The influence of the heavies in the perception of American boxing

Liam_Main's recent and excellent thread concerning ' Britain v USA ' set me thinking about the perceived recent decline in American boxing, and at that thread I floated the notion that what is really hurting the Americans at the moment is that they no longer reign supreme among the big men.

What prompted the idea was that I recalled that during the seventies - universally regarded as a very strong period in boxing history - the Americans didn't dominate at either middleweight or welter. I decided to do a little research ( any excuse to refresh my memory, ) as to how the Americans fared, overall, during the golden seventies. It goes without saying that in Frazier, Foreman and Ali the Americans had the heavyweight division sewn up, but while it should be remembered that the lightheavy ' lineage ' fell into disarray following Bob Foster's retirement in 1974, there weren't enough Americans in the mix for lightheavy honours for us to give them a pass here, the leading men being Conteh, Galindez, Cuello, Parlov, with Rossman and Saad Muhammad flying the stars and stripes toward the end of the decade.

Among the big men, then, America was unchallenged. However, from lightheavy on down it was a very different story. Lineal champs, in each weight division from middleweight down, during the seventies were as follows :

MIDDLEWEIGHT

1970 - 77 Monzon ( Argentina ) ; 1977 - 78 Valdez ( Colombia ) ; 1978 - 79 Corro ( Argentina ) ; 1979 - 80 Antuofermo ( Italy. )


LIGHTMIDDLE

1970 - 71 Bossi ( Italy ) ; 1971 - 74 Wajima ( Japan ) ; 1975 - 76 Do Yuh ( South Korea ) ; 1976 Wajima, again, and then Castellini ( Argentina, ) until '77 ; 1977 - 78 Gazo ( Nicaragua ) ; 1978 - 79 Kudo ( Japan ) ; 1979 - 81 Kalule ( Uganda. )


WELTER

1970 - 71 Backus ( USA ) ; 1971 - 75 Napoles ( Cuba / Mexico ) ; 1975 - 76 Stracey ( GB ) ; 1976 - 79 Palomino ( Mexico ) ; 1979 Benitez ( Puerto Rico ) ; 1979 - 80 Leonard ( USA. )


Below welter, the USA had only Danny Lopez ( feather ) claiming a lineal title.


Bottom line, then, is that during a golden decade of boxing the USA boasted only three lineal champions outside the heavyweight division, yet they simultaneously boasted three of the greatest heavyweights who ever drew breath sitting atop the flagship division. Not sure how you folks interpret all this, but my take would be that the decline in American boxing is something of a myth, and that the percepton is hugely influenced by the fact that they don't have a dominant heavyweight.

Thoughts ?

Has and always will be about the heavyweight division to the americans, if they had a dominant champion at the weight you can rest assured that those in lower weight classes would suffer as a result

Great article Windy, and I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion. Have pricked away at your theory once or twice myself but your research has summed it up a lot more concisely. While I don't agree that it should be the case, the phrase of 'so goes the Heavyweight division, so goes boxing' springs to mind.

The Heavyweights, by and large, have always pulled in that little bit more bread and interest than the lower weight classes of course. But forty years back, the gap was even greater - while the likes of Monzon, Napoles and Canto were all fabulous fighters, their methodical styles, nationalities and the fact that they often fought outside of the States meant that they never really prodded away at the conscience the way the big guys did. I think the eighties, with the explosion of the 'four kings' era, and then the influence of men such as Hamed and De la Hoya some ten to fifteen years later, signalled a turning point, with the 'little guys' now on much more of a level playing field with the Heavyweights.

As I said, I think you're spot on with your analogy. It's also worth noting that, while boxing today is derided now and then for most of its current top operators being 'old' (well in to their thirties), many divisions in boxing in the seventies (Monzon at Middleweight, Napoles at Welterweight, Foster at Light-Heavyweight etc) were being dominated, for at least a significant chunk of the decade, by fighters of a more advanced age.

I think it's simply a cycle which is always destined to repeat itself at some stage. Talk of a 'demise' in American boxing has been blown out of proportion, for me.

Thanks for the props, Chris, and also for your input. I found your comments regarding the respective ages of Foster, Monzon and Napoles to be particularly relevant, and something I hadn't considered.

Whilst your conculsions are hard to argue with Windy and the sparcity of decent heavyweight challenge will always harm the popularity in the states one other factor that must not be overlooked which is different between the 70's and now is the fighters that were about in the 70's fought on network TV, now any and every decent fighter the states does produce and in Floyd and Mosley, they certainly do still produce them they are hidden away on PPV. This creates the twin problems that nobody sees them and they earn that much they only need to fight once every blue moon.

