How do you see the global boxing landscape?

I see the global nature of the game being its lifeblood with young men from diverse and disparate backgrounds still using the game as a means of social mobility.

Don’t forget that it is the hispnic communities of the US who comprise a huge part of iour own boxing and fanscape

Tightly written, with great examples, this short post is an excellent summary of how identity and nationalism, while still central to the sport, have become more pliant. Part of the reason for this is marketing, and some of this has gone on forever—how many “Irish” fighters battled under similarly slippery shifts of identity and fandom?

Part of the cause of this, however, is something new and important to our epoch. People really do move more easily between forms of identity. It’s not all about the money. Cultural definitions have been effectively dislodged from their geographical locations.

We’ve long been used to the idea that “Americanness” is a transnational form of cultural identity, and the Americanization of Europe, to cite just one example, has been going on since the Roaring Twenties. But now there are many different national identities with major outposts in formerly strange locales. Global urban populations are more heterogeneous, as are our psyches. Being authentic doesn’t have to mean being just one thing anymore.

We see these changes reflected in our sports icons. Nationality is still massively important to the marketing and make-up of boxers, but our sense of nationality is now mobile, wireless.

Men like Floyd (for the better part of his career, literally) and Andre Ward are competing for American audience with talent in global sport both within and outside of the States themselves.

In previous decades, a top American boxer, regardless of color, would have been among the most celebrated of athletes. Today, they must compete for audience without any guarantees of constituency.

For any number of reasons (not the least of which are technological advancements such as the internet), the world has become much smaller. Boxing has followed suit and the commonality of what happens in boxing rings throughout the world has become stark.

An obvious trend in the US among elite—or wannabe elite—boxers is what I call the "Mayweather Business Model" whereby a boxer breaks out of the gate fast, runs up an impressive won-lost record, and then slows things down and picks his spots with more financial circumspection and with a keen eye toward cashing in on a big payday. In Mexico, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. may well be at this point. At one time, it appeared that Danny Jacobs was another but he was sidelined by someone named Pirog and then by illness. The bottom line—and I see it as an unfortunate one—is that a fighter is now far more pressured by the number of losses he suffers. The days of Gatti, Ward, Salido, Margarito, and others who had fair share of defeats under their belt may be a thing of the past. So far, this has not seemed to have happened in Canada and the UK, and I hope it stays that way.

The advent of the brothers encouraged many others from the former Soviet Union to cash in on their great amateur training and skills. Men like Armenian Arthur Abraham and Khoren Gevor have become German citizens. Even defectors from Cuba are making Germany their new port of call. Defector Odlanier Solis signed a professional promotional contract with German-based Arena Box-Promotions as did other Cuban amateur stars. Cuban heavyweight Juan Carlos Gomez now resides in Hamburg.

As for style, Eastern European boxers no longer fight in the manner of stand-up fighters of the past. They are well-trained, well-schooled fighters who now can adapt to different styles far more readily. Like Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the Eastern Europeans also demonstrate a solid old-school work ethic both in and out of the ring: No obnoxious behavior or over-the-top trash talking that only cheapens the sport.

These days, Michael Buffer is just as likely to exclaim "Let’s Get Ready to Rumble" from the SAP-Arena in Mannheim or the Sporthalle in Hamburg as he is from Madison Square Garden.

Lower weight

Mexico and Puerto Rico have always been considered elite locales in boxing and that continues to be the case. While Mexican and Mexican-American boxers have had better years than in 2009 and early 2010, they had an incredibly solid 2011 reinforcing their elite global stature. Will we ever again see rugged Tepiteños, or as in more recent years, warriors like Chavez, Barrera, Morales, Vazquez, and either Marquez dominating their divisions? I’m betting we will.

The lineage of great boxers from Puerto Rico is a rich, dramatic, and often tragic one, as many of the fighters met with difficulties both outside the ring or after they finished their careers. In this regard, Puerto Rico continues to produce a remarkable tapestry of sports in general and boxing in particular. In fact, nowhere will you find more world champions per capita.

For gaudy records, great nicknames, legendary fights and especially for high drama, I have always had a great fondness for South American fighters, and most particularly those from Argentina. That tradition is alive and well today as World Middleweight Champion Sergio Martinez leads an influx of dangerous fighters from that great country.

