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You ever get the feeling that boxing is the one major sport that has gone backwards badly? (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by vegeta1@hexbear.net to c/sports@hexbear.net

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Other sports like soccer, football even basketball has advanced with sports science and nutrition. You see track and field records get broken. Swimming as well. NFL combine you see more 300 lbs athletes run ridiculous 40s and you see more and more db, wr, rb etc run sub 4.3 40s. Strength sports you see a record broken every other week.

I don't feel that with boxing. Too much cherry picking and underhanded tactics around. Even Canelo who I rate highly has pulled off shady shit like doping in the GGG rematch. Fucking tyson fury heavyweight champ at the time getting embarrassed by ngannou who has never boxed professionally mma champ or not. (Thank goodness for usyk showing what a real boxing champion looks like). Boxers like crawford, charlo, brooks, mikey garcia, constantly jumping up two weights for terrible fights that mostly turn into mismatches. Pacquiao at his age being fast tracked to a title shot with barrios which derailed the undisputed talks. Jake paul being ranked 14 at cruiserweiht after Chavez who never won at cruiser, Mike tyson who was damn near 60 with a myriad of health problems.

Then there is the fact that boxing in the Olympics is being removed due to too much corruption in AIBA. The talent pool in boxing was dire before its gonna be much worse. Most people don't wanna be punched in the head so it shouldn't be surprising that its dire. Sport ain't gonna die but good lord its in a terrible state outside of the lower weights like Inoue weight and lower. Once that Riyad season honeymoon period goes away its gonna be long.

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[–] GnastyGnuts@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Combat sports in general feel like they're in a strange place. Like, boxing and MMA seem simultaneously bigger and more popular than they've been in a while (which I attribute to the various high-profile celebrity boxing matches as well as hard times generally creating interest in fighting), but the general quality is just the drizzling shits right now.

I'm way more of an MMA viewer than a boxing viewer, but it seems like various combat sports "promotions" don't actually do a lot of promoting of their fights and fighters. I've thought this for a while now, but it's so pronounced at this point. UFC's Dana White clearly doesn't give a fuck anymore, most fighters have been expected to get themselves out there with self-promotion for years now. I don't understand why they aren't pushing the hell out of people like Aspinall and Pantoja and especially Topuria.

As far as the future trajectory, I think it's only going to get worse, especially in heavier weight classes where they have to compete with stick-and-ball sports for talent (the only way they could compete is by paying way more, and fuck no they won't do that).

Most of the joy I derive from combat sports right now is going back and watching old stuff, learning about fighters I wasn't around for, etc.

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

Good lord the quality is bad. Ufc took a page out of boxing's playbook and makes up these goofy interim titles that hold up the fights. I cannot for the life of me understand why aspinall isn't pushed. Hes the fastest MMA heavyweight since fedor and probably the most complete package since prime Cain. You're right its gonna get worse in the heavyweights. A lot of these heavies seem like blown up lightheavy/middleweights. its bare bones over there. There aren't many people that big to begin with so you can imagine. And there is even less people that size that are athletic. Heavyweight decline has been brutal and thats the marquee division.