Olympic Boxing

Quick - can you name just one member of this year's USA Olympic Boxing Team? If you can - you are in a distinct minority (or you're a relative of one of the team members).

I remember when Olympic boxing was one of the premiere sports of the summer games. Now nobody gives it a second thought. Think about it - boxing for team USA is where people like George Forman, Sugar Ray Leonard, Michael and Leon Spinks, Oscar De La Hoya and many more first found their boxing fame. Somehow I find it doubtful that the Greece Games will produce a boxing star anywhere close to the magnitude of any of those mentioned above.

Why the decline in interest? Is it just part of the overall decline in interest for boxing as a sport? Is it that there is now so many other Olympic sports that have been added and the crowded field of events dilutes the interest in any one sport? Probably the answer is a little of both.

Boxing has been in deep decline since the days of Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Larry Holmes. The Mike Tyson psychological circus sideshow helped slow the decline for a while but now boxing is just a mess. Not many superior athletic youths grow up with the specific dream of being a boxer these days. It's not where the money or glory is.

The public has turned away from boxing to get their "violence fix". Instead the average Joe six-pack now watches wrestling when he wants to see one man try to maim another man. Decades ago - it was wrestling that was the fringe "sport" and boxing that was the main event. Now the tables have been completely turned.

The dominance of wrestling over boxing has also extended to the Olympics. There will be more coverage of the heavyweight division in wrestling than in boxing this summer. Rulon Gardner emerged as a celebrity out of team USA's wrestling team last Olympics. Can you name a boxer who emerged with one-tenth the endorsement potential?

Additional events have also harmed the visibility of USA boxing. I can honestly say that I am more interested in how USA woman's softball does than how USA boxing does. That would not have been possible 8 years ago because softball wasn't an official Olympic sport back then.

Men's boxing now has to compete for mindshare with men's and women's tennis. It's a competition that boxing is losing in a big way.

Don't get me wrong - I hope a boxing superstar emerges from the ranks of USA's boxing team. I just don't see it happening the way it used to in the past.