I was a kid during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. The USA team from '76 was unreal (Sugar Ray Leonard, the Spinks brothers, and other greats). Made me fall in love with boxing. I particularly loved amateur boxing. ABC Wide World of Sports had this show called USA vs. the World where they would show the USA team in duel meets (USA vs. Cuba, USA vs. USSR, USA vs. Ireland, etc.). It was great.

Then, one of the most under reported sports stories ever happened in 1980 when in traveling to one of these duel meets (USA vs. Poland), the USA team's plane crashed in Warsaw. The great coach Sarge Johnson and the probably the best pound-for-pound amateur in the country if not the world, Lemuel Steeples perished along with his teammates. 30-for-30 needs to do a story on this.

After that, US boycott of Moscow Games in 1980, Soviet/Eastern Bloc boycott of 1984, and it was down hill since then.

I also think the fight game in the inner city has gone down hill as well. The toughest of the tough, and the best of the best (usually had supervision in organized programs) that developed them into refined fighters. From the '90s on, I think it became all the rage to do other things, like being absorbed in the gang culture, etc.




[Post edited by Maroon Baboon at 08/03/2017 09:50AM]