Boxing, back in the day

I see these Knockout magazine cover and I can understand why I feel cheated when I watch boxing now days. I grew up watching boxing in the later 1940s-early ‘50s. It was an era when topnotch prospects fought each other on the under cards and top ranked fighters fought each other in the main events at the Olympic and the Hollywood Legion and other Southern California venues. Case in point, the Kenny Davis v Al Cruz fight, here we had two of the top amateur fighters and top pro prospects of their era fighting each other to see which one would move up the ladder of their chosen profession. Sometimes we would have a winner and a loser, sometimes a fight would ended up a draw, and when it did there would be a rematch. That is why, in my opinion, the greatest fighters in the sports history came from those years. Not saying we don’t have great fighters now days, we do, but we had more of them back in those bygone years

This is not a put-down on to-days fighters they fight who their promoters pick. Now day’s managers don’t play the important part they did back in those years. When a fighter sign-up with a promoter it’s the promoter calling the shot and said promoter is just concern with the bottom line.

My rant for the day on today’s boxing.