Some thoughts...
The world has clearly moved on from the days when big fights were mainly promoted in America.
+100. Long gone are the days when boxing was restricted as an American sport.
Today boxing is truly a globally competitive sport, as noted in the fact we have numerous world champions from all continents except Antartica.
I once did an analysis on Boxrec, where I showed that from roughly 2000-2010,
Americans lost about half of their hold on world championships. Furthermore, for the most part, the championships
lost by Americans had been gained by Europeans, and to a lesser extent South Americans and Asians.
In the 1980's, Americans would have constituted approximately 70% of world champions. By the 1990's that was at around 60%. In 2000, as my analysis noted, that number was about 50%.
Today it is roughly 25%.
It's important to understand that many "great" Negro American boxers from the past had it easy in the sense that they were only competing with other Americans, and the odd Brit, Frenchman, or the ultra odd German or Italian. There were very few South Americans, Asians, and Eastern Europeans were essentially nonexistent in professional boxing before the late 1990's (which also just happens to be the time Americans lost hold on pro boxing, lol!).
Boxing has become much more competitive in the past 20 years, mainly due to the end of communism and former Eastern Bloc boxers going pro. Additionally, Asians and South Americans have began turning pro in greater numbers. Russians and Ukrainians have always excelled in amateur boxing, and had they turned pro in the 1950's, 60's, 70's, 80's, etc, we most likely would have seen them beating many Negro Americans, as they are today.
Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, and other Negro champions from the past had it easy in the sense that they faced very small talent pools. These Negroes didn't have to fight any Eastern Euros, South Americans, or Asians. Calling them "world champions" is stretching the truth a bit, and its more accurate to call them "American champions", or "Western champions".
Its also worth noting that Amateur Boxing tournaments occurring in recent times would indicate that boxing is going to continue moving away from the USA. The best talent in the world is being produced in Ukraine, UK, Cuba, Ireland, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Japan. The future of the sport is going to exist in European or "ethnic" American markets (ie Cubans or Mexicans turining pro in USA).
I firmly believe that MMA has become popular as a sport, largely due to the fact that boxing has been continually moving away from the American sports market. MMA is "the answer" to boxing leaving the USA. If you look in MMA now, for the most part, its gotta be 80%+ American fighters.
So, because boxing has been taken over by internationals (mainly Europeans), MMA has been encouraged as a mainstream sport.
That's one of the reasons I'm generally not a fan of MMA. MMA is all about pushing American athletes, and many times that is Negro athletes (the same ones who got beaten out of boxing by Euros and Asians... so now MMA is the "new thing").
Dana White publicly rooted via his twitter for David Haye to beat Wladimir Klitschko, and that tells you which direction the head of UFC is pointing. MMA is another fabricated American sport where they will try and push their Negro athletes because they can't do it anymore in boxing.
In fact, MMA's acceptance as a mainstream sport coincides almost exactly with the time that heavyweight boxing became dominated by White Europeans.
