What has happened to U.S. Boxing?

[dbackjon]

Only one potential medal - Heavyweight Deontay Wilder.

[BlueHen86]

Pretty sad. I seem to recall that boxing was a prime time Olympic sport back in the day, now it's on at dinnertime.

I think part of the problem is that U.S. fighters turn pro at an early age. Seems like there are a lot of older fighters from other countries out there. They have more international experience than our guys.

I also think the scoring fiascos have taken their toll on the interest of the U.S. viewers. Roy Jones destroyed that South Korean in 1988, the fight was fixed and we never forgot that.

[BigApp]

BH, the scoring has been, to put it mildly, atrocious this year against the USA and the Russians. Olympic boxing is about the only thing I'm interesting in. They're quick, short matches. I can turn on MSNBC's coverage and watch all the fights from everybody.

I've seen several US boxers get the screw. Beat the opponent so bad the other dude looks like Rocky and our guy barely breaking a sweat after 4 rounds. And lose.

Points magically appearing during tie-ups and separations. It's bad.

[BlueHen86]

BH, the scoring has been, to put it mildly, atrocious this year against the USA and the Russians. Olympic boxing is about the only thing I'm interesting in. They're quick, short matches. I can turn on MSNBC's coverage and watch all the fights from everybody.

I've seen several US boxers get the screw. Beat the opponent so bad the other dude looks like Rocky and our guy barely breaking a sweat after 4 rounds. And lose.

Points magically appearing during tie-ups and separations. It's bad.

I agree regarding the scoring. I've seen a few fights this year. A fighter will score one point in a period, and the replay shows 3 clean hits. One fighter knocked the headgear off of the other fighter and didn't get a point. Also, knockdowns should count as more than just one punch landed.

[SuperHornet]

I could swear I posted to this thread. Here's the gist of what I said.

1. The scoring is HORRIBLE. It's not just anti-American, it's anti-Western Hemisphere. I saw a Mexican get screwed, too. Clear scoring punches are being ignored, and also awarded to the OTHER boxer. The judges are rewarding Eastern Hemisphere tactics (i.e. jab-and-grab) while Western tactics (i.e. jab to set up some other scoring blow) are ignored.

2. Horrible US coaching. The Americans are the only team in the entire tournament not to know the score at any point in the fight. The coaches should be relaying this information to the boxers between rounds.

3. Scaredy-cat boxers. We had one boxer who ran with 30 seconds left; he thought he was ahead when he was really behind. (See #2.) Shouldn't matter; you fight until the bell sounds. We also had another boxer who completely freaked out when told he was down one after ONE freaking round; he went into full KO mode after that, wading in through a barrage of scoring blows, and losing something like 20-5.

5. Idiot boxers. The same one who freaked out after one round almost didn't even get to go because he popped on freaking CAFFEINE. While it's debatable whether or not Pepsi is really a stimulant, any athlete preparing for something as important as the Olympics should know all of the requirements and abide by them. On second thought, though, if he was dumb enough to blow this, we shouldn't be surprised by his stupidity in the ring.

[Grizo406]

I'd like to see MMA in the Olympics!

[dbackjon]

I'd like to see MMA in the Olympics!

So would I. The rise of MMA is partially responsible for the decline in Boxing, IMHO

[SuperHornet]

I'd like to see MMA in the Olympics!

So would I. The rise of MMA is partially responsible for the decline in Boxing, IMHO

Opinion, hell. That's an incontrovertible fact.

I'd love to see Laila Ali vs. Crush, each in her own discipline. My $$'s on Crush.

[BlueHen86]

I just got done watching a fight between a Cuban and a Chinaman.

A few thoughts:

The announcers should call the fight they are watching, not the one they expect. Atlas and the other guy expected the Chinaman to win, and kept talking about how good he was. The Cuban won 16 - 4 or something like that. They also kept saying that the Cuban was getting tired from all the body shots he was receiving, but he won the last two rounds 8 - 0 .

The scoring is awful. The fight looked much closer than 16 - 4. In fact, under the old system I would have expected the Chinaman to win. He controlled the pace of the fight and landed several body shots, none of which scored.

[BlueHen86]

I just got done watching highlight of todays Boxing action. I am in shock at what I saw. An Irishman twice landed clean blows to his opponents face (from China) only to have the other guy get the point. It was almost as if the judges were hitting the wrong button.
A Frenchman lost 10-8 because the ref warned him twice, giving his opponent 4 points. Problem is it was the opponent who was holding behind the head and throwing upper cuts.

What I saw today makes the Roy Jones result look reasonable. The sport is corrupt and the scoring system stinks. If they can't clean it up they should remove the sport from the Olympics. I'm really pissed at the way the Frenchman got screwed - much worse than what happened to Roy Jones. Terrible.

[grizzaholic]

These olympic boxing games just push more dirt onto the boxing scene. It is a shame but it is the truth.

[BlueHen86]

These olympic boxing games just push more dirt onto the boxing scene. It is a shame but it is the truth.

Boxing is run by morons. Pro and amateur morons. Sad.

[SuperHornet]

I'm not thrilled with Atlas, particularly on those set pieces to open programs where he looks all goofy.

That said, he and his partner did a rather detailed piece about the corruption. They used as an example a fight involving a French fighter who got screwed worse than any American has. It was one of the most disgusting miscarriages of justice I've ever seen. Now, apparently, some international boxing official who was under investigation prior to the Olympics but somehow inexplicably allowed to run amok in Beijing has FINALLY been suspended and brought under charges. If he was under investigation before, why the cr@p was he allowed to influence results in the biggest competition on the planet? The international boxing president was nowhere near the announcement, and the spokesman seemed to indicate that everything is hunky-dory. Wonder what gave him THAT idea. Certainly not true to any OBJECTIVE observer on this Orb.

Seems the controversy has spread to tae kwon do as well. American Stephen Lopez, a two-time defending gold medalist who hasn't lost since 2002 was robbed of the gold by a corrupt referee, and the protest he lodged was horribly mismanaged amid allegations that the international tae kwon do regulating body used strongarm tactics before the Olympics to prevent Olympic protests to protect the sport's "image" since it seems likely on the way out.

Maybe we should just get rid of ALL of the fighting sports at the Olympics. Seems to me that the WWE is a LOT more credible than THIS farce.

[dbackjon]

The sad part of Boxing/Taekwondo debacle is that these are sports that are popular world wide, with a total of 31 countries winning medals.


Afganistan won it's first ever Olympic medal from Taekwondo, Maurtiius from Boxing.

All of Ireland, Moldova, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Afganistan and Mauritius's medals came from these two sports. The majority of Mexico's, Taiwan, Thailand came from these sports.

The IOC needs to clean up the sports, because they are worthy of inclusion