Is the "Old vs New" debate unique to boxing?

[Humean]

Boxing is fighting, not tennis. Another thing is boxing is a hell of a lot older than other sports, other sports advanced because they went from smoking cigs and only playing pick up games, to serious full time athletes. Boxers have been conditioning advocates since 2000 years ago. Even before the markess of the queensbury boxing was huge.

3rd, we have footage of older fighters and they are a hell of a lot more impressive than what we see today. They were serious. No cellphones and twitter, just the cold hard streets and a boxing gym.

Professionalism in sports has only really occurred in the past few decades. The whole attitude to sport has changed substantially. Yes we have footage, perhaps you need your eyes tested though. When Henry Armstrong tried to put on more weight to fill out better at welterweight dp you know what method he used? Did he try to build more muscle, perhaps use steroids? No he drank more beer.

What are you basing good shape off of? How they look in the mirror? Back in the day a day job was construction work with hardly any power tools. Today its sitting at a desk in a call center. There are 0 modern advancements that allow someone to keep a high level of cardiovascular endurance from doing nothing. There are things to make you look pumped up thats about it.

Manual Labour also takes a lot out of you, rest is vitally important. A lot of guys from the 40s were working long hours in the day doing manual labour and then spending a couple of hours a night either training or fighting. This is certainly a formula for preventing yourself from getting fat but not necessarily to getting yourself into peak condition.

[billeau2]

Boxing is fighting, not tennis. Another thing is boxing is a hell of a lot older than other sports, other sports advanced because they went from smoking cigs and only playing pick up games, to serious full time athletes. Boxers have been conditioning advocates since 2000 years ago. Even before the markess of the queensbury boxing was huge.

3rd, we have footage of older fighters and they are a hell of a lot more impressive than what we see today. They were serious. No cellphones and twitter, just the cold hard streets and a boxing gym.

Thats what people fail to see. Combat is different than sports for many reasons and boxing like all fight sports is a hybrid of the two.

Heres a comparison that might help people: We have had vehicles that can go to a top speed that a hydrocarbon engine can attain for over a century... The actual technology for a gas burning engine has not changed much with respect to the mechanics of how an engine functions. Sure. people have created new burn ratios, better compression mechanisms for an engine, etc... But one has to make a distinction here between the ability of the engine to perform and the efficiency, design of the engine at different times.

The "fight" aspect of fight sports is the actual performance of the engine by anology....In other words what a person can attain in combat has actually changed little: for example, what many people do not realize is that the classical systems of battle tested Japanese Feudal Ju Jutsu systems were refined over many battles and the techniques written down so they could tell what was useful. This was how actual technical development took place...BUT HERE IS THE KICKER

In these arts, inevitably there would be the guys who were often, slow of mind, strong as an ox, and tough as nails...when the schools wanted to build a fighter they used these guys. They had little value for this sort of competitor...same in China where fighting was used in monasteries like the Shao Lin, as "skillful means" to teach the same type of person to be gentle and humble.

The real value to professional Samurai in their arts, was the teachers and succesorship of the art (teahers not being killed in battle, having sons to carry on the art, etc) and the process of evolving the art based on exprience on the battle field. There are many stories of Menkyo Kudan (succesorship) being passed from the head of the art, in his last dying breath to even a rival, so the art may continue past his end...because Japan was a literate culture, learned from the hienan period Chinese scholars who taught Japanese nobility, these arts were preserved in scrolls to be developed further.

At a certain time in history we no longer settled conflict on a battlefield and fighting arts did not evolve this way any further. The arts were changed into sports and self perfection mechanisms...this is hardly ideal in evolving an art for combat conditions! And that is what we have to start combative sports! Of course this has been repeated through history... In Egypt soldgers coming home from Libyan crusades had learned wrestling for the battle field, and this could be taught as a sport to the youth to further develop mind and body as well as military asperations.

In Japan this became the BUDO arts (karate do, Ken do, Ju do and Aiki do) in China, Chinese boxing became Kung Fu which translates as "dilligent effort", and in Europe the modern canon of fencing developed...eventually rules for fighting duels were codified with the Marquis of Queensbury developing modern boxing procedure. See the pattern here?