“most particularly those from Argentina” – did you see the Luis Lazarte fight from that great country . It appears that in Argentina , it rains chairs . Jesus.
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/12022012/58/argentine-boxing-match-ends-riot.html

That link should have gone to the video which is un-fooking real . From a news page -

“Lazarte, who committed a string of fouls including kicking his opponent, was heard by reporters to shout at the referee “do you want to get out of here alive?” after being docked his first point in the sixth round of a bout he was losing".

I’m also betting that the current resurgence in Japanese and Pinoy boxing will not run its course for years to come. Of course, multiple champion Many Pacquiao has been to Filipino boxing what the Klitschkos have been to Eastern Europe and Germany. As for Thailand, it continues to be a hotbed of all different kinds of boxing and this will not change any time soon.

Interestingly, Thai and Filipino fighters are not adverse to running up big records and fighting for a relatively long time. On the other hand, Japanese and South Korean boxers rarely fight more than 30 to 35 times and many often will retire after a second or third loss. In this regard, the active records of such fighters as Tsuneo "Piston" Horiguchi (143-26-15), Yoichiro Hanada (93-37-28), Motomitsu Soda (68-22-30), Hiroshi Horiguchi (80-11-5), Masashi Akiyama (73-28-8), and Takeshi Sasazaki (73-27-11) were likely an anomaly of the war and post-war times. Later, greats like Yoshio Shirai (46-8-2), Fighting Harada (55-7), Yoko Gushiken (23-1), Jiro Watanabe (26-2), and Shinji Takehara (24-1) fought less. Now the trend continues as those great fighter’s records have been replaced by those of Koki Kameda (27-1), Daiki Kameda’s 22-3, Daisuke Naito (36-3-3), Satoshi Hosono (21-2), Hozumi Hasegawa (29-4), Nobuo Nashiro (16-4-1), Masaaki Serie (20-4), Ryoichi Taguchi (16-10, Kazuto Ioka (9-0), and Ryol Li Lee (18-3-1).

Another documented and longstanding pattern is that when Thai (and especially Colombian) boxers fight outside of their homelands, they generally don’t do well.

Today’s South Korean fighters rarely duke beyond 25 times. The aforementioned Ji Hoon Kim is currently at 23-7. Jae-Kwang Jung (13-2-2) retired after losing to Kim in 2007. The late Yo-Sam Choi (32-5) is probably the last fighter to have had that many fights. He was fatally injured in his final fight in 2007 against well traveled Indonesian veteran Heri Amol in a fight Choi won.

While on the subject of Japanese fighters, the trend there and in most countries (Thailand being the manifest exception) has been to promote more fights in which the boxers are evenly matched in contrast to the past when mismatches were not uncommon. In fact, Mexico, Japan, and South Africa now stand out in this regard.

Fighting less is something that is global in nature and is here to stay. Reflecting this is the fact that even flamboyant Argentineans are fighting fewer times in contrast to their gaudy and monstrous records of the past. However, they still remain the only fighters to compile old-school type records. The day of the 100-fight career is quickly becoming a thing of the past and likely will end if and when Yori Boy Campas wins one more fight. However, there are many fighters in the UK who have more than 100 losses, though few of those have come by way of stoppage. That has been a longstanding pattern in the UK, albeit not an alarming one.

A mate of mine’s pro record is an amazing won 9 , lost 91 draw 7 . This is true but the most amazing thing to me is that the guy , who I last spoke to about 3 months ago, is still fully compus mentis and , although he’ll never win any quiz nights at the local pub , is not a guy who looks or sounds like he’s been beaten by just about everyone who fought around the jnr. welter’s in the UK between 1999 and 2005.
107 fights in 7 years.
I suppose it’s how you fight those fights or more importantly how much and hard you get hit that counts rather than the number of fights per se. In my mates case I believe he only got stopped ( all tko rather than ko) about six or seven times which says as much about his defense as the 91 losses says about his attack !

Here is a link to a funny( not at the time obviously) story about said mate , I know he won’t mind me sharing this with ya all , hehehe
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-392836/Asthmatic-professional-boxer-claimed-10-years-disability-benefit.html

I was was washing my van outside once and he pulled up, wound his window down and said
“are you doing mine next?” my reply, #+#%#^+!!!
I had to bite my lip to stop myself from saying I thought that paying for it for him was enough.

Talking about Planet Boxing, Ted, Marco Antonio Barrera is doing a tour of the UK. I got two tickets for me & the missus to go. Apparently we an meet him too. Barrera in Merseyside…. surreal.

We can meet him.