply wouldnt have been good enough. In the past, better boxers than Froch have never held a title due to the single belt era.

So Floyd gets stripped and then we see a much lesser talented fighter as the supposed world champ, whilst Floyd retires rather than fight an endless list of contenders to get back. How does this help?

Boxing has come a long way since the past when it was basically a US domestic sport.

Froch being a world champ has been nothing but beneficial to boxing. Think how terrible the SM division would have been with just Andre Ward's title fights, or would he have been stripped too?

It'd be like scrapping the Premier League and Champions League for the World Club Cup just so we can call one football team the champions.

The two quintessential American sports heros of the first half on the 20th century were Joe Louis and Babe Ruth. I have read this from multiple sources.


My father tells me that in the 1940's Joe Louis was the best known sportsman in the Western World.

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

J.Benson II wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:One world title per division sounds good but it doesn't work.

Take welterweight as an example. Floyd would have been sole champion for the last 6 years fighting a total of 4 times. How is one title fight per 1 1/2 years in a stacked division going to improve anything?

Carl Froch would never have been a world champ either.

Thats the thing though, PBF would have been forced to fight more often due to the amount of challengers available (or else be stripped).

Froch would never have been a world champ because he simply wouldnt have been good enough. In the past, better boxers than Froch have never held a title due to the single belt era.

So Floyd gets stripped and then we see a much lesser talented fighter as the supposed world champ, whilst Floyd retires rather than fight an endless list of contenders to get back. How does this help?

Boxing has come a long way since the past when it was basically a US domestic sport.

Froch being a world champ has been nothing but beneficial to boxing. Think how terrible the SM division would have been with just Andre Ward's title fights, or would he have been stripped too?

It'd be like scrapping the Premier League and Champions League for the World Club Cup just so we can call one football team the champions.

Its really nothing like that at all.

Your system is actually like the team who finishes third in the league declaring themselves the "world champions". Inaccurate and meaningless.

Scrapping the multiple world titles isnt scrapping the fights. Its just calling the actual best in the world what they are and gives the title some credibility.

Not sure how anyone can argue that having one title holder per division is a bad thing. My own view is we have all grown up knowing nothing else so cannot imagine it being otherwise, but history is littered with guys who did not win a belt who were well respected at the time and remain so. Lew Tendler would be a perfect example, brilliant fighter and good value but just unfortunate to have hit his peak at the same time as the peerless Benny Leonard, arguable Froch would just fall into this category, good but not Andre Ward, no shame in this.

Thing to remember is one belt in a division would breathe life into domestic belts and eliminators because there would not be spurious intercontinental belts available so if a fighter wanted to move up he would have to go the right way, British, European etc. The likes of Billy Walker filled arenas fighting for such belts. Also worth remembering even if a fighter was only fighting his number one contender once a year he would be fighting good fighters because with only one set of rankings you know Dmitry Salita is not finding his way to number one contender.

If we look at the Floyd example people have mentioned, if over the last few years his number one contenders at welter been Manny, Cotto, Williams and Bradley for example would any of us have too much cause for complaint?

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

J.Benson II wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:One world title per division sounds good but it doesn't work.

Take welterweight as an example. Floyd would have been sole champion for the last 6 years fighting a total of 4 times. How is one title fight per 1 1/2 years in a stacked division going to improve anything?

Carl Froch would never have been a world champ either.

Thats the thing though, PBF would have been forced to fight more often due to the amount of challengers available (or else be stripped).

Froch would never have been a world champ because he simply wouldnt have been good enough. In the past, better boxers than Froch have never held a title due to the single belt era.

So Floyd gets stripped and then we see a much lesser talented fighter as the supposed world champ, whilst Floyd retires rather than fight an endless list of contenders to get back. How does this help?

Boxing has come a long way since the past when it was basically a US domestic sport.

Froch being a world champ has been nothing but beneficial to boxing. Think how terrible the SM division would have been with just Andre Ward's title fights, or would he have been stripped too?

