Is this era of boxing watered down

Actually the 2 nut bag arguments "Boxing is dead/dying" and "Yesterdays boxers would have trumped today's" have been going on every decade since the 1880's!!! According to the OTNB community (Old Time Nut Bags) such as Ray Corso.. Boxing has been getting progressively worse and worse every decade the last 150 years. Obviously there's something wrong with this picture! What is clear is that progress was agonisingly slow from 1880-1980. That century was characterised by dark throes of religious nutbaggery which hampered and sports science being applied to it. From 1980-present we see an explosion of difference which can be seen readily just by looking at the boxers. Prior to 1980 it was hard to distinguish a boxer from an ordinary bloke and the fights looked similar to what we'd see in school or at the pub. Forever after there would be no mistaking a prize fighter from an ordinary person just by looking at them and certainly by watching them fight. Everybody knows that guys like Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis would be knocked out by 1 or 2 guys in nearly every bar in Adelaide today. That's just a cold hard fact!

I would like to hear/see what they said about the 70s/80s/90s in the time the decades were happening. Probably similar comments to what we see now, guys talking about how the 1930-1960s boxers were so much more manlier. I do remember someone posting an article of The Ring from 50 years ago saying boxing is dying/dead. Crazy, nothing has changed. I think boxing today is the same sh*t as always, I call bullsh*t on anything else.

slap and run is not boxing. Muhammad Ali was defensive orientated, how did he end up all scrambled. It's a roll of the dice each time that you step up to fight, but you wouldn't know anything about that.......:boxing: Oh please man.. Online fight video's have been around for a decade now. Just about everybody knows now that Ali was the epitome of the punch bag who'se entire style was based around letting his opponent punch themselves out on his face and body. This only works when your opponents are weak! I can assure you that today's boxing is definitely NOT slap and run... Even Mayweather definitely is no slapper, except when it comes to his girlfriends. Basically if the style is successful, then it's a good style! If punch baggery was still a good style, then guys would still be employing it! The only guys who DO still employ it are the very heavily built shorter solid bull types who relentlessly push forward with superior strength and chin. And they almost always fail against the super-tall boxer punchers.

Boxing is the toughest sport to do by far, even over other more complete combat sports I reckon because you are restricted to solely strike and not wrestle, the exception being kickboxing which is obviously of a much weaker calibre mainly and is basically for guys who can't cut it as proper boxers. As for Ellerbe Exposed's comment regarding Rockin and Ray's progressive brain damage.. :lol1: That was a good one :rofl: If I were Rockin' I would seriously be considering my lifestyle choices... Too much time spent with punch bag era coaches like Ray leads to dementia.. Embracing the modern ideals of boxing, like trying not to get hit back, can lead to greatness with far less risk of permanent disability.

scariest sport has to be motorcycle roadracing, so many of the riders bite it before retirement if boxing had that many fatalities every year it would be banned for sure we just get lots of guys with slowly worsening braindamage who end up like rockin/ray corso

Boxing is not a game that you play. You will never fully comprehend or appreciate the extreme danger of the sport until you do it. For real.......:boxing: Yeah, right. Watch this and then tell me there is more 'extreme danger' in boxing.

fighter quality: never been higher matchmaking quality: lowest point in decades

Boxing and baseball are sports that are the same decades later. There arent new tricks to the trade. The sport didnt evolve. If anything there is youtube now and some cross training workouts. Thats about it.

The era isn't watered down. The sport just isn't as big in the US so not as many young boys are picking up the sport at an early age as they used to. Boxing seems to be flourishing in other countries so I don't know if It's watered down just because its not as big as in the US. The problem is fans are getting stupid. They value power over skills. So what happens is guys that are highly skilled and the most well rounded can fight and dominate longer. Similar to basketball, where guys like Kobe, Tim and Paul Pierce still flourish because most of the guys in the league specialize in only 1 aspect of the game.

This era is the best era of boxing any way you slice it. It is the best lb for lb (nowhere was there anybody as good as Pac or Mayweather for example) and ESPECIALLY at HW where based purely on size alone, few fighters from history would be able to succeed even before we consider anything else. Every era is generally better than the ones that preceded it because boxers get better and fitter and stronger from generation to generation. Obviously! Look at the HW division. At no point, not even in the 90's, was there ever so many formidable opponents at one time. What.......?

It's a mix of being watered down. Different fighters with different styles fighting through out the year and some of these styles are boring but they gotta fill up those spots with someone because the names want to much. Its not like it was where the big names fought 4-5 times a year on free TV or stacked Ppv cards. It's also a mix of people being to attached to flashiness and like others said if a fighter gets hit to hard or takes an L he gets written off so these fighters go out there trying to take the least amount of damage, get the biggest check, or fight past it or low class fighters to protect that O.

