It's not the pbag itself that's the problem, it's what it stood for; sitting there with your attack verb macroed to gain power.
You can't have a boxing game without punching bags and shadow boxing. You're going to have to figure out how to make those work.
Have you ever played Ready to Rumble 2? If not I recommend you find a copy. It's training system had a very nice way of doing things.
To start with you could only train so much per day. Then to train you completed tasks, with how well you completed them playing a part in how much you gain/lose in each skill area.
Certian dates were "event dates" on which things happened. Such as show fights (to get money) and tournament fights.

I think it'd be good to have "stress points". At the dawn of each day your stress points go down depending on how little you did that day. During the day when you're doing stuff (training, fighting, etc) your stress points go up.
The more stressed you are the less effective everything you do is. Although likewise if you start going too far into the negative your preformance will suffer.

Skill wouldn't so much be gained as maintained. You start out weak but you slowly gain skill until eventually you get to a point where the gain stops. If you stop training/being active then you'll start to get weak again after a while.


As for money I think it'd be better if you don't have a dollar amount for how much money you've got. Instead use a class type system. You've got access to things based on your class.
Your class is just what job you have or the level of sponsorship you've got. Everyone starts out with crappy jobs (although you never actually have to go to it). Work hard and you'll get promoted and such, but your stress level will rise meaning less training time.
Basically every day you choose how hard you're going to work tomorrow.
You can quit at any time and either look for a job or rely on your sponsorship money.
After winning some major fights sponsors get interested. You can choose to turn them down or accept their offers. It's a lot less stressful then a job (since it just means appearing in an ad or two every now and then). It's also hard to keep sponsors happy when you've got too many. So if you start saying yes to every offer you'll end up getting less and less money and risk losing sponsors.
Sponsors are picky about what stuff you use as well. They always want you using their product, which is easy enough if you've just got one small time sponsor, however once you get into the big stuff you'll find you have to use brand X gloves and mouth guards but brand Y wants you to wear their mouth guard.


Now you're probably thinking that with all these system the players are going to get bored. That's why I'd shift the focus from fighting each other and getting stronger to training with each other and general non-major fight player on player interaction.
So while you only spar a couple of times a day everyone gathers around and watches each other spar/train.

Personally I'd make a big city for the boxers to live in. Lots of Gyms and parks to jog in.

Airjoe wrote:

Well, I think I'm going to try and recreate BYOND Boxing [by camaro] or a new game based on it. But, unlike Byong boxing, I don't want to have Pbags and shadowboxing and punching ATM machines for money. What's a better way for skill gaining and such?

Thanks!
<-Airjoe->

PBags were one of my favourite powerups in Zelda. So much EXP. ;P

Fighting should have a side view, with icons maybe 64x96, because you're just going to have two people on the screen duking it out. Then, NORTHWEST, WEST, and SOUTHWEST can get three different attacks set to them, which will last the entire round. After each round, you're allowed to change one of them. Keys NORTH, CENTER, and SOUTH will block, which will generally allow you to jab the other person with a quick attack while they're still recovering from their huge punch. Keys NORTHEAST, EAST, and SOUTHEAST will allow you to block and retreat, which will give you a bigger defensive advantage, and would move you back a step, allowing you to use jabs (which have a slightly longer reach) and be out of the range of other hits (like a sock to the jaw).

The point is that you'd have some idea what your opponent is going to be doing each round, and would have to choose what your technique for the round will be.