Holyfield Explains His Theory on Heavyweight Power Shift To Eastern Europe

October 30th, 2008

By Scoop Malinowski

It’s an undeniable fact now – the Eastern Europeans are dominating heavyweight boxing, and there are no young American hopefuls making waves to alter the recent shift in the balance of power. Ring legend Evander Holyfield thinks he knows what has happened. In the April 20 issue of London-based “Boxing News” weekly magazine, the legendary four-time heavyweight champ told veteran journalist Dominic Calder-Smith:

“What has happened here in America is the popularity of amateur boxing is not what it used to be,” said the former four-time champ and 1984 Olympic medalist. “We’re not paying enough attention to our amateur athletes. When you get no exposure and people don’t know who you are and can’t keep track of your career, that’s a problem. People were able to follow my career all the way from amateurs to the Olympics, my pro debut, my days as a cruiserweight and then as heavyweight champion of the world. They were able to see me grow as a fighter, they knew all about me, where I was coming from and what my dreams were.

“They don’t see that on TV anymore, so they don’t care so much. Today our athletes see how little attention they get and go into football or baseball or basketball instead.”

As usual, when Evander speaks about boxing, he is brilliantly accurate. Indeed, there are very few, if any, popular amateur boxers in America today. To be honest, I am not familiar with a single one outside of the 2008 Olympicans Demetrius Andrade and Rau’shee Warren. The American boxing media focuses exclusively on the professional scene. To my knowledge, none of the U.S. boxing magazines provide any or even little amateur coverage, nor do the top web sites. However, rather interestingly, the most recent issue of Boxing News contained six pages of amateur boxing coverage as does every issue. And not coincidentally, Great Britain’s boxing team accomplished their best showing since 1956 with James DeGale winning gold and David Price and Tony Jeffries each earning bronze. The United States boxing team had it’s worst performance ever (just one bronze in Beijing). (Note: Russia had two gold winners and one bronze. Most outstanding boxer award went to Ukrainian featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko.)

Perhaps we as members of the American boxing media should heed the wise words of Evander Holyfield: and find a way to at once begin publicizing worthy American amateur boxers.

Scoop: mrbiofile@aol.com