Its very important to recognize that unlike sports, combat activities went through a process of loss to start with. Thats my point here. From military precision and life and death these arts became somewhat watered down...at least initially.

james Figg took fencing techniques which had already went through a blue period where design became more fashion than fighting and developed boxing.... From his procedures, over a relatively short time, boxing went through changes....the rounds were changed, the gloves were changed, before first being developed as a way to practice to being used in the actual boxing matches and eventually trainers deviated from fencing and developed a vocabulary for punches thrown.

No sport developed like this. it was not until the 1960's that people in Judo even acknowledged that the physical strength of a man could make or break him as a champion. This happened when Geesink the first westerner got a gold medal in Judo as a heavyweight. Judo, incidentally is a great example.

JUDO HAS NOT GOTTEN better in modern times! And that is also relevent to this discussion. JUDO players today are struggling to maintain the high standards of technical excellence that characterized the sport in decades past. But many that would develop into great judo players choose MMA, or some pursuite where money can be made. There are simply less gifted teachers around because there is less interst and less patronage for Judo as a whole.

Boxing also has to contend with more pursuites for gifted athletes, better money in other sports, etc. Fighters also start later and do not have the long mentorship that characterized ages past.

So there you have it...Fight sports are a different animal than sports...I won't characterize as "better or worse" but will say there is no evidence that athletes today are better in fight sports, only different in some respects....as a matter of fact many MMA heavyweights look like the old heavyweights used to look in boxing, with no spare fat whatsoever.

[billeau2]

Professionalism in sports has only really occurred in the past few decades. The whole attitude to sport has changed substantially. Yes we have footage, perhaps you need your eyes tested though. When Henry Armstrong tried to put on more weight to fill out better at welterweight dp you know what method he used? Did he try to build more muscle, perhaps use steroids? No he drank more beer.




Manual Labour also takes a lot out of you, rest is vitally important. A lot of guys from the 40s were working long hours in the day doing manual labour and then spending a couple of hours a night either training or fighting. This is certainly a formula for preventing yourself from getting fat but not necessarily to getting yourself into peak condition.

Peak condition can be judged by performance alone. The ultimate arbitrator for this attainment is in things such as punches thrown, movement executed during a time period, etc. In all these categories we see that fighters were always able with the one exception being some modern fighters who are not in shape....one would be hard pressed to find a guy like Chris Aereolla fighting in the 1940's looking like that.

[Humean]

Peak condition can be judged by performance alone. The ultimate arbitrator for this attainment is in things such as punches thrown, movement executed during a time period, etc. In all these categories we see that fighters were always able with the one exception being some modern fighters who are not in shape....one would be hard pressed to find a guy like Chris Aereolla fighting in the 1940's looking like that.

You can measure these things objectively these days, you can measure an athletes maximal aerobic capacity using a metabolic cart, top fighters have access to these things now. Things have moved on from only relying on an old guy in some dingy gym.

Tony Galento? See, that was easy.

[Marchegiano]

Professionalism in sports has only really occurred in the past few decades. The whole attitude to sport has changed substantially. Yes we have footage, perhaps you need your eyes tested though. When Henry Armstrong tried to put on more weight to fill out better at welterweight dp you know what method he used? Did he try to build more muscle, perhaps use steroids? No he drank more beer.




Manual Labour also takes a lot out of you, rest is vitally important. A lot of guys from the 40s were working long hours in the day doing manual labour and then spending a couple of hours a night either training or fighting. This is certainly a formula for preventing yourself from getting fat but not necessarily to getting yourself into peak condition.

You are assuming based off what characters you do know most characters were similar. I'll say it like this. Onomastos ate right, trained right, was the extreme professional, and wrote the first how to on fighting. Tom Cribb wrote the script of diet in boxing. Daniel Mendoza wrote the script on the business of boxing. All three are far more professional than Andrien Broner ever dreamed of. All three were in better shape and health, and all three come from very very different points in history.


