Yet another Old versus New thread...

[them_apples]

Some interesting points - to which I have two questions:

Modern fighters having no real concept what a knockout artist is? What exactly do you mean by this??

And the thing about fighters getting tired very fast now... I take it, you mean compared to the good old days, where boxers were better conditioned? How about if we compare now with the busy 1920s... do you think that, generally speaking, today's boxers gas out faster than the boxers from back then? And if so, what evidence do we have for this being the case?

A knockout artist is essentially someone who is a master at landing the sucker punch. A sucker punch aka, a shot you don’t see coming. Power is one thing but landing on a soft target thats unprepared is what causes the real damage. A hard shot landing on someone who's prepared might beat the fighter themself throwing it (see Canelo vs Bivol).

a knockout artist has a whole assortment of feints and baits, plays to lead a fighter in a direction that will cumulate in a knockout punch. He changes his rythm from slow to fast, inside to outside etc all this things to play on a fighters reflexive system and mental agility.

these are classic war tactics, as often cavalry would feint charge the rear of unit over and over again until a finally committed blow was landed and often the troops wouldn’t even defend themselves by the time the cavalry committed to its charge (a combination of mental and physical battle fatigue).

what we have today are padwork fighters, robotic fighters trained to score points. Easy to figure out and time after a few rounds - most of them fade and lack knockout power because they keep their hands too high (shoulders always tight) with the amateur style of blocking (great for blocking ineffective half punches in bunches and also letting judges know the punches didn’t land. In addition to padwork in general creating fighters that pull their punches.

Thats my brief on what a knockout artist is. The art of hitting someone hard when they least expect it. Remember, style and skill are 2 different things. These guys today employ a modern style but have mediocre skills.

I don’t know how to put forth a good argument on conditioning, since all we can do is look at routines. Which doesn’t tell the whole story. Someone could run 5 miles every day and spar - but do it with immense effort and push themselves. Someone could have a full day planned out of complex conditioning excersizes but do it half hazardly.

When a fighter doesn’t use his feet it generally means one of 2 things, he’s out of shape or he’s too heavy. Canelo, Wilder etc every top fighter pretty much is a flat footed energy conserving fighter. Duran much later in his career, as he got out of shape became this way.

I know I’m very opinionated on the matter but only because I generally feel alone in this thinking and came to the conclusion through my own research and experience.

[Bundana]

I don't know how to put forth a good argument on conditioning, since all we can do is look at routines. Which doesn't tell the whole story. Someone could run 5 miles every day and spar - but do it with immense effort and push themselves. Someone could have a full day planned out of complex conditioning excersizes but do it half hazardly.

When a fighter doesn't use his feet it generally means one of 2 things, he's out of shape or he's too heavy. Canelo, Wilder etc every top fighter pretty much is a flat footed energy conserving fighter. Duran much later in his career, as he got out of shape became this way.

I know I'm very opinionated on the matter but only because I generally feel alone in this thinking and came to the conclusion through my own research and experience.

So, basically... you agree, there's no way to determine, whether or not today's fighters gas faster than the old-timers?

[billeau2]

I'm not a believer in the evolution of boxing. I respect Bundana tremendously but I am going to have to disagree.

In my opinion boxers of any particular era fight the way they do because the audience of that particular era demands it, if, demand can mean like market demand not so much a direct plea from the public.

Easy examples are lesser defense eras go hand-in-hand with audiences that expect hyper macho-ism at all times.

More in depth examples would a guy like Floyd Mayweather, who is in demand to this day despite being well past his prime, well into retired years, and most of his more popular end of his career did not feature a crown pleasing style, but, Floyd fought a self protective style to ensure a long career and so we're treated to Floyd vs Floyd's Sparring Partner sometime soon....this isn't even hyperbole.