Even lower down the food chain there are guys like Pavlik who may not be mega talented but have the potential to have the kind of blue collor cross over appeal of a guy like Mancini, but who again is hidden away on PPV. Is a tricky one because when a guy like Manny can draw 50,000 to Dallas and do 1m + on PPV talk of decline seems incongruous but definitely feel the lack of network exposure hurts the game as much as the perceieved weakness of the top division

Excellent points, jeff, and I hadn't considered that angle. I know, from my own first hand experience, that it's not easy to keep up with the current scene without satellite TV.

Windy I have satellite and it is still tricky, the showing of US fights is sporadic to say the least. Couple this with being fairly IT illiterate and the fact I struggle to find fights on line and there are some truly terrific fighters such as Donaire I can honeestly say I have barely seen in action.

I appreciate it has probably always been the same and any talk of a golden age when all fights of importance were shown is probably nostaliga as it certainly hasn't happened in my 20 years of watching the sport but when the only way to see the big names is on PPV's which lets not forget run to $50+ in the states, or when we have a situation were domestic match ups such as the fight last week are on PPV that is not healthy. It stands to reason in any form of enertainment it's chances of increasing in popularity increase the more people are exposed to it and PPV does the exact opposite to this.

rowley wrote:Windy I have satellite and it is still tricky, the showing of US fights is sporadic to say the least. Couple this with being fairly IT illiterate and the fact I struggle to find fights on line and there are some truly terrific fighters such as Donaire I can honeestly say I have barely seen in action.

I appreciate it has probably always been the same and any talk of a golden age when all fights of importance were shown is probably nostaliga as it certainly hasn't happened in my 20 years of watching the sport but when the only way to see the big names is on PPV's which lets not forget run to $50+ in the states, or when we have a situation were domestic match ups such as the fight last week are on PPV that is not healthy. It stands to reason in any form of enertainment it's chances of increasing in popularity increase the more people are exposed to it and PPV does the exact opposite to this.

Rowley you can find most fights on youtube. Just search for the fight you are looking for and it will come up. They are usually in 2 or 3 parts but it's the easiest way of watching fights online without a live stream.

Great article windy. But Vito Antuermo was American.

azania wrote:Great article windy. But Vito Antuermo was American.

My apologies, az. Thanks for pointing it out.

Interestingly, where and who are the great american fighters now? I can only think of Hop and Ward at a very long stretch.

Cloud and Dawson at LH may have the best opportunity to go on to be great American fighters. There should be plenty of good fights around, particularly once the super six is over and a few of them potentially move up. Them aside, Bradley is another guy who has the opportunity with all the competitive fights around LWW and WW. Them aside plus Hop and Ward whom you mentioned, and Mayweather of course, there aren't many at the top level.

slash912 wrote:Cloud and Dawson at LH may have the best opportunity to go on to be great American fighters. There should be plenty of good fights around, particularly once the super six is over and a few of them potentially move up. Them aside, Bradley is another guy who has the opportunity with all the competitive fights around LWW and WW. Them aside plus Hop and Ward whom you mentioned, and Mayweather of course, there aren't many at the top level.

I cant see Cloud and Dawson doing anything special or having a name outside HBO or Showtime. They cant draw flies. Plus tey aren't that good anyway. Same with Bradley. Mayweather is awol. Any up and commers?

No one I can think of off hand, but I wouldn't say my knowledge is extensive! Could be an extended dry patch for the Americans at this rate.

HumanWindmill wrote:

azania wrote:Great article windy. But Vito Antuermo was American.

My apologies, az. Thanks for pointing it out.

No he was Italian

Vito Antuofermo was Italian he just lived in America.

US passport holder. Also a very strong brooklyn accent.

Born and bred in Italy to Italian parents, growing up in Italy makes him Italian, also considered himself Italian and won the world title for Italy.

He's italian

azania wrote:

slash912 wrote:Cloud and Dawson at LH may have the best opportunity to go on to be great American fighters. There should be plenty of good fights around, particularly once the super six is over and a few of them potentially move up. Them aside, Bradley is another guy who has the opportunity with all the competitive fights around LWW and WW. Them aside plus Hop and Ward whom you mentioned, and Mayweather of course, there aren't many at the top level.

I cant see Cloud and Dawson doing anything special or having a name outside HBO or Showtime. They cant draw flies. Plus tey aren't that good anyway. Same with Bradley. Mayweather is awol. Any up and commers?

I cant see Cloud and Dawson doing anything special or having a name outside HBO or Showtime. They cant draw flies. Plus tey aren't that good anyway. Same with Bradley. Mayweather is awol. Any up and commers?[/quote

Victor Ortiz,Robert Guerrero and Brandron Rios are superb fighters so it's not all gloom for America.

