ESPN article about boxing and football

I dont know Grant I tend to think that Basketball is the most athletic sport in the world. It takes an ungodly amount of coordination, speed and you have to have size. Just think of Shaq boxing from the time he was 6. You would have a 7ft powerhouse of a boxer. There is no doubt in my head that the popularity of the NBA and NFL have hurt boxing. Its no coincidence that as the NBA and NFL grew in popularity that our beloved sport has declined.

Soonermark890 wrote:I dont know Grant I tend to think that Basketball is the most athletic sport in the world. It takes an ungodly amount of coordination, speed and you have to have size. Just think of Shaq boxing from the time he was 6. You would have a 7ft powerhouse of a boxer. There is no doubt in my head that the popularity of the NBA and NFL have hurt boxing. Its no coincidence that as the NBA and NFL grew in popularity that our beloved sport has declined.

I just shown you the history of HW division. It's had more poor eras then good ones, long before NBA and NFL were even around, or powerhouses. Where they stealing all HWs during Joe Louis Bumb of the Month era? How about 50s, where NBA and NFL were still segrigated for the most part?

You can trace the decline in boxing right back to the day promoters took fights away from network TV and threw them on Pay channels and PPVs.

And yeah, playing basketball takes talent, but how about playing basketball while getting punched in the face by another huge man? I gurantee you, if all these NBA players got into boxing, maybe 3 of them would amount to good boxers. The rest would quit because too tough, or get beaten down because got no chins or heart.

all sports take conditioning sooner.basketball is the easyest sport to learn and play well at.baseball requires far more co ordination then both football and basketball.ever see a infielder make a diving catch at a ball hit 100 miles an hour .hand eye co ordination impulse reflexes and atheltic abilty all rolled up into one.how many times have we seen a football player drop a ball that any 12 year old would of caught.hitting a 90-95 mile an hour baseball that rarely comes straight at you takes deep consintreation fast reaction and coordination.both in football and baseball players on a continual basis run all out in spurts.not in basketball.threading the needle by a quaterback at 40 yards is tossing the ball longer then an entire basketball court with pin point accuracy.adding inbetween defenders is done often.how many times in basketball on a regular basis is a 60 foot shot made.theres no hard defenders since its called goaltending.
sliping fast punches that come at you from 2 feet away takes talent co ordination fast reflexes and anticipation.a 15 round fight is 45 minutes.a basketball game a little longer plus time outs breaks at halftime rest when theres a free throw etc etc plus somebody relieves you.is that done in boxing.ever see basketball players fight at courside..yep all of us have.95 percent of the time it looks like 2 eight year old girls.
colledge football has been around a long long time.before the nfl.how come fighters were not lost to them.
todays top fighters are latino and black for the most part because of economic times.before in droves it was the italians irish and jews.the economic depressed folks on the social scale.there outlet to excape there getto was fighting not colledge which you can view if you want as the farm system for the pros.thats one cause for boxings decline cause masses of folks found finaly work that could support there family in a decent manner2..grants right.ppv took away role models.that hurt boxing.
why are we saying the heavyweight division only..the nfl nba etc etc did not take away the welters the lighweights middles bantams did it..yet theres a decline in numbers of fighters as a total dispite expanding to twice as many divisions..economic times is the culprit plus opportunity for folks to go to colledge in masses.before you paid out of pocket outside of some scholarships.today loans grants etc etc make it possible to seek a better life.in the 20s 30 s 40s 50s nope.thoses reasons are far more credible then the nba or nfl.