We, if we can mean boxing, have known what to eat and how to train for over a millennium, and at no point in history did we become as a whole unprofessional. Just because poor and or under educated characters exist doesn't mean boxing doesn't know better. Just because Armstrong was so great he could swill beer and still be great doesn't mean all of boxing thought the best way to get larger was to swill beer. Plenty, especially in training, look past present 'new ideas' back to staples that have always worked, and they always have. Why is Apollo Creed named thusly? Because we still remember our roots. Because we remember Apollo created boxing....but you think we've forgotten to what ends?


The training, the theories can all be traced back, and in all honesty not much of **** has changed since Sparta was showing Rome how to take an axe to the head without a helmet. There isn't much to change. It doesn't take a maverick genius to figure out what gives you tummy cramps.




you can tell me you have walked the places I have, and you can claim you have all the information I have, but we both know the truth. You have quite a bit of history to cover before you can speak with any authority on subjects pertaining to the past. Enough of the 'in the X era' vague nonsense. I know the names of the X and I do not agree. At no point, even during the illegal years and the height of christian nonsense, was boxing unprofessional as a whole. At no point where the upper rankings dominated by beer swilling fools. That's a story you've sold yourself based on weak surface level research. This sport is ancient, but it's gone through more hand wraps than diets and training principles. Those seem immortal. That is what the greats left us. You can't see Ono throw a punch, or Melankomas move and guard, but you can see their ideas their training in action. Philly did not even come close to inventing the philly shell, nutrition hasn't changed that dramatically in thousands of years, and at no point in history was man ever delusional about sleep and rest. Even the gods rest.


I know the world wants boxing and science to be hand-in-hand, but it isn't. In many ways science is still trying to figure out what boxing knows.

[Humean]

You are assuming based off what characters you do know most characters were similar. I'll say it like this. Onomastos ate right, trained right, was the extreme professional, and wrote the first how to on fighting. Tom Cribb wrote the script of diet in boxing. Daniel Mendoza wrote the script on the business of boxing. All three are far more professional than Andrien Broner ever dreamed of. All three were in better shape and health, and all three come from very very different points in history.


We, if we can mean boxing, have known what to eat and how to train for over a millennium, and at no point in history did we become as a whole unprofessional. Just because poor and or under educated characters exist doesn't mean boxing doesn't know better. Just because Armstrong was so great he could swill beer and still be great doesn't mean all of boxing thought the best way to get larger was to swill beer. Plenty, especially in training, look past present 'new ideas' back to staples that have always worked, and they always have. Why is Apollo Creed named thusly? Because we still remember our roots. Because we remember Apollo created boxing....but you think we've forgotten to what ends?


The training, the theories can all be traced back, and in all honesty not much of **** has changed since Sparta was showing Rome how to take an axe to the head without a helmet. There isn't much to change. It doesn't take a maverick genius to figure out what gives you tummy cramps.




you can tell me you have walked the places I have, and you can claim you have all the information I have, but we both know the truth. You have quite a bit of history to cover before you can speak with any authority on subjects pertaining to the past. Enough of the 'in the X era' vague nonsense. I know the names of the X and I do not agree. At no point, even during the illegal years and the height of christian nonsense, was boxing unprofessional as a whole. At no point where the upper rankings dominated by beer swilling fools. That's a story you've sold yourself based on weak surface level research. This sport is ancient, but it's gone through more hand wraps than diets and training principles. Those seem immortal. That is what the greats left us. You can't see Ono throw a punch, or Melankomas move and guard, but you can see their ideas their training in action. Philly did not even come close to inventing the philly shell, nutrition hasn't changed that dramatically in thousands of years, and at no point in history was man ever delusional about sleep and rest. Even the gods rest.


I know the world wants boxing and science to be hand-in-hand, but it isn't. In many ways science is still trying to figure out what boxing knows.

1: Of course i'm generalising, there were tremendously professional fighters in the 40s and some very unprofessional ones today with Adrien Broner certainly being one of them.

