Bye Bye to the Big Boys
At what point did you decide that the heavyweights weren’t really worth the time it took to watch them? When did the title become so devalued that you neither cared nor even knew who held it?
I suppose an argument could be made that the thing started to go down the drain during the 1980s when a series of very talented but unmotivated guys like Greg Page, Tony Tubbs, Tim Witherspoon, and Bonecrusher Smith passed the titles back an forth, none of them holding onto them for more than a defense.
But those guys seem like colossuses compared to Lamon Brewster, Sergui Lyakovich, and Nicolai Valuev. Middle aged businessman Sultan Ibragimov simply handed over his title rather than get into a tiff with Wladimir Klitschko. He acted like their cars had been involved in a minor scrape by the side of the road; here’s my card, my insurance will pay. Sorry for the inconvenience. Nice to have met you.
I’d mind less if things weren’t so dull or I had the sense that this might be the lull before another growth period. But they are and it’s not, so I think maybe I’ll abandon the heavyweights. Luckily, there’s plenty going on elsewhere in boxing.
posted by Charles Farrell @ 10:01 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I'm not sure when it started to go down hill? However, I think the bigger is better myth helped start it. It seems the bigger the heavyweights get, the less ability they have, and they can't fight.
I'm sure this won't go over with the group, but it's how I see it. Considering the state of the heavyweight division today, the Holyfield, Lewis, Tyson & Bowe era looks pretty good.
I know, Lewis couldn't beat Dempsey, Tyson couldn't beat Johnson, Holyfield couldn't beat Lyle, and Bowe couldn't beat Ezzard Charles.
It's all the fault of the computerized Olympic style of boxing. Instead of the top medalists becoming great pros, like Ali, Frazier, and Foreman, or even good ones like Lewis and Bowe, they now become the pugilistic equivalent of fencers, like Wladimir Klitschko (1996 gold at super heavyweight) or, even worse, Audley Harrison (2000 gold at super heavyweight) and Sultan Ibragimov (2000 silver at heavyweight).
It's all the fault of the Cuban government. Some of the best heavyweights of our era, Stevenson and Savon, were not allowed to turn pro, and could only have done so by defecting from their country and leaving their families. Damn commies.
It's all the fault of pro sports like American football and basketball. Any big guy with any modicum of athletic talent was tracked into those sports and made a candidate for a college scholarship (and lots of cheerleader pussy) about a year or two after they reached puberty. Damn capitalist pigs.
It's all the fault of our lazy-ass, video-game-obsessed, parasitic, selfish American culture. Boxing is too hard a sport when you can watch any video you want, read anything you want, or jerk off to anything you want without leaving your computer chair. And now you can do all this from your cell phones, too. Damn lazy Yanquis.
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