It'd be like scrapping the Premier League and Champions League for the World Club Cup just so we can call one football team the champions.

Floyd would only get stripped if he only chooses to fight once a blue moon and avoids his mandatories - and the contenders will be fighting each other to establish the mandatories.
Froch would still be involved in great fights. However, they just wouldnt be title fights.
Overall, I guess you could argue that perhaps there may be a few positives of having multiple belts, but the negatives far outweigh the positives.
If you want to use a sport that is a good example of how boxing should be run, just look at the UFC. One orginization, one champion per weight class but multiple contenders.

Not only that - Floyd would get 75% of the purse at least - he'd be fighting his fellow top fighters every week!

UFC is awful and has more in common with WWE than Boxing. If Don King or Eddie Hearn bought up all TV rights, invented their own world title and only let their fighters fight for it then boxing would be like UFC. UFC is a sanctioning body within MMA who simply do not allow fighters from other MMA sanctioning bodies to fight for their titles - that's far worse than the situation in Boxing.

If Boxing had one world title you'd have never heard of Carl Froch. For example, consider it takes an established boxer 5 fights to reach a position to fight for a world title now, if there were 1/4 the titles it would take approx 20 fights against contenders to get a world title shot!! It's completely impractical. Not to mention with so few title fights they'd all be PPV, and the corruption from a single sanctioning body with full control would ruin the whole sport.

catchweight wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

J.Benson II wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:One world title per division sounds good but it doesn't work.

Take welterweight as an example. Floyd would have been sole champion for the last 6 years fighting a total of 4 times. How is one title fight per 1 1/2 years in a stacked division going to improve anything?

Carl Froch would never have been a world champ either.

Thats the thing though, PBF would have been forced to fight more often due to the amount of challengers available (or else be stripped).

Froch would never have been a world champ because he simply wouldnt have been good enough. In the past, better boxers than Froch have never held a title due to the single belt era.

So Floyd gets stripped and then we see a much lesser talented fighter as the supposed world champ, whilst Floyd retires rather than fight an endless list of contenders to get back. How does this help?

Boxing has come a long way since the past when it was basically a US domestic sport.

Froch being a world champ has been nothing but beneficial to boxing. Think how terrible the SM division would have been with just Andre Ward's title fights, or would he have been stripped too?

It'd be like scrapping the Premier League and Champions League for the World Club Cup just so we can call one football team the champions.

Its really nothing like that at all.

Your system is actually like the team who finishes third in the league declaring themselves the "world champions". Inaccurate and meaningless.

Scrapping the multiple world titles isnt scrapping the fights. Its just calling the actual best in the world what they are and gives the title some credibility.

Isn't that what happened with Chelsea a couple years back. No one seemed to complain about the best team in Europe not being the best team in Britain.

World as in 'world title' means open to competitors around the world, it does not mean best in the world. It is very much like football. The best of the respective leagues (sanctioning bodies) eventually face each other to find out who's best. Neither Football or Boxing could have one giant league pyramid with one at the top because the logistics would be crazy.

So instead of one corrupt sanctioning body lets have 4 instead. Why stop there? Lets call every boxer a world champion.

I cant speak for UFC but its boxing that is becoming closer to pro wrestling. Its losing its status as a "sport" in favour of gaudy marketing and fake world titles all over the place and made up "pound for pound" crap which, like the world titles now, if you actually scrape the surface means absolute jack sh1t.

You have obviously fallen into the mindset that unless a fight is for a (now usually pointless) world title then it has no value. Thats not the case. In fact most fans now probably dont have a clue about the world title situations or which what and how many belts are on the line. Of all the people that go to watch Froch I doubt the majority know or care about his world titles.

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

catchweight wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

J.Benson II wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:One world title per division sounds good but it doesn't work.

Take welterweight as an example. Floyd would have been sole champion for the last 6 years fighting a total of 4 times. How is one title fight per 1 1/2 years in a stacked division going to improve anything?