2: So the methods of ancient Greece cannot be superseded?

3: It makes far more sense to consider modern boxing as starting with the Marquess of Queensberry Rules than going all the way back to antiquity.

4: Apollo was a mythical deity.

5: OK I am really hoping that you are being satirical.

[juggernaut666]

A tremendous post.

And you rightfully took it a step further by elevating MMA too. By its very nature it has the most variables of the directly competitive combat sports and should theoretically display the quicker progress than even the punching restricted boxing.

And we see this confirmed in practice also, given how rapidly it has evolved in such a short time from its beginnings in the 90's until today.

Well done.

Alls one has to do is look at the longetivity of todays fighter ,many fighting well over 30 as compared to then where 30 was a death sentence and very few fighters maintained top performances and skills. Even last night i saw a FIT43 year old beating up a young undefeated olympic champion of 6'7 250 pounds and lost on a unlucky jaw fracture . Better nutrition ,training,and understanding all together of being smart and prepared are not really debatable its just the times now , its mind boggling anyone would challenge this just based on the age of what most fighters fight today in mid 30's ,and fighting more would have little effect on that number...as Lewis's nutritionist said them guys ran to much over trained to much and didnt have the nutrition science to repair the body with all the way they broke it down.

[Elroy1]

Yes pretty much 30 year olds of the 1930's were the equivalent of 50 year olds today.

In summary, the "Old vs New" debate, really isn't a debate at all...

It's just that the nutbaggery will always try to make it LOOK like there is a debate...

The overarching principles are thus...

Boxers in general get better and better from generation to generation..

Todays bums would have been yesterdays champs and most importantly...

Yesterdays champs would be today- absolute tomato cans!!

Those are the facts!

It is utterly unimaginable how effortlessly Chris Arreola could have squeezed every ounce of life out of someone like Joe Louis!

[rightsideup]

Alls one has to do is look at the longetivity of todays fighter ,many fighting well over 30 as compared to then where 30 was a death sentence and very few fighters maintained top performances and skills. Even last night i saw a FIT43 year old beating up a young undefeated olympic champion of 6'7 250 pounds and lost on a unlucky jaw fracture . Better nutrition ,training,and understanding all together of being smart and prepared are not really debatable its just the times now , its mind boggling anyone would challenge this just based on the age of what most fighters fight today in mid 30's ,and fighting more would have little effect on that number...as Lewis's nutritionist said them guys ran to much over trained to much and didnt have the nutrition science to repair the body with all the way they broke it down.

i think the you are correct in saying the longevity of athletes careers are going on a positive upswing injuries that were career threating 25yrs ago are being repaired and atheletes are having longer carreers.
There have been the exceptions in the sugar ray robinsons and roberto durans of yesteryear and for example kareem in basketball but as a whole atheletes are having longer more prosperous peak performance levels than the past.

[Elroy1]

i think the you are correct in saying the longevity of athletes careers are going on a positive upswing injuries that were career threating 25yrs ago are being repaired and atheletes are having longer carreers.
There have been the exceptions in the sugar ray robinsons and roberto durans of yesteryear and for example kareem in basketball but as a whole atheletes are having longer more prosperous peak performance levels than the past.

No, once again, that is simply a nut bag misjudgement OR a nut bag cover up of the real facts..

Basically I skimmed through all of those extensive posts from the more hardened nut bags above and what I found was misconception after misconception..

Some like Bill know that his opinions are nearly totally worthless and he doesn't even believe in them himself. But he knows if he posts really long winded amounts of BS there will be a lot of people who will just choose to accept he knows what's happening.

Specifically here, the only reason guys like Robinson had such extensive careers is because of the extreme bumminess of their competition.

It's obvious that nobody can have 3 figures worth of fights on their record AND have compiled it against good competition!

In fact the opposite is true. Where ever you see this amount of fights, you can be fully assured the fighter was a bum buster mainly!

Today it would be completely unacceptable behaviour for a champion boxer to fight such trash as did Robinson. And the media, sanctioning bodies and fan bases would simply not tolerate it.