Teddy Atlas: "Today's era of boxing is nothing compared to the earlier era"

[SuckaPunch]

Not sure if you caught Teddy Atlas post-fight analysis of DLH-Pac. Brian Kenny asked Teddy where does this victory place Pacquiao in history.

Teddy cringed a bit and said there is no comparison between today's and the earlier days of boxing. Atlas specifically said that in the early days, there are less weight divisions and more importantly, there are about 15 to 20 guys that could 'legitimately' beat the champion in every division. Teddy also brought up the difficulty of competing in 15 rounders or even more.

Do you agree with Teddy's assessment that today's fighters are **** compared to yesterday's?

[cuzfozzy]

Emanuel Steward: "Wladimir has worked very intently. He knows what Rahman can do and takes him very seriously. We have big respect for Rahman, because he's a dangerous opponent."

yeah ... fighters back in the day complained if the referee stopped
the fight, these days they ask the ref to stop it ...

[-MAKAVELLI-]

PACMAN broke the Atlas curse

[m00ks]

Meh. There's so many intangibles in place. Fighters now are less active, can spend more time in traning which is a big advantage. Nutrition, traning techniques have also improved. Fighter styles have evolved into so many different types, hybrids of earlier fighters. We still have 15 round fighters although we don't have 15 round fight. Elite modern fighters are bred so well that I can't see how they would be inferior to the ones from an earlier era.

[Benny Leonard]

There was a bigger pool of fighters and just about every fighter had to win because they had smaller pay-checks. They weren't taking long breaks either, which can work against a fighter...but they needed to stay sharp and active because the other fighter was as well.

There are so many things to think about and discuss but we cannot just dismiss the new era fighters because there are good fighters as well; and well trained.

[Reggie Miller]

i agree with teddy.

[J.R.]

Not sure if you caught Teddy Atlas post-fight analysis of DLH-Pac. Brian Kenny asked Teddy where does this victory place Pacquiao in history.

Teddy cringed a bit and said there is no comparison between today's and the earlier days of boxing. Atlas specifically said that in the early days, there are less weight divisions and more importantly, there are about 15 to 20 guys that could 'legitimately' beat the champion in every division. Teddy also brought up the difficulty of competing in 15 rounders or even more.

Do you agree with Teddy's assessment that today's fighters are **** compared to yesterday's?

Yeah I caught that and I remember him saying something to that effect. He didn't exactly say fighters today are **** compared to the latter days though. I think he was just trying to compare how different the level of competition is for fighters of today compared to those of the past. These days there's huge gaps in the skill sets of fighters. The guys at the top are usually much, much better than even those ranked only 5 spots underneath them. The level of competition just isn't there in today's boxing eras. It has much to do with the decline in popularity of the sport.

There were more tough guys back in those days as well. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of tough boxers out there today that can compete with any era, but there are few and far in between these days because of the pussification of fighters these days.

[nickphilli]

teddy atlas has **** for brains

[warp1432]

I agree that it was better and there was more competition to get excited and fighters were generally better, but I completely disagreed with his whole "Fighter's today can't compete with the fighter's of the past" shtick.

[The Hammer]

teddy atlas has **** for brains

True.

Teddy Atlas is sounding like an old man who is bitter because his time is almost over.

Boxing is better today than ever before!