As for up and commers Miguel Garcia,Mike Jones,Peter Quillin and Adrien Broner all deserve a mention. How good they turn out to be is yet to be seen though.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Born and bred in Italy to Italian parents, growing up in Italy makes him Italian, also considered himself Italian and won the world title for Italy.

He's italian

American. Left Italy at 17. Spent the rest of his life in USA. He's 58 and American. End of.

Azania, he may have left Italy at seventeen but that does not automatically mean he's no longer Italian. I'd say that him considering himself Italian, being born in and brought up in Italy to Italian parents and, crucially, winning his world title under the flag of Italy far outweighs simply living in America and having a New York accent.

I don't see anyone saying that Hector Camacho isn't Puerto Rican, do you?

88Chris05 wrote:Azania, he may have left Italy at seventeen but that does not automatically mean he's no longer Italian. I'd say that him considering himself Italian, being born in and brought up in Italy to Italian parents and, crucially, winning his world title under the flag of Italy far outweighs simply living in America and having a New York accent.

I don't see anyone saying that Hector Camacho isn't Puerto Rican, do you?

America is an immigrant country. I have relatives who were born outside there,lived outside USA for most of their lives and are now as american as apple pie. That's how it is over there.

Vito's American.

I seem to have inadvertently opened a ' Bob Fitzsimmons ' can of worms, here.

Bottom line is surely that, regardless as to whether or not Vito is Italian or American, the seventies sported precious few American lineal champs below heavyweight, and while the sub - debate is interesting enough, the fact that Antuofermo only held the title for a year, and right at the end of the decade, seems to render the issue somewhat academic, I would have thought.

Az, are you on the wind-up again? It's like Schwarzenegger-he's lived in the States for years, has become an American citizen, but he's still Austrian.

He's so American he's always called himself Italian, go figure

BALTIMORA wrote:Az, are you on the wind-up again? It's like Schwarzenegger-he's lived in the States for years, has become an American citizen, but he's still Austrian.

He's american also. Austrian by birth. He has sworn allegiance to the stars and stripes.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:He's so American he's always called himself Italian, go figure

American.

He's never been considered American, he's Italian plain and simple

Again, I consider this to be academic and, frankly, a hijacking of the thread, but it's interesting to note that Boxrec, ( whom I don't always trust, by the way, ) count Antuofermo among the Italian world champions.

Would it be too much to ask that we get back to debating the central issue ?

HumanWindmill wrote:I seem to have inadvertently opened a ' Bob Fitzsimmons ' can of worms, here.

Bottom line is surely that, regardless as to whether or not Vito is Italian or American, the seventies sported precious few American lineal champs below heavyweight, and while the sub - debate is interesting enough, the fact that Antuofermo only held the title for a year, and right at the end of the decade, seems to render the issue somewhat academic, I would have thought.

Sorry Windy, didn't mean to drag your thread off topic! Apologies again; I'm just relieved that the 'when does a decade start?' debate hasn't erupted again!

No probs, Chris. I wouldn't presume to suggest that the thread is of seminal importance but, since it was designed to develop the point about America's perceived decline, which has been outlined in a couple of concurrent threads, I think it might be nice to investigate that issue, rather than Antuofermo's allegiances.

Apologies Windy

No probs, Ghosty, but thanks.

Think that the Middleweight title was somewhat forgotten during the 70's as it was fairly monopolised by the south Americans and can't imagine many Americans challenged for the title at all considering they would have had to go to Argentina or somewhere in europe to challenge. The Americans have never really gone abroad to challenge for titles but seem more happy to stay at home waiting for the title to come to them and once Benvenuti got hold of it, it was gone for a long time.

The Welterweight was more in the American conscience at the time with more traditional boxing nations being in control of it and it was often defended in America so as long as they were given exciting fights to watch it didn't matter what nationality held the title.

So what nationality is Jimmy Mclarnin?

rowley wrote:So what nationality is Jimmy Mclarnin?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Canadian

I think that we sometimes miss the bigger picture when looking at boxing's decline, and that is that sport was once enough in itself to entertain people, but that is on longer the case- sports contest have become "entertainment events" with cheerleaders, fireworks, endless bloody hype that was designed to get punters to choose coming to sport rather than say cinema, or funfair etc- the leisure market is extremely competative & boxing had to fight for its slice of the cake- it was no longer enough to put on fights they had to be events, and this lead to the promoters being only to happy to accept the proliferation of pointless titles ( WBU pan australasian intercontinental super middleweight title anyone?), but this eventually had the converse effect that casual fans couldn't keep up with the sport, and eventually gave up, combine this with expense PPV, lack of coverage in other media, and plenty of alternative forms of entertainment available, and you have a decline in popularity.

