AHC: Switch Cultures of Boxing and Wrestling

[Polyphemus]

Apologies if the title is confusing, it's a little difficult to put this concisely.

Basically, what changes need to be made for wrestling to be a serious, legitimate, respected sport like boxing is IOTL? The match is not choreographed nor is the outcome predetermined, two wrestlers simply meet in the ring and grapple in major prizefights in Atlantic City. Youth outreach programs are often in the form of wrestling classes, the mob tries to fix wrestling matches, Oscar-winning movies are made about wrestlers.

Conversely, how can we make boxing into the pure entertainment that is wrestling? One where well-trained athletes assume larger than life personae and punch one another in choreographed displays of skill in service to a larger storyline? Boxers that pretend to be werewolves, boxers playing heavies in action films, a much more niche audience.

 

[Elektronaut]

I'll dispute that boxing is a respected sport. It's a massively corrupt sport which even today regularly has "unusual" marking of fights by judges in big fights, and has some absolutely atrocious people in it. It's not seen as particularly out of the norm when (as happened recently) one of the biggest global heavyweights thanks a major organsied crime figure for helping in the arranging of a fight. It's not that long ago that it was a pretty mainstream view that it should be banned. It's really always had a strong social fringe aspect to it.

 

[Polyphemus]

Boxing and organized crime have always been linked- Don King used to run number rackets in Cleveland before getting into promoting, just for one example. However, I'm talking more about the general public perception as an honest sport- where wrestling is acknowledged even by fans to be fake, most people believe that boxing comes down to the skill of the individual boxers.

 

[Coiler]

The thing is that pro/catch wrestling turned into scripted spectacles because seeing the legit version of it was often very, very dull. Wrestling-heavy mixed martial artists like Jon Fitch and Antonio McKee have a reputation as being sedate "lay and pray" fighters. Now imagine that without a strict time limit. Meanwhile, Queensbury rules and time limited rounds for boxing were adopted because bare-knuckle fights were turning into long clinchfests where combatants would frequently fall down on purpose for the sake of getting a rest (because that ended a round.)

So what you need is something to speed up/limit wrestling while the attempts to do so with boxing fall through.

 

[Charles EP M.]

So what you need is something to speed up/limit wrestling while the attempts to do so with boxing fall through.

Admiral-Lord Mountevans rules, resurrected as British Round rules by WWE NXT UK (and I've seen at an indie show - which included them taking 'corner breaks' ala boxing as part of the gimmick) are six three-minute-maximum rounds where two falls wins. These were still planned in advance rather than being real, and this was to better fake it was real, but you could've done a real wrestling match that way.