The Boxing Scene Mentoring Program

[The Old LefHook]

Lol. So, to be clear....clarity being increasing elusive at my age....Am I Wispy?

Yes, you are. Glad to meet yourself.

[The Old LefHook]

I can see how you draw your conclusions while discussing or doubting the greatness of Chavez, Tyson or Ali. There's nothing wrong with being speculative and breaking down a respective fighter's resume to put it into context. I used the same unpopular argument you did for Chavez when I critiqued Monzon. The difference for me is that Chavez actually fought some excellent fighters in their prime, while Monzon scalped some big names while they were either moving up in weight and/or on the down-slide of their careers. He padded his record with about 80 Argentinean journeymen before finally stepping into the ring with some recognized competition.

My stance on Ali is similar to yours. I felt he received a lot of breaks and gifts because of his stature and status as a money maker and media sensation. Not to say he wasn't a great HW champion, but he had a lot of help along the way with fixed Liston fights, and controversial decisions over Jones, Frazier, Norton, Shavers and Young. He feasted on a lot of much smaller and older fighters too. Still, he never ducked an opponent and always gave it his all. He was a flawed fighter and certainly not "The Greatest" as the casual media would have everyone believe.

Tyson was a polarizing figure. Fans love knockouts, and on that count, Tyson delivered. One can argue his opponents were not top tier talent, while others may argue Tyson just made them look that way. I point to Tyrell Biggs as an underrated victory for Tyson. He was an Olympic Gold medalist who defeated Lennox Lewis and was undefeated going into their fight. He was the much bigger man at 6'5", and Tyson figured him out quickly and made easy work of him. Tyson also doesn't get enough credit for his win over Spinks. For all the talk of Spinks being a LHW, he had fought at HW in four fights prior to Tyson, he was only 7 pounds lighter and stood at least 4 inches taller. One of the greatest LHW's to enter the right and beat Holmes fair and square in two contests. I think it was Tyson's mental state that marked his downfall, not so much his physical abilities or boxing skill.

We certainly agree that Bowe was indeed a ducker and a dirty fighter to boot. He never impressed me, and his thug of a manager was a dark cloud over boxing at that time.

Chicken mentors egg. Dempsey on Nash.

[Bundana]

Yeah but fighting 12 times a year is much better for conditioning both mentally and physically than fighting twice a year. The win ratio doesn’t mean AS much although 90-0 is still better than 40-0 but I can agree that doesn’t mean as much. But being undefeated in general means **** all, because you won’t ever lose if you never face anyone who can beat you.

but make no mistake fighting 12 times a year would make you a better, sharper fighter. This was back when a tune up was a real thing. The timing is different with small gloves, the defense is different, the power etc etc

and chavez wasnt an “olden” times fighter. He fought a lot os scrubs in mexico because thats how he ate. There wasnt much of an amateur scene. Once he hit the big stage he fought around the same as everyone else.

an “olden” times resume would be one where the rules allowed a fighter to step in the ring once a month if not more. This is how they got 200+ fights and thats on top of an ammy record

There was never a time, when fighting 12 times a year was the "norm"! Back in the day, a few (relative to all the active boxer) had very high numbers... but the VAST majority had, on average, far fewer fights!

[The Old LefHook]

There was never a time, when fighting 12 times a year was the "norm"! Back in the day, a few (relative to all the active boxer) had very high numbers... but the VAST majority had, on average, far fewer fights!

I was not aware the phenomenon was not across the board. I assumed fighters in general used to have more fights. This is not the case?

[Willie Pep 229]

I was not aware the phenomenon was not across the board. I assumed fighters in general used to have more fights. This is not the case?

I don't think it dipped in any one decade from the1920s (where it was at its height,) to the 1970s but declined slowly with each passing decade - television money, once it began to become paramount in the1980s (not 50s television) had a great impact on the game and by the 21st Century the number of fights dipped dramatically.

Teofimo Lopez's carrer stands as a model of the new 21st C fighter.

But I think you're both correct. It did decline over the decades but even in the late 40s you could still find many work horses ****ing out a living.

P.S. I am aware that 1950sTV caused the failure of many small fight clubs but I was referencing the amount of money available and a fighter's NEED to fight multiple times, not his opportunities.

[QueensburyRules]

- - I'm working on Leffy, giving him the names of denture manufacturers willing to install a chip in his dentures so he can find them before he posts in a toofless state on this forum.

[The Old LefHook]

I did not assign a mentor to Starship ******.

I am hoping Bundana will take this crucial assignment. I am going to go put it in the main assignments post right now.

[Bundana]

I was not aware the phenomenon was not across the board. I assumed fighters in general used to have more fights. This is not the case?

Apologies for not getting back to you sooner! I have been quite busy these past couple of days - but better late than never, as they say.