Carl Froch would never have been a world champ either.

Thats the thing though, PBF would have been forced to fight more often due to the amount of challengers available (or else be stripped).

Froch would never have been a world champ because he simply wouldnt have been good enough. In the past, better boxers than Froch have never held a title due to the single belt era.

So Floyd gets stripped and then we see a much lesser talented fighter as the supposed world champ, whilst Floyd retires rather than fight an endless list of contenders to get back. How does this help?

Boxing has come a long way since the past when it was basically a US domestic sport.

Froch being a world champ has been nothing but beneficial to boxing. Think how terrible the SM division would have been with just Andre Ward's title fights, or would he have been stripped too?

It'd be like scrapping the Premier League and Champions League for the World Club Cup just so we can call one football team the champions.

Its really nothing like that at all.

Your system is actually like the team who finishes third in the league declaring themselves the "world champions". Inaccurate and meaningless.

Scrapping the multiple world titles isnt scrapping the fights. Its just calling the actual best in the world what they are and gives the title some credibility.

Isn't that what happened with Chelsea a couple years back. No one seemed to complain about the best team in Europe not being the best team in Britain.

World as in 'world title' means open to competitors around the world, it does not mean best in the world. It is very much like football. The best of the respective leagues (sanctioning bodies) eventually face each other to find out who's best. Neither Football or Boxing could have one giant league pyramid with one at the top because the logistics would be crazy.

Its absolutely nothing like football.

Football has lots of separate leagues, Boxing has lots of separate sanctioning bodies. The best from these leagues/sanctioning bodies usually end up meeting eachother to decide who's the best overall. Only difference being boxing 'leagues' are more flexible and are 'worldwide'.

They are not like leagues at all. Its not a league format. They are just tin pot organisations that market gaudy, meaningless world titles. The structure of boxing couldnt be less like the structure of football.

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

If Boxing had one world title you'd have never heard of Carl Froch.

Which world title did Henry Cooper win?

Henry who?

You know him Milky, got ripped off against Bugner, cheated out of his win against Ali, but never liked to mention it.

I'm sure his name was Henry Armstrong.

Rowley wrote:You know him Milky, got ripped off against Bugner, cheated out of his win against Ali, but never liked to mention it.

Oh the guy who got knocked out by Johanson when blinded by the sun? Think I read his biography "i woz robbed".

Waingro rated him, so he must have been special.

Rowley wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

If Boxing had one world title you'd have never heard of Carl Froch.

Which world title did Henry Cooper win?

If they used the kind of ranking system you want now back then 'Our' Enry would never have fought for a World title. Do you really want to go back to one world title fight in Britain every 60 years or so? Where the unbeaten champ has to go to the lowly ranked challengers home-town.

There are no negatives to having one world title per division and less divisions to boot.

Were there only one world title then nobody would be able to pick and choose what title to go for, gunning for the weakest champion in particular. You would then have a scenario where world titles sell and personalities like Mayweather would soon be forgotten if they chose to ditch a belt instead of fighting the rightful number one contender. We would still know who the likes of Froch were because he would then forever be positioning himself for a shot at the title by beating the other contenders. Who knows he might even have picked up the world title after Calzaghes retirement and before the rise of Ward.

What do I care if Cooper does not get a title shot or not? Would prefer a system where you get a shot on merit, irrespective of where you're from

Should have added fighters would still be able to take voluntary defences. Now perish the thought but could some champions be persuaded to fight more than once a year someone other than a number one contender may be able to be accommodated

Who really cares that Arthur, Rees or Enzo Mac were world champions?

catchweight wrote:They are not like leagues at all. Its not a league format. They are just tin pot organisations that market gaudy, meaningless world titles. The structure of boxing couldnt be less like the structure of football.

Boxing has a far less rigid structure than football, and obviously it could not possibly have the same kind of league format. Just like with Boxing though, in football the worlds best rarely face the best.