If skill can be in high demand in any form boxing fans are treated to skill. When brutality is in high demand fans see brutality. I do not believe at any point in time mankind stopped creating humans who are better at moving than they are relying on toughness and of course cavemen have always existed even in the most skilled eras. The waxing and waning of what we call boxing skills today is controlled by the demands of customers and little else. Even calling them skills in this scope is not very fair.

There was once an era when moving away from a punch rather than blocking it was skill-less coward nonsense and real man's defense was blocks and parries and such. So in that era it is unfair to say a guy who is very good at blocking but has horrible head movement is unskilled. He can't, really, use head movement. It's passe, pansy stuff. If the excuse works for whites ducking blacks cause racism doe then it should work for skills too.

Guys fight to honor Apollo, then guys fight to get paid. Either way there is an obvious corruption of motives and no one in sport really fights because they hate the other, or are defending their home and such nonsense that causes real fighting. Trained, usually from a young age, since forever. They're all highly skilled.

Thats a very interesting take! There is definitely something to that!

[Anthony342]

Reckon pacing/lack of vid makes that very hard to find out in any direction but I do have an idea to offer that makes both sides a bit correct.


I think we can look to MMA for an answer to that.


No time limit fights like the Gracies used to get for their MMA matches make for very slowly paced fights. Royce vs Gracie Hunter, hell Royce vs loads of dudes, but I'm pretty sure Sakuraba took Gracie the longest.

That time Don Frye fought Takayama-son they gassed real quick. They also just grabbed one another by the neck and pounded rights into each other's heads.


Now, I get, size, but let's pretend Frye isn't a roid monster and they are the same size. This is of course a guess, but I think it's a good guess, chances are if Gracie and Gracie Hunter didn't 'rassle for 90 mins and just grabbed one another by the neck with their left and piston punched one another with their right they too would have gassed way too early to fight for 90 minutes.

Older fights, longer limits, slower pacing, gassing is far more gradual which gives the surface illusion of better stamina. Dude went 86 rounds, sounds real rough, but if you include the fact that 10 of those rounds featured nothing but steps and flopping to end the round, not so much.

In my opinion.

And didn't rounds used to end when a fighter was knocked down? Or were they always timed?

That's why they had to change the rules in MMA. We needed rounds and time limits because the fights were BORING. The time limits and scoring gave the fighters a sense of urgency as well if they were behind and knew they needed a stoppage to win and couldn't just wait for an opponent to attack or lay on him. And nobody wanted to watch that. Promoters learned that after UFC 5. Took them a little while into the lifespan of Pride though, for some reason. Plus Sakuraba always should've been called The Gracie Killer instead of Hunter IMO, since it was always the Gracies hunting him, trying to get at least 1 win against him, after they couldn't deal with a technical submission loss to Renzo, then another loss to Royce with no ref stoppages. It wasn't until Royce finally got a decision win over Kazushi that they calmed down about chasing after him, even though another Gracie later decisioned him past his prime.

[Marchegiano]

And didn't rounds used to end when a fighter was knocked down? Or were they always timed?

That's why they had to change the rules in MMA. We needed rounds and time limits because the fights were BORING. The time limits and scoring gave the fighters a sense of urgency as well if they were behind and knew they needed a stoppage to win and couldn't just wait for an opponent to attack or lay on him. And nobody wanted to watch that. Promoters learned that after UFC 5. Took them a little while into the lifespan of Pride though, for some reason. Plus Sakuraba always should've been called The Gracie Killer instead of Hunter IMO, since it was always the Gracies hunting him, trying to get at least 1 win against him, after they couldn't deal with a technical submission loss to Renzo, then another loss to Royce with no ref stoppages. It wasn't until Royce finally got a decision win over Kazushi that they calmed down about chasing after him, even though another Gracie later decisioned him past his prime.

That was the intention but it wouldn't be long into boxing's revival under Figg when downs ending rounds would be incorporated into boxing styles.