This era is the best era of boxing any way you slice it. It is the best lb for lb (nowhere was there anybody as good as Pac or Mayweather for example) and ESPECIALLY at HW where based purely on size alone, few fighters from history would be able to succeed even before we consider anything else. Every era is generally better than the ones that preceded it because boxers get better and fitter and stronger from generation to generation. Obviously! Look at the HW division. At no point, not even in the 90's, was there ever so many formidable opponents at one time. http://i.imgur.com/2uOBamR.gif

This era is the best era of boxing any way you slice it. It is the best lb for lb (nowhere was there anybody as good as Pac or Mayweather for example) and ESPECIALLY at HW where based purely on size alone, few fighters from history would be able to succeed even before we consider anything else. Every era is generally better than the ones that preceded it because boxers get better and fitter and stronger from generation to generation. Obviously! Look at the HW division. At no point, not even in the 90's, was there ever so many formidable opponents at one time.

Four organisations, a proliferation of 'regular' and interim titles when they're not needed, top contenders actively avoiding one another & a lack of clarity in the million or so weight classes that exist in this sport. Is this even a serious question?

Depends on what you by watered down. There is a lot of boxing talent out there, that is not the problem. It is now ran by money, so fighters don't care about fighting the best. The promoters are to blame for not matching fighters unless they own both fighters. The fighters are to blame because of bs rule changes (huge rings, pillow gloves and catch weights). Also fighters only fight once or twice a year when they make it big. There are too many champs (at least 4 per division and too many divisions). Crooked sanctioning bodies rank fighters who fight "bums" (real ones not top guys that people on this site think are bums) Deontay Wilder fought some many contenders he earned a shot right? They should go back to 15 rounds for real title fights, the top 4 should join to make one champ per division.

This is true.. for the U.S. at least.. but I think you are forgetting about the rest of the world, where in many places, Boxing is bigger than ever before and continues to grow.. I agree. Us athletes are becoming soft. And they also choose team sports or mma to avoid being punched

Fights aren't happening and it's really frustrating. We're getting fed useless fight after useless fight.

And everyone thinks they are Floyd Trying to stay undefeated Floyd faced tough guys on the come up. He only started picking and choosing once he became a ppv star. These guys now aren't doing that. Haymon should have made the best match ups for the start of his Pbc series Thurman Guerrero was good . Peterson Garcia was good too but should have had these type of match ups every week at the beginning The first impression is the most important

Absolutely People screaming robbery for close fights Fighters quitting knowing al haymon is gonna give them another payday

I think to some extent it is watered down because there is a lot more money to go around and a lot less incentive to put your career and health on the line. That isn't really a bad thing, but I think some changes need to be made to keep things competitively interesting. I think there really is no shortage of talented guys in boxing right now. To me, that isn't the problem at all. The problem falls on the mess of belts and divisions. You have guys creating their own divisions, belts have almost no meaning, nobody needs to fight each other, and guys all over the map are just fighting for the biggest payday. Basically the only rule that carries weight in boxing now is money. The pride of being the world champ has been watered down by conflicting promoters, politics, sanctioning bodies and a complete lack of organization in the sport in general. That isn't really a bad thing?????? Should hockey players stop laying down the body checks because it makes the game safer for them but more boring for the fans? Should football defensive lines stop trying to sack the QB because someone might get hurt and it's safer for them? Maybe there should be a speed limit at the Indy 500 so that when a car crashes it is less dangerous for the driver? These guys are all paid the millions of dollars they make BECAUSE what they do is dangerous to their health and to their lives. They are not paid that money to play it safe. When the day comes that a race car driver is more concerned about making it to the end of the race alive, it is time for him to retire. When an defensive tackle starts to worry about head injuries or hurting the QB of the other team, time to retire. When a hockey player starts to worry about getting hit in the head with a shot or getting his throat cut with a skate blade to the point it has an effect on his game, it is time to retire. These athletes are paid MILLIONS of dollars to play games for a living. They make more than the rulers of countries who have millions of people depending on their decisions and actions. They are PRIVILEGED and if they are not willing to put everything on the line each minute they are practicing their sport, they should go work at a minimum wage job like many of the people who pay 80 bucks, which for many is a lot of money, to watch them dance and run for 40 minutes during a PPV. And I would be willing to say exactly the same thing to ANY fighter or athlete right to their face if they bitch about how dangerous their job is. The average night clerk at a 7-11 in the US has a more dangerous job that these pampered superstars because any night of the week some lunatic may come in to rob him and leave him dead on the floor.