It's the "How to save boxing" game.

[Guts/Batman]

You know you wanna play.

How can we save boxing and bring it back to the world of respectability? Isit possible to save without blowing it up or do we need to wreck and build it anew?

[Royal]

1. Stop dividing yourselves into little orginizations unless you guys are semipros.

2. Yes. We know you're a badass. Show it in the ring.

3. The badass mentality is stale all together. There is a little thing called "respect" y'know.

4. Hang Art Dore, Don King & other sleazo promoters

5. Stop thinking that boxing is the be all end all combat sport. You can get a lot of new talent from other areas if you do.

6. Renouce the standing eight.

7. Renounce the standing eight.

8. Agree on one set & form of equipment.

9. Get new judges who are open to new forms of fist striking techniques

10. Renounce the standing eight.

[mgs]

a few things:

1. more money
-top athletes recieve large sums of money, what's the draw in entering a sport that most don't want to be in unless they have to. promote the boxers, not their reputations.

2. less violence. yes, LESS!
-again, beat someone senseless is fun as long as no one is seriously hurt, in boxing, everyone knows those who stay in the sport get pounded into stupidity. make it a sport! make the judges' scorecards playable and in the open so the fighters know what they have to do to win. stop the pre-posturing, just fight! quicker fights, means more action early on and hopefully more scoring than two people trying to avoid one another for a few rounds.

3. entertainment.
-outdoor fighting is fun, maybe have a few fights going on at the same time so if one gets boring, there is another to watch. make it about the fighters, boxing is more and more like the sleazy aspects of gambling than a sport. take out all the 'sidemen' on a fighter's side and have the boxing commission have their own in people's corners, besides the refs and judges.

4. aesthetics
make the boxing clean, sharp! no biting, low blows, no wrestling. shorts are not protection for your stomach.

[cable guy]

1-Better judging
2-Less weight divisions
3-less championship belts(WBC,WBA,IBF just to name a few)Just One
4-If #3 is not accomplished, must have unification bouts ASAP!
5-Less fights on pay per view. More big fights on HBO, Showtime or ESPN even.
6-The return of 15 round fights
7-Ban Don King forever

[Guts/Batman]

6-The return of 15 round fights



HELL YEA!!

[kmeyers]

I'm really surprised that the tv show The Contender didn't do very well, and won't have a second season. I thought that was a really good thing for boxing, and would like to see more of that.

[Royal]

I'm really surprised that the tv show The Contender didn't do very well, and won't have a second season. I thought that was a really good thing for boxing, and would like to see more of that.

I think what hurt it a bit was that it was IMO, over-produced.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

1. Less Money.: Most fighters make millions of dollars and Its hurt the Sport. They won't take fights that fans wanna see and deny the fans that apsect of good matches. The money will no longer flow thru Boxing and It'll be scaled back to reasonable levels.


2. Violence Is needed : Ever since Boxing went to 12 Rd's and stopped the bloodshed things have went down hill fast. Gone Is the day guys would go 15 to 20 rd's and bleed for what they want !

Wanna know why Rocky and the sequels were popular ? Rocky left everything In that ring. He bleed and sweat . Fans Identified because he would bleed and keep coming back. He won and they saw someone there. Boxing sadly doesn't have any Warriors left who will get bloodied and be allowed to fight on !


3. Titles: Too many Boxing Titles. What I suggest would be a Winner Take all Mega PPV that would feature 8 of the best Heavywieghts and and others who enter. It could have Roy Jones Jr or Bernard Hopkins as well Involved.

4 , 15 rd fights and then a final match that night. Winner takes all and the Heavywieght division Is set. The only way to win Is score cards at the end of 15 or Knockout.

In the end I think I could save boxing with this approach.

[StoneGold]

You know what I think it all comes down to? A fighter with a little charisma. It's been so long. Let's face it, boxing is a sport that lives and breathes with the man at the top. Does anyone ever give a rat's ass about the undercard? And maybe that's a problem in and of itself, but you have to solve the problem of who is on top first.

