The decline of the U.S. heavyweight is not a new phenomenon, but it is also difficult to pinpoint exactly why it began.<\/p>\n
The Athletic spoke to a multitude of boxing experts \u2014 fighters, coaches, pundits and promoters \u2014 for their view. A common refrain was how boxing had been squeezed out by the rise of other sports in the U.S. and the money big athletes can earn elsewhere, notably in basketball and American football, sports where the earning potential has sky-rocketed in the last two decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sports landscape in the U.S. has changed a lot,\u201d boxing manager Shelly Finkel, who worked with Tyson, Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, and now Wilder, tells The Athletic. \u201cWhen you have a large, young male athlete they may opt to go into football or basketball where they have large contracts paying them large amounts from the start.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is also a couple of years as a pro before you can make any money unless you\u2019re coming out of an amateur programme and being well known.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is not just money to be made in the professional game \u2014 where teams in the NBA and NFL will stock up on talent \u2014 but also colleges, who cast their nets wide to ensure no potential star is missed.<\/p>\n
Scholarships offer a chance of education as well as high-class training facilities. Beaten-down boxing gyms and a professional career in a sport where fighters often don\u2019t know when the next fight or pay cheque is coming is not so attractive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decline of the U.S. heavyweight is not a new phenomenon, but it is also difficult to pinpoint…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-582136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}