As for your question, most boxing enthusiasts probably believe, that the old-timers had this crazy schedule, with a new fight every month or so - resulting in these 200+ fight careers. I mean, this is what we have been told for years, right? And while it's true, that some boxers back in the day did fight that often (in some cases even several times a month), this was far from the "normal" career.

To get some actual numbers on the table, I made a small study of 400 randomly picked boxers from August 1930. I chose that year, because it's the busiest registered by BoxRec - both as far as number of active boxers (30,006) and total number of fights (49,612) are concerned. I picked August, as it was usually one of the busier month back then, with weather conditions allowing both indoor and outdoor promotions.

So, to cut a long story short, I started on August 1, and worked my way through the first 400 boxers listed by BoxRec for that month. So I think, I this way had a pretty random sample to work with.

I then looked at how many pro fights each retired with, and grouped them as follows:

1- 5 fights........ 110
6-25 fights....... 122
26-50 fights...... 64
51-100 fights.... 76
101-150 fights.. 20
150+................. 8

Not surprisingly, we see a very small group with a lot of fights - and a much larger group with much fewer fights. It's worth noting, that as few as 28 boxers (7%) went into tripple digits - and that only 8 (2%) had in excess of 150 career fights!

By the way, the average number of career fights for all 400 was 34! A number this low may surprise some people... but I have a hunch (not something I have researched), that it's still higher (maybe even considerably so?) than the number would be for a comparable sample of today's boxers.

Also, the average number of fights engaged in for all 30,006 boxers during that year was 3.31 (compared to 2.35 for 2018 - the last year BoxRec has updated the numbers).

Make of this what you want. It's just a bit of statistics - for those (few?) that might be interested in such things!

[them_apples]

Apologies for not getting back to you sooner! I have been quite busy these past couple of days - but better late than never, as they say.

As for your question, most boxing enthusiasts probably believe, that the old-timers had this crazy schedule, with a new fight every month or so - resulting in these 200+ fight careers. I mean, this is what we have been told for years, right? And while it's true, that some boxers back in the day did fight that often (in some cases even several times a month), this was far from the "normal" career.

To get some actual numbers on the table, I made a small study of 400 randomly picked boxers from August 1930. I chose that year, because it's the busiest registered by BoxRec - both as far as number of active boxers (30,006) and total number of fights (49,612) are concerned. I picked August, as it was usually one of the busier month back then, with weather conditions allowing both indoor and outdoor promotions.

So, to cut a long story short, I started on August 1, and worked my way through the first 400 boxers listed by BoxRec for that month. So I think, I this way had a pretty random sample to work with.

I then looked at how many pro fights each retired with, and grouped them as follows:

1- 5 fights........ 110
6-25 fights....... 122
26-50 fights...... 64
51-100 fights.... 76
101-150 fights.. 20
150+................. 8

Not surprisingly, we see a very small group with a lot of fights - and a much larger group with much fewer fights. It's worth noting, that as few as 28 boxers (7%) went into tripple digits - and that only 8 (2%) had in excess of 150 career fights!

By the way, the average number of career fights for all 400 was 34! A number this low may surprise some people... but I have a hunch (not something I have researched), that it's still higher (maybe even considerably so?) than the number would be for a comparable sample of today's boxers.

Also, the average number of fights engaged in for all 30,006 boxers during that year was 3.31 (compared to 2.35 for 2018 - the last year BoxRec has updated the numbers).

Make of this what you want. It's just a bit of statistics - for those (few?) that might be interested in such things!

First of all, great observation.

second, is there any way we can do the averages of ranked fighters (unless I missed it).

id like to see the averages based off of the most relevant fighters of the time period

also, shouldn’t it be based on the amount of fights vs the length of career? What if on average careers were shorter back then? They could fight more frequently and get the same amount of fights

[Bundana]

First of all, great observation.

second, is there any way we can do the averages of ranked fighters (unless I missed it).

id like to see the averages based off of the most relevant fighters of the time period

also, shouldn't it be based on the amount of fights vs the length of career? What if on average careers were shorter back then? They could fight more frequently and get the same amount of fights

Yes, we could for example look at The Ring's year-end top-10s for 1930, and calculate the numbers for this group of boxers. We could find their total number of career fights, their average number of fights in 1930... and also the length of their respective careers.

Since we in such a case would be dealing with the best fighters in the world, we're eliminating all the journeymen with very few fights - so the averages would obviously be VERY different from any randomly selected group. The average number of career fights would certainly be MUCH higher than 34! Also I would expect the average number of fights during the year to be higher than 3.31 - though I'm unsure how much higher!

I have never given the length of a career much thought! Did the top old-timers have longer or shorter careers than their precent day counterparts? I would hate to hazard a guess, as I really have no idea - but it's an interesting question.

if anyone has the time to look into these things, I would be most interested to see the result(s)!