• What ruined boxing?

    From tmc1982@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Thu Dec 5 01:00:53 2019
    https://www.quora.com/What-ruined-boxing/answer/Jon-Mixon-1

    “Ruined it”?

    Boxing has always been terrible.

    If anything, it’s cleaner NOW than it was 50–75 years ago.

    What some people may not like about it now is that:

    The changes in this country’s socioeconomics and demographics have made it difficult to attract a number of American boxers, particularly White ones - The US boxing industry is still trying to locate a “Great White Hope” no almost three decades
    after the late Tommy Morrison failed to live up to the hype. It’s even difficult to find interesting Black or Latino fighters like existed up until the latter 1990s. Basically boxing is leaning toward immigrants from developing world nations and that’
    s not appealing to some long time fans.
    MMA is more exciting - Mixed martial arts is more interesting than most boxing matches. Boxing is growing dull and the promoters are doing very little to liven it up. MMA is what younger audiences prefer and its sapping away boxing future fanbase
    There aren’t the number of charismatic boxers that there were in the past - Most boxers today are dull and dull performers makes for dull viewing.
    There aren’t the number of charismatic promoters that there were in the past - Whether or not you dislike Don King, he certainly made for interesting viewing. Today’s promoters are varying levels of bland and they don’t seem to have the ability to
    attract fans to the sport.
    The major networks have lost interest in the sport - I grew up watching boxing on the weekends on all three major networks, with an an occasional fight or two on Home Box Office (That’s HBO for you younger people out there). Unfortunately for boxing
    pro football, college football,college basketball, and reruns of syndicated programming now pull in higher ratings than it does. Basically the networks rarely air boxing and that does little to keep fans interested.
    Boxing has always been a corrupt and dirty sport. That’s part of the reason that the networks dropped it for a while and that it’s only been coming back in the last few years or so. To claim that it’s somehow been “ruined” by anything that’s
    occurred within the last two decades or so, is an indication that the person making that claim is woefully unfamiliar with the sport and its history.

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