Bob Whitaker, Figg's first star pupil a full generation older than Broughton, used a technique called flopping to end rounds. Basically falling at any punch when he decided he wanted a break. Bob would fight Figg's first international challenger. Figg retired rather than fighting a Venetian fighter trained in the pungi version of boxing. His student Bob became the English champion and defended England against the Venetian Gondolier. Not being cryptic, I don't remember dude's name. Throughout the fight Whitaker would drop and take a break from the action. This infuriated the Venetian fighter who accused the English of cheating because Pugni has no rounds period. Later in the fight Whitaker would drop the gondolier with a body blow to the top of the stomach. The Venetian did make the count but he protested body blows as to him boxing was abouts the head and fists. Likewise the Venetian was not keen on the English separation of boxing and wrestling and wanted the ability to throw Whitaker out of the ring to win the contest. After a while of arguing over rules the man from Venice quit the match and Bob was declared the winner. James Figg took the stage and announced Whitaker was not his best student and in two weeks time the crowd should come back to witness Whitaker defend his title as the representative of the English people in pugilistic contests against Nat Peartree. Peartree would batter Whitaker to the point where Bob was forced to quit. It's one of my favorite quotes " Damn'me! Damn! What is a man when he is not yet beaten but cannot see? Damn my eyes". Bob's not done yet though. Nat takes this fight but later drops his title to a man called John Gritton. Gritton is then killed in the ring by Whittaker, so is the first x2 champion to fight an international fight. Another interesting aside about the death of Gritton. Same lazy historians, so like most of them, conflate Gritton with Gretting and combine them mans' records. Bill Gretting is not John Gritton. We know this because Whittaker killed Gritton and Gretting fought for the title multiple times.

This was something a ref, if they could tell, would call against a fighter. A bit like clinching, for the most part it isn't something refs took care of and so some fighters made it a fairly central part of their game plan. As far as I know it is called flopping from Whittaker's era until the Queensbury Rules made it ****** to do.

In LPRR there is no deduction of points for going down, so until the end of LPRR men went down without being hit.

Another aspect of flopping would be developed later by the early 1800s. Men would fall without being hit and would pretend to be unable to control their feet, so they kicked as they fell. In steel cleats mind. That's how Nonpariel Dempsey gets a 4 inch cut on his calf in his MW title fight against Johnny Reagan. By then, it was super, super common.

In fact, boxing may not have blown up in the united states like it did without flopping. Before Sullivan, or Mace, there was Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan. Yankee was not much of a flopper himself but he had some trouble with a few in his day and came up with a means to deal with them. Yankee Sullivan would elbow drop men who ended rounds without him having hit them. Yeah man, if you were skimming I bet your ass is reading now because that's just ****ing cool.

So Yankee, he's cornering for some English lad who is fighting some American fella. The American, I think Chris Lily, was flopping. So Yankee gave his guy, I think his name was McKoy, the elbow drop advice. Turns out when a man flops, especially one who kicks about and so wouldn't have his legs or anything to protect him, and you answer with an elbow drop, it is quite deadly. McKoy started to get tired. That was Lily's objective. I guess in all this droning I did fail to mention flopping was a way of tiring out your opponent. You know what fighters say about hitting air. Anyway as Mckoy get more tired he gets up slower and slower. Lily ended up suffocating under McKoy.

McKoy pissed off back to London and Yankee Sullivan stood trial in a scandalous trial that swept the nation. Anti-Irish and Anti-Immigration politics grabbed on to the story and made the focus on Yankee and Boxing.


MMA:

Gracie Killer is way better. I was really just trying to remember. It was so long ago!

I didn't realize it was the Gracies the whole time to be honest. I know Kimora beat their great great 1920s grandad but I didn't realize there was such a rivalry. I always thought, because after Saku beat up the Gracie boys they put him in some sick matches like Silva, I thought they were using Sakuraba as sort of a Defender of Japan kind of deal. I thought it was Pride, not the Gracies. The Gracie family is insane!

