The demise of the American heavyweights (pt2-The future is bleak)

The downfall of the American heavyweights has been so amazingly stark because of what followed. Whenever a none American held a title there was always an American there to win it back. Go back to even the early days of James Corbett and John L Sullivan and the early non-US champions didn't hold the division's title for long. Fighters like Bob Fitzsimmons (a British born fighter who would become a US citizen before becoming champion) and Tommy Burns (a Canadian) were both beaten by Americans for the title. The 1930's saw a German and an Italian becoming champion but both of those were beaten by Americans (Jack Sharkey beating Max Schmeling and Max Baer beating Primo Carnera). The division always had Americans to pick up the title up, right now however they don't have one. The emerging American heavyweights just simply aren't good enough to re-establish the American control. The once thriving amateur system which gave up a series of champions including Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, The Spinks brothers , Evander Holyfield and Ray Mercer has all but vanished.

The following fighters are the under 30 year olds and from America ranked by Boxrec.com.
The first list are fighters from the top 100. (True as of 9th February 2011)
The second list contains only unbeaten American heavyweights under 30 ranked between 100-150 by boxrec.com

With only 10 fighters under 30 ranked in the top 100 the future is bleak for American heavyweight boxing at the moment. The problem is multi-layered though. For some reason not only are fighters not managing to be good enough to break the championship reigns of the Klitschko's, both Chambers and Arreola have lost to a Klitschko, both by stoppage. Banks was stopped by Tomasz Adamek in an IBF Cruiserweight title fight, so why can't the top Americans at least put up a good battle?

Although these aren't all the reasons these are worth considering:

1. The amateur system in America has completely gone. They've only had one heavyweight or Super Heavyweight Olympic medal winner (Wilder) since 1996 (when Nate Jones also won Bronze). The last fighters to do better than bronze were both in 1988 (Ray Mercer won Gold and Riddick Bowe won Silver), both world champions.

2. Fighters are being brought along badly. Wilder is a prime example of this. Wilder has yet to face any sort of a test, his best win is over Harold Sconiers and Wilder was dropped in that fight. Sconiers had come in to the fight with a record of 17-20-2 and had won only 3 fights in 10 years (with 15 losses in that time period). Compare this to Tyson Fury who's best win is his rematch of John McDermott. A big difference

3. The drive and fire has gone. In the past fighters wanted to get themselves to the top for the big money, they were fighting their way out of the gutter. Now a days fighters haven't got that same burning desire to get the mega pay days. Fighters like Jack Dempsey and James J Braddock weren't the most skilled but they needed to win to feed their family's. We see the desire with Timothy Bradley but not a single American heavyweight.

4. Fighters figures. American heavyweights have a knack of being one of two things, either fat and out of shape (Chris Arreola is a prime example of this though many of the others suffer from the same problem) or are picked for their athletic size. People like Tye Fields made a name for themselves due to size, Wilder could end up the same. He's athletic and a big guy but lacks the desire to reach the top.

5. Fighters are turning to the sport too late. Wilder turned to it around 20^th birthday, Seth Mitchell did the same and many others have also done it. This has given Wilder an excuse to be brought along slowly (very limited amateur experience) but he's not learning anything the way he's been brought along.
   
   For the American heavyweights to get back on top what they need isn't an athlete like Wilder, or a power house like Arreola or Mitchell, what they need is someone with desire who takes up the sport at a young age and is allowed to be brought along properly. There doesn't appear to be any fighters from the US that are getting moved along well from a young age, Hanks is perhaps the best matched of the unbeaten fighters but that's really not saying much.
   
   Hopefully, for the sake of American boxing, a fighter will burst onto the scene, at the moment no one seems likely too.

To Boxrec.com for the rankings used through out this article
To http://www.youtube.com/user/jamisonsarrington (for the Wilder v Nichols video)