heavyweight boxers?

Question

why are there no heavyweight boxing champs stealing all the headlines anymore. sports science has moved on since the days of ali and the other greats so fittness must also have improved and will and desire cant be lacking so what is it?

Answer 1

cassady23 - modern fitness programs and advanced nutrition have nothing to with. It is a lack of heart coupled with greed from the promoters and to a certain extent the boxers themselves. They don't want to risk their titles/belts to achieve greatness. Titles guarantee money in their pockets as long as the opponents are considered safe and handpicked. Greatness steals headlines.
As I've said before, when the next great heavyweight comes along I'm going to make a pilgrimage and bring gifts of frankincense and myrrh. The sport is in need of a great heavyweight that has the b*lls to put his title on the line unify the belts and achieve greatness. It would return the sport to the prominence it once had and richly deserves.

Answer 2

I'll suggest a slightly different answer.

Size.


Lightweights normally look great pound for pound compared to middle weights. They're so fast! They move so well! So active! Put them in a ring with a top middleweight, and they're dead though. A great middleweight gets crushed by less impressive looking heavyweights.

I think what we've been seeing recently is virtual 'super heavyweights'.

When you look at Lewis or even more extremely, a vitaly klitschko (sp?) these guys are like a few weight classes above a traditional heavyweight. Its hard to judge how good they are for the same reason that watching tap of a heavyweight vs a middleweight, the middleweight tends to look more active and faster. Lewis I think was quite a good fighter. Klitschko is a more interesting example, in that he just was not an offensively gifted fighter. But he was strong, tough, smart in the ring, and basically several weight classes up on most of his competitors. He was good enough that the 'normal' heavyweights around couldn't beat him. But the issue is ... how many 6'9" guys are there with _great_ natural talent. Not damn many. So we end up with less skilled but bigger guys domination. You see a similar thing happen with NBA centers - they need to be 7' to have a chance at competing, but the pool of 7 footers out there is so small, you just can't find much great talent.

Answer 3

I think that to a degree Evilc is correct, Sky T.V. has done a lot of damage to sports viewing, and it is a great shame. Also I think that the attitude to boxing has changed, there really aren`t the same number of young men coming into boxing that there were in the pre-Ali days. To get to the top you have to be dedicated, fit and ambitious. It is a very tough life, and the financial rewards are only there in quantity for the number one man.There aren`t the men prepared to be beaten to a pulp, suffer disfigurement or possible brain injury for mediocre wages. Ali has spoiled us for any other boxers. When you have seen the best, you know it.

Answer 4

charisma. very few boxers have had it. Because of the nature of the sport,the more intelligent and charismatic sports minded atheletes shy away from boxing.
boxers like Muhammed Ali. are very few and far between,not only was he highly intelligent that intelligence transmuted into his sport,he boxed clever.
there have been others of course thomas hit man hearns marvelous marvin, lennox lewis, and i hate mentioning him on the same page as Ali. but you cannot deny he had the iq to get out before he came unstuck.
promoters have moved to the lower divisions for thier prey
if you want to watch a decent boxing match go to watch the amateurs,they do not do it for the money they do it for the love of the sport.LF

Answer 5

No great heavyweight boxer born after Muhammad Ali.

Answer 6

The simple answer is GREED.

There used to be only one version of the heavyweight title, and everybody knew who it was. Now there are about 6 versions, to make 6 times as much money, and nobody cares who the champ is.

Answer 7

I can answer that easily, 'SKY TELEVISION'

When Sky took over televising boxing championship fights from main stream TV unless you were unemployed or on Benefits most normal working folk (who pay for the scroungers)cannot afford £40 per month so they lost interest.

The same has happened with Test cricket most people no longer watch it thro cost, watch that sport now dissapear.

Football is completely controlled by SKY also

Thankfully ITV have now taken up boxing so it might make a comeback

Answer 8

Too many boxing titles. Used to be, back in the day, The New York State Boxing Authority was the only title. Now we have half a billion of them.

Answer 9

u cant expect te division to be full of amazing boxers all the time!!!!!!!!!it is going through a transition which will take time2days heavyweights are very dull but the others divisions are packd full of fantastic talent which fill arenas so **** heavyweights!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Answer 10

i dont think there any big personalities in heavyweight boxing at the moment