[The Old LefHook]

Boxing devolved from 15 round championship fights to 12 rounds.

Boxing devolved from champions often fighting the best to hardly ever fighting.

The equipment and training are what have evolved more, though most traditional training methods are still in use. Some things have been added, notably more weightlifting. Also scientific nutrition programs and body chemistry monitoring.

The dirty side of boxing is still corrupt. They guys in charge are not called gangsters anymore.

Arenas evolved from smoking to non-smoking.

[QueensburyRules]

So, basically... you agree, there's no way to determine, whether or not today's fighters gas faster than the old-timers?

- - Well, he says he's virtually alone in his opinions, so it's just him if we take him at his word.

I would point out there is no way he could know the opinions of the 7 bil population of the earth thinks on the subject, so there's that.

[Anthony342]

That was the intention but it wouldn't be long into boxing's revival under Figg when downs ending rounds would be incorporated into boxing styles.

Bob Whitaker, Figg's first star pupil a full generation older than Broughton, used a technique called flopping to end rounds. Basically falling at any punch when he decided he wanted a break. Bob would fight Figg's first international challenger. Figg retired rather than fighting a Venetian fighter trained in the pungi version of boxing. His student Bob became the English champion and defended England against the Venetian Gondolier. Not being cryptic, I don't remember dude's name. Throughout the fight Whitaker would drop and take a break from the action. This infuriated the Venetian fighter who accused the English of cheating because Pugni has no rounds period. Later in the fight Whitaker would drop the gondolier with a body blow to the top of the stomach. The Venetian did make the count but he protested body blows as to him boxing was abouts the head and fists. Likewise the Venetian was not keen on the English separation of boxing and wrestling and wanted the ability to throw Whitaker out of the ring to win the contest. After a while of arguing over rules the man from Venice quit the match and Bob was declared the winner. James Figg took the stage and announced Whitaker was not his best student and in two weeks time the crowd should come back to witness Whitaker defend his title as the representative of the English people in pugilistic contests against Nat Peartree. Peartree would batter Whitaker to the point where Bob was forced to quit. It's one of my favorite quotes " Damn'me! Damn! What is a man when he is not yet beaten but cannot see? Damn my eyes". Bob's not done yet though. Nat takes this fight but later drops his title to a man called John Gritton. Gritton is then killed in the ring by Whittaker, so is the first x2 champion to fight an international fight. Another interesting aside about the death of Gritton. Same lazy historians, so like most of them, conflate Gritton with Gretting and combine them mans' records. Bill Gretting is not John Gritton. We know this because Whittaker killed Gritton and Gretting fought for the title multiple times.

This was something a ref, if they could tell, would call against a fighter. A bit like clinching, for the most part it isn't something refs took care of and so some fighters made it a fairly central part of their game plan. As far as I know it is called flopping from Whittaker's era until the Queensbury Rules made it ****** to do.

In LPRR there is no deduction of points for going down, so until the end of LPRR men went down without being hit.

Another aspect of flopping would be developed later by the early 1800s. Men would fall without being hit and would pretend to be unable to control their feet, so they kicked as they fell. In steel cleats mind. That's how Nonpariel Dempsey gets a 4 inch cut on his calf in his MW title fight against Johnny Reagan. By then, it was super, super common.

In fact, boxing may not have blown up in the united states like it did without flopping. Before Sullivan, or Mace, there was Tom Hyer and Yankee Sullivan. Yankee was not much of a flopper himself but he had some trouble with a few in his day and came up with a means to deal with them. Yankee Sullivan would elbow drop men who ended rounds without him having hit them. Yeah man, if you were skimming I bet your ass is reading now because that's just ****ing cool.