[Trystenn]

For every fight lets pretend were back in 1900!!!!!

[kmeyers]

You know what I think it all comes down to? A fighter with a little charisma. It's been so long. Let's face it, boxing is a sport that lives and breathes with the man at the top. Does anyone ever give a rat's ass about the undercard? And maybe that's a problem in and of itself, but you have to solve the problem of who is on top first.

I have to say...I thought a show like The Contender would show the personalities, and character of these boxers. It did...it made me and others CARE about these fighters.

it is about the man on top. but how he gets there is why it's cool.

[StoneGold]

I have to say...I thought a show like The Contender would show the personalities, and character of these boxers. It did...it made me and others CARE about these fighters.

it is about the man on top. but how he gets there is why it's cool.
That's not quite what I'm talking about though. Truth is, the real problem is Ali. Ever since Ali, every boxer is expected to be Ali, and damn near every fighter feels they have to be Ali. I can only imagine that's half the reason Tyson says so much of the verbal diahrrea that spews out of his mouth. It set an expectation that is difficult to reach, where a fighter not only has to be a fighter, but an all-around entertainer. Name me a fighter since Ali who could do that. Hell, even Tyson got by mostly early on for being a young dominant phenom. When he started talking, his whole bit fell apart.

[kmeyers]

That's not quite what I'm talking about though. Truth is, the real problem is Ali. Ever since Ali, every boxer is expected to be Ali, and damn near every fighter feels they have to be Ali. I can only imagine that's half the reason Tyson says so much of the verbal diahrrea that spews out of his mouth. It set an expectation that is difficult to reach, where a fighter not only has to be a fighter, but an all-around entertainer. Name me a fighter since Ali who could do that. Hell, even Tyson got by mostly early on for being a young dominant phenom. When he started talking, his whole bit fell apart.

I kind of agree with that, but...
that's like hating superheroes, because Superman is too invincible.

[Guts/Batman]

That's not quite what I'm talking about though. Truth is, the real problem is Ali. Ever since Ali, every boxer is expected to be Ali, and damn near every fighter feels they have to be Ali. I can only imagine that's half the reason Tyson says so much of the verbal diahrrea that spews out of his mouth. It set an expectation that is difficult to reach, where a fighter not only has to be a fighter, but an all-around entertainer. Name me a fighter since Ali who could do that. Hell, even Tyson got by mostly early on for being a young dominant phenom. When he started talking, his whole bit fell apart.

A line from Rocky IV comes to mind. Apollo Creed is talking to ROkcy about his comeback fight against Drago. Apollo tells Rocky. "They care about you when your bleeding. They care about when you when your in that ring but when you step out of that ring..." Something like that.

In other words, I think that most Americans looks toward boxing differently than any other form of entertainment, even WWE. I think most Americans (pure assumption here) look at boxing thinking "Why in the hell would a person do that for a career? You get your head beat in every few monthes for pay."

[StoneGold]

I kind of agree with that, but...
that's like hating superheroes, because Superman is too invincible.
I'm kind of talking the opposite though. It's like hating Green Lantern because he can't live up to Superman. Or, it's like hating modern Superman because he doesn't live up to this picture perfect image you have of what Superman is supposed to be, but he doesn't quite live up to.

You know how on every sports retrospective show, every old team/fighter/player/whatever can always kick the living shit out of any modern team/fighter/player/whatever? Except boxing doesn't have the luxury of pulling for an entire team.

Granted, there are a ton of other problems, but I think this is a core one.

[Guts/Batman]

Thanks Gold, leads me to another question. heh

What are the core problems with boxing? Or have they been named already?

[Punchy]

1. Open scoring. This one is so easy to do, I have no clue why it's not done. Let everyone see how each judge is scoring the fight as it goes along. What a novel idea, a running score just like every other sport. I dig Olympic Boxing a helluva lot more than regular boxing.

2. Consolidate all of the organizations and titles.

3. PPV? What?! Let's put big boxing matches on TV. I know some promoters will lose money by doing it, but it would be a lot more exposure for the sport.

4. Ban Don King.