Why has boxing died?

[burniebrewer]

Mosley absolutely destroyed him.

 

How about the "substance" found in the gloves of Margarito prior to the fight? He's going to be facing lots of questions now...

[BoneDaddyKool]

He sure did, that was impressive to say the least, but Margarito can take some damage, most fighters would have been out by the 4th round in that. I'd look forward to a rematch, hopefully it happens.

[SeriesFinale]

I cannot believe that Valuev and Holyfield are fighting. It is sad.

It ended up being actually a pretty great fight.

 

I guess he'll die in the rematch.

[jjgott]

Anyone watch the Mosley Margarito fight?

 

Wow! I am stunned!

 

Yeah I just watched it this morning, wow was that a great fight!

[RayKingsForemanGrill]

The Mosley-Margarito fight drew 20,000 people in L.A. compared to Affliction drawing 13,000 down the road in Anaheim. I think that says more about the population here, though (the crowd was lopsidedly latino/pro-Margarito despite the fact that Mosley is a local.

 

Unless Yahoo has the figures wrong, anyone have an idea why Fedor made less than Arlovsky AND one of the guys on the undercard last night? Doesn't seem right. I'm anxious to see a replay of that fight...

[Baldkin]

Mosely had a really great gameplan to beat Margarito. Go in swinging hard, if he missed, he'd lean in and grab before Margarito could counter. Margarito never changed his style to adapt to that, and it cost him. Great fight.

[GAME05]

brettac1 wrote:

---

I cannot believe that Valuev and Holyfield are fighting. It is sad.

well, get ready for Tyson-Holyfield III in Abu Dhabi. i'm not sure on the date yet, though I can already hear the collective "ugh." i'm already presuming the opening entertainment will feature a bear riding a unicycle around the ring and a couple sad-face clowns making pinwheels out of balloons.

 

 

Mosely was faster than I've seen him in years. My first thought is this sets up a Mosely/Cotto rematch, but I'm hoping that Paul Williams will get involved and then beat Mosely. I don't root for the older guys mostly because that's the last thing this sport needs is 37-year-olds winning any belts when it's the younger guys who should be stepping up so fans can start to follow them for a lot of years.

 

plus now we've got no real difinitive champion. Cotto beats Mosely but loses to Margarito who loses to Mosely--it's just a big circle now. All we've got left in boxing as far as a true, difinitive champion is Pacquiao. Boxing took a blow when Cotto and Pavlik both lost to end the year. Yeah, W.Klitchko dominates, but how many people really want to sit through 10-point decisions plus never get to see a knockout? and it doesn't help that all he's got to fight are tubs of garbage like Samuel Peter or maybe eventually Nikolai "Talentless Joke" Valuev. i'm frustrated. sure, i made a buck on Mosely, but I wanted Margarito to win (I think I'm going to let it ride on Hatton over Pacquiao, too).

[JonnyLungs]

Anybody watching Froch v. Dirrell tonight?

[GAME05]

well, if you can't get excited about anyone in this Super Six tournament, then boxing just isn't the sport for you. lot of good fights lately and coming up, too.

 

picked Ward to win this one, but didn't think Kessler would have been such a non-factor. Ward got a little sloppy at times and i figured Kessler would have been able to catch Ward at least once and slow him down some, especially considering his experience level. not ready to jump on the Ward bandwagon just yet, though.

[bbrauch2000]

Great fight tonight on HBO. Paul Williams gets the decision in a fight that was a total war. It looked like Rocky in the 11th and 12th rounds. The idiot judge who scored a fight that close 119-110 should have to spend the year in a Turkish prison

[jjgott]

Boxing died because no one trains like this anymore...

[GAME05]

i keep telling myself that all this Pacquiao-Mayweather stuff is just a ploy to keep themselves in the news and boost PPV buys, that the fight is still going to happen. the news keeps getting worse, but i'm going to keep telling myself that the fight is still going to happen. superstition or not, it's hard to believe that either side would back away from what should be about $30 million to each fighter.

[davego]

It has to be a ploy. Floyd wants to get paid again. Seems to be the Pacquiao really might be close to the end and needs another payday to before he becomes the President of the Philippines or something.

[GAME05]

boxing in general needs this fight, but they do individually, too. there's no clear-cut winner if they fought, and career-wise, it's hard to decide whose has been better. they're both in their prime, and i don't want to watch either of them go out like this, without knowing for sure who is better than who.

