Boxing question

[bigdawg2003]

I doubt I would be considered a true boxing fan by anybody, but with the excitement building in me for tommorow's Ward-Gatti fight and the potenial for some very exciting heavyweight bouts in the near future, I really want to try and learn everything I can about boxing. Where's a good place to start?

[bosshogg23]

I am gonna assume you know the rules of boxing(if not feel free to speak up).

ESPN.com offers a VERY basic boxing page. It lists only major fighters and incidents involving those people. You can get limited information regarding their Friday Night Fights(ESPN 2 9pm EST). They tend to show fighters who used to be considered "good" but their careers have slipped and sometimes they show upcoming prospects. The commentary is usually quite good in the pre/post fight sections. You can hear about upcoming bouts and rising stars along with the major boxing news.

Maxboxing.com is a website for much more serious fans. They detail quite a number of fights and have 4-5 new articles per day. There is a premium section(I dont get it) but the free stuff is about 2 articles per day. The best boxing site out there IMO.

USAToday.com is the best major newspaper for covering boxing. There site is a little slow with news sometimes but you can get alot more there than in local papers.

Pound for Pound lists on any of these pages will give you a very good idea of who is considered an upper echelon fighter.

When NBC returns with boxing on Saturdays, it has been renewed, you can see many quality prospects. Not sure what date it is returning, certainly this summer.

The sites I would avoid are the sanctioning bodies web pages. They are full of crap information and they blow smoke up your ass. Half of them are under investigation at all times so dont bother!

Just a side note, when the Summer Olympics return next year, watch as much boxing as you can. You really get to see the upcoming prospects before they are famous.

[sabotai]

bosshogg,

How oftan to medal winners in the Olympics become stars in their division? I always hear about this fighter won gold, this fighter won bronze in this year, etc. etc. Do the medal winners routinly become stars?

[bosshogg23]

Vassili Jirov, Vladimir Klitchko, Joe Frazier, Lennox Lewis, Muhammad Ali, Oscar De La Hoya, George Foreman, Ray Mercer, Leon and Michael Spinks, Floyd Patterson and Ray Leonard all won gold medals.

For more contemporary fighters, Chris Byrd, Riddick Bowe, Antonio Tarver won medals that werent gold.

Roy Jones Jr & Evander Holyfield both didnt win gold.

I would say that of the American boxing team, half become good prospects with 1-2 on each team becoming champions/stars. Just a guess on my part though.

*edit* Here is a list of boxing medal winners, its pretty impressive. Olympic Medal Winners

From the 2000 Olympics, Jermain Taylor is the big star and considered a future champion.

Just a side note for boxing fans, Kirk Johnson was injured today and cancelled his fight against Lennox Lewis. Lewis is looking for a replacement fighter. Vitali Klitschko is considered a possible replacement. He is fighting on the undercard of the bout so he would be in shape. Would be a great replacement and probably save the card from being awful.

Here is another possibility for that fight. "Chris Byrd, of course, volunteered to step in and replace his buddy Johnson. The IBF title-holder said, "I haven't seriously trained in six months, but I'm never really out of shape. I'd be ready by next Saturday." This is from Maxboxing.com

[sabotai]

I'd love to see Byrd beat Lewis.