Who wants boxing to be more like football anyway? Football is all about masses of short term entertainment. Boxing is the opposite. Everyone remebers Hatton V Mayweather of 6 years back. Who can remember a specific football match of more than a year or so back. Boxing will never get gates 0f 50 000 every week, and football will never be PPV.

I remember hundreds of Man United and England games in football very well.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:I remember hundreds of Man United and England games in football very well.

Still having nightmares?

Football is short term - that is why PPV football failed so spectacularly. No one cares enough about games they know they'll see over and over again.

Rowley wrote:What do I care if Cooper does not get a title shot or not? Would prefer a system where you get a shot on merit, irrespective of where you're from

Oh I thought you were trying to say it was better back in the day with one world title. Glad you think differently.

If nobody cared you wouldn't get a few hundred thousand attended matches each and every week would you, quite clearly a lot of people do care about football. Football is very much long term, in a league system no single game is ever really make or break but in boxing every single fight is.

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

Rowley wrote:What do I care if Cooper does not get a title shot or not? Would prefer a system where you get a shot on merit, irrespective of where you're from

Oh I thought you were trying to say it was better back in the day with one world title. Glad you think differently.

I'm fairly sure he's saying it was better back in the day but still had room for improvement.

When is Tennis going to scrap all these ridiculous 'Majors'. Everyone knows you can only have one true champion. Bye bye Wimbledon.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:

Rowley wrote:What do I care if Cooper does not get a title shot or not? Would prefer a system where you get a shot on merit, irrespective of where you're from

Oh I thought you were trying to say it was better back in the day with one world title. Glad you think differently.

I'm fairly sure he's saying it was better back in the day but still had room for improvement.

It did improve. We now have more world champions.

How exactly is that better when only one can be the best in the world? You end up with far more undeserving champions, far less exciting match ups and champions able to avoid their biggest rivals far easier.

Your tennis analogy doesn't work because they are simple tournaments none of which are called world championships.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:If nobody cared you wouldn't get a few hundred thousand attended matches each and every week would you, quite clearly a lot of people do care about football. Football is very much long term, in a league system no single game is ever really make or break but in boxing every single fight is.

Football has casual fans. Boxing has die-hard fans.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:How exactly is that better when only one can be the best in the world? You end up with far more undeserving champions, far less exciting match ups and champions able to avoid their biggest rivals far easier.

Your tennis analogy doesn't work because they are simple tournaments none of which are called world championships.

'world' in world championship simply means open to competitors from around the world.

The Tennis analogy is perfect, as Tennis has four major events, no single world champion, and the worlds best is decided by external rankings. Boxing's system is actually a bit better in that usually the best in the world is decided directly by a fight between the top 2 ranked fighters, where as in Tennis the top spot almost always changes hands without the top 2 playing eachother.

There are nearly 2000 ranked professional fighters at WW. A single ladder ranking system with one champ at the top is completely unworkable with such numbers - this is why we have four world champions.

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:Football has lots of separate leagues, Boxing has lots of separate sanctioning bodies. The best from these leagues/sanctioning bodies usually end up meeting eachother to decide who's the best overall. Only difference being boxing 'leagues' are more flexible and are 'worldwide'.

'only difference' - wow, surely you recognise that there are more differences than that? Really fundamental differences. The two sports are almost incomparable. This is a terrible and pointless analogy.

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:There are nearly 2000 ranked professional fighters at WW. A single ladder ranking system with one champ at the top is completely unworkable with such numbers - this is why we have four world champions.

This is not why we have 4 world champions. We have 4 world champions because we have 4 main sanctioning bodies.

Boxtthis wrote:

Mayweathers cellmate wrote:There are nearly 2000 ranked professional fighters at WW. A single ladder ranking system with one champ at the top is completely unworkable with such numbers - this is why we have four world champions.

This is not why we have 4 world champions. We have 4 world champions because we have 4 main sanctioning bodies.

.....and we have 4 (+) sanctioning bodies because the sport is too big for just one.

Was far bigger 60 years ago and we managed with 1