 

and heck, the only real reason for Mayweather to have come out of retirement in the first place was to set up the gigantic payday against Pacquiao.

 

it'll be terrible if Pacquiao leaves the sport right now.

[davego]

Mayweather tonight in a decision...

[GAME05]

Mosley at least has some speed to match Mayweather.

[davego]

Mayweather is on his was to being one of the greatest of all time (to borrow a phrase).

[FVBrewerFan]

Apologies up front, I haven't read through all 6 pages so this may have been answered already. I don't think interest in boxing has died because of the lack of the big name. I think the sport lost the marketing was when it stopped being a big event each week. I remember my dad talking about the Fiday Night Fights all the time, but then came cable, and eventually HBO and pay per view. So there's not that one event the masses can relate to each week, or even each month.

 

Frankly, it's what I'm afraid will happen to the NFL to a lessor extent. MNF was a huge event. Now you have Sunday night football, Thurs night football, and games on Saturday. You no longer have that one big game a week everyone watches and talks about.

[GAME05]

there's not much exposure to boxing, either. it's hard to build a fan base by charging $50PPV to people who might only have a vague interest in the sport. MMA is only on PPV, but just about every bar picks that up--I have to drive an hour to get to a bar that shows boxing.

 

i've also been really disappointed that promoters don't really put together very good lineups for an event anymore. fighters like a Pavlik or Bute or an Andre Ward should be the undercard of a major event and not the main event on their own. maybe HBO thinks that frequency is what's going to draw people, but i don't think it will--not when you have to pay to see anything.

 

heck, ABC doesn't have sports anymore. it'd be great if they shelled out the money and put the eventual Pacquiao/Mayweather fight on national TV. they could advertise it for a month leading up and include a Super Six fight, and because everybody wants to see a heavyweight, have one of the Klitchkos fight another punching bag. it'd be huge. won't happen, but it'd be huge.

[GAME05]

i'm going to the Pacquiao fight in Dallas this weekend, should be a lot of fun. $50 tickets, so i'm really no closer to the action than anyone sitting at home in Wisconsin. but Cowboys stadium has that huge tv screen, at least. Pacquiao is fighting Marga-cheat-o. i was really looking forward to seeing Pavlik fight on the undercard, and then he wimps out with an injury yet again. that guy has gone from being one of my favourite fighters to now i root against him. he seems to have the same problem that Coto has, that once they faced their first loss, they've been too scared to fight real opponents anymore.

 

and now the Super Six tournament has two replacement fighters that aren't worth watching. that whole thing has become a joke.

[GAME05]

i never really minded Mayweather's cockiness, but he's lost me as a fan now. i know that was perfectly legal, but that was just......without honor.

[Paul77]

Don't ask me why, but my interest in boxing has sky rocketed this past year. I was really looking forward to last nights fight. To bad it was over so quickly, and of course the way it all ended.

[prophet]

I think boxing has died because of the emergence of MMA. MMA is the king of combat sports and they give the fans what they want. If two fighters are the best in the world, they fight. You don't see that in boxing. Boxing is too predictable. Until boxing has super fights again, it will not get better.

[brettac1]

That's not necessarily true with MMA.

 

Everyone wanted Fedor vs Lesnar two years ago and they couldn't make that happen. Now, everyone wants GSP vs Anderson and that likely won't ever happen, either. Also, the idea of the "best in the world" in MMA is much more fluid in MMA than it is in boxing. In boxing, guys get to the stop and stay there for years - Floyd, Hopkins, Pacquiao, De La Hoya, etc. There is far more randomness in MMA and the top guys lose more, so it's harder to have that whole dramatic build that you can make happen in boxing. Four ounce gloves are a blessing and a curse when it comes to matchmaking. I'm an MMA fan more nowadays, but it's more due to the diversity in fighting styles.

[GAME05]

UFC has purposely avoided any real ranking of its divisions beyond having a champion. that probably makes each pay per view a little more exciting, but it's harder for the casual fan to not really have any organization to the ranks. the boxing layman can at least get a good sense of who is better than whom when two people fight.

 

there's a long way to go before i'd ever call MMA the king of combat sports. MMA is still in its infancy and good boxing matches are still drawing a million+ buys, and that's with the sport being at a terrible low-point in its history. i think there are still millions of people who used to be into boxing or would become fans if only there was some renewed excitement in the sport.