So Yankee, he's cornering for some English lad who is fighting some American fella. The American, I think Chris Lily, was flopping. So Yankee gave his guy, I think his name was McKoy, the elbow drop advice. Turns out when a man flops, especially one who kicks about and so wouldn't have his legs or anything to protect him, and you answer with an elbow drop, it is quite deadly. McKoy started to get tired. That was Lily's objective. I guess in all this droning I did fail to mention flopping was a way of tiring out your opponent. You know what fighters say about hitting air. Anyway as Mckoy get more tired he gets up slower and slower. Lily ended up suffocating under McKoy.

McKoy pissed off back to London and Yankee Sullivan stood trial in a scandalous trial that swept the nation. Anti-Irish and Anti-Immigration politics grabbed on to the story and made the focus on Yankee and Boxing.


MMA:

Gracie Killer is way better. I was really just trying to remember. It was so long ago!

I didn't realize it was the Gracies the whole time to be honest. I know Kimora beat their great great 1920s grandad but I didn't realize there was such a rivalry. I always thought, because after Saku beat up the Gracie boys they put him in some sick matches like Silva, I thought they were using Sakuraba as sort of a Defender of Japan kind of deal. I thought it was Pride, not the Gracies. The Gracie family is insane!

It was a little of both actually, Pride and The Gracies. And yes they are insane and sore losers. When Royce came back for UFC 60 and had a TKO loss to then welterweight champ Matt Hughes, his dad complained about rounds and time limits not being real fighting. Just take the L and move on. Ken Shamrock is almost as bad. No way he should've lost to Kimbo Slice when he had him in that rear choke. Most of Sakuraba's stoppage losses in his prime are against bigger opponents in open weight fights. It's why he's top 5 all-time on any respectable MMA list. I got A. Silva, Fedor, GSP, Hendo and then Sakuraba. If Jones does well at heavyweight, I could see him cracking top 5 though. Royce and Ken would probably round out a top 10 for being pioneers of the sport.

[Bundana]

A knockout artist is essentially someone who is a master at landing the sucker punch. A sucker punch aka, a shot you don't see coming. Power is one thing but landing on a soft target thats unprepared is what causes the real damage. A hard shot landing on someone who's prepared might beat the fighter themself throwing it (see Canelo vs Bivol).

a knockout artist has a whole assortment of feints and baits, plays to lead a fighter in a direction that will cumulate in a knockout punch. He changes his rythm from slow to fast, inside to outside etc all this things to play on a fighters reflexive system and mental agility.

these are classic war tactics, as often cavalry would feint charge the rear of unit over and over again until a finally committed blow was landed and often the troops wouldn't even defend themselves by the time the cavalry committed to its charge (a combination of mental and physical battle fatigue).

what we have today are padwork fighters, robotic fighters trained to score points. Easy to figure out and time after a few rounds - most of them fade and lack knockout power because they keep their hands too high (shoulders always tight) with the amateur style of blocking (great for blocking ineffective half punches in bunches and also letting judges know the punches didn't land. In addition to padwork in general creating fighters that pull their punches.

Thats my brief on what a knockout artist is. The art of hitting someone hard when they least expect it. Remember, style and skill are 2 different things. These guys today employ a modern style but have mediocre skills.

Ok, I now understand, what a knockout artist is!

I also get, that today's fighters are robotic, padwork fighters, with mediocre skills, who pull their punches... as well as being easy to figure out and lacking the old-time tricks needed to set an opponent up for the finisher. Makes me wonder, how some boxers are still able to score a KO every now and then!

[billeau2]

Ok, I now understand, what a knockout artist is!

I also get, that today's fighters are robotic, padwork fighters, with mediocre skills, who pull their punches... as well as being easy to figure out and lacking the old-time tricks needed to set an opponent up for the finisher. Makes me wonder, how some boxers are still able to score a KO every now and then!

You see real differences in the heavyweight division. Guys come in really heavy and are acward, throw few punches...Not all, but many guys... Guys who are still climbing at 30 years old... Its a mess. I think the quality conbtrol is better in the divisions where fighters are lighter.