Excellent points, in my opinion, horizontalhero.

The ( perceived ) general decline in boxing has been a recurrent theme across cyberspace for some time and is an issue which polarizes opinion. My take is pretty simple in that, while I agree that we still have some superb fighters and some great match ups, boxing, as an entity, has taken a few hard knocks and has fallen off the mainstream radar, and primarily so because of the issues which you address in your comments, above.

and this lead to the promoters being only to happy to accept the proliferation of pointless titles ( WBU pan australasian intercontinental super middleweight title anyone?), but this eventually had the converse effect that casual fans couldn't keep up with the sport, and eventually gave up,
____________________________________________________________

This is an ecellent point and hard to argue with. Whilst my tastes lean towards the old timers I still consider myself a fan of the sport and buy every issue of both boxing magazines in this country and consider myself a reasonably intelligent bloke but there are things in the sport I do not understand. I have no idea what a champion emeritus is or a super champion and have no idea how you become one, have no idea what a diamond or silver belt are either. If someone like myself has no idea what hope has the casual fan.

Join the club Rowley! Khan was 'elevated' from regular WBA champ to 'super' champion so that Maidana and Morales could fight for the regular championship. It's an absolute farce, and a disgrace to the basic principles of sport, if you ask me. It's completely self-defeating too.

And the diamond belt was a way for the WBC to cash in on the trend of catchweight super fights, that don't neccessary have a belt up for grab's. Commission hungry fools are ruining the sport, coupled with promotors legitimising these trinkets.

Vitov Patrick Antuo' fermo

Is actually Irish.

HumanWindmill wrote:
Bottom line, then, is that during a golden decade of boxing the USA boasted only three lineal champions outside the heavyweight division, yet they simultaneously boasted three of the greatest heavyweights who ever drew breath sitting atop the flagship division. Not sure how you folks interpret all this, but my take would be that the decline in American boxing is something of a myth, and that the percepton is hugely influenced by the fact that they don't have a dominant heavyweight.

Thoughts ?

~ Why sir, while your work is generally beyond reproach, I would only point out that you're using one golden era only, the mid 60s to mid 70s.

There are many other golden and not so golden eras, and generally Americans dominated the titles.

I would say it's that dramatic drop off in quality boxers across the board that has cause Americans to lose interest in boxing, that and all the bogus Don King promotions. Mainstream networks fled the scene never to return save a few scraps here and there.

Now even HBO is in decline after a long domination, a result of their poor quality announcing team and sometimes specious ring contests.

HBO's announcing team is second to none, heresy.

i think another reason boxing is "in decline" is the promoters. they have too much power. just look at top rank and GBP not allowing there fighters to go against each other, warren giving his fighters way to easy fights building up to and even after titles. (khan early on, burns, chisora etc) and fights not been made because of money (100 mil mayweather???).

people can turn on there TV on a saturday turn to BBC1/ITV/FIVE and watch the best in the premier league go up against each on a weekly basis. they have uefa league on the basic sky package and terrestial and don't know what a PPV is.


if you paid for all world title fights on ppv from all weight catagories from all governing bodys it would proberly add up to over £1000 a year, and 90% of them would be on after 1am, lasting 3-4 hours, anybody working can't watch at that time so it really isn't a wonder boxing isn't doing as good as it should.

I think you make a very valid point eddy. Put simply, boxing needs more mainstream exposure. Even horse racing has more regular coverage in the sports pages.

and all the best horse run together in the national without charging viewers £25 each for the priveldge to watch

eddyfightfan wrote:and all the best horse run together in the national without charging viewers £25 each for the priveldge to watch

You'd have to pay me £25 to watch that.

eddyfightfan wrote:
if you paid for all world title fights on ppv from all weight catagories from all governing bodys it would proberly add up to over £1000 a year, and 90% of them would be on after 1am, lasting 3-4 hours, anybody working can't watch at that time so it really isn't a wonder boxing isn't doing as good as it should.

That explains it in this country although very few fights are PPV over here anyway so it seems to be a contradictory argument

We have maybe 4-5 PPV fights a year tops, £15 each. I appreciate that you have to have a Sky Sports subscription, but that gets you a number of other sports too. It probably seems expensive to get the subscription just to watch any one sport. With the American fights we have on non PPV, Bradley vs Alexander, Berto vs Ortiz, Hopkins vs Pascal etc, I don't find it that bad.

If you don't find a PPV worthwhile, don't buy it, likewise with your subscription. Personally I'm happy with what I pay considering sport is about the only TV I watch.