Old Vs. New age fighters? Just some thoughts...

[XionComrade]

1 I have always wondered about the old fighters...I have read many threads about how bad their style was, how ridiculous and barbaric they were, how any fighter of today would mop the floor with them and I think...

2 The first thought that enters my mind is the way great guitarists work...Today guys like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are amazing technicians, guys like Page and Hendrix don't even compare. They are actually quite comical and amateurish the way they play, it is primitive and ineffective. Simple...But if they had not existed, discovered and created new ways to play, pioneered the way we look at solo guitarists then the guitarists of today simply would not exist. Their would be no solo guitarists. Guitarist styles, like Boxing styles, evolve down a linear path...Each link in the chain just as important as the last, and the next.

3 The two things, the main two things bar none that make a great fighter, are hard work and determination. That is it. I look at fighters today, the heavyweights for the most part, and get sick to my stomach. They are lazy and undisciplined. When they have the opportunity of a life time they piss it away mindlessly. They lack hard work and determination! That is something that the Old age fighters had in mounds. Today Skill and Talent dominates, then was Hard work and Determination.

4 The mentality was much different then also it seems to me. Then it was a Roberto Duran mano-e-mano machismo mentality, you hit me, I hit you, we do it till the other drops. No dancing, no avoiding the shots because that is now how MEN fight! The focus was on toughness and determination, it was a cultural thing. Today we focus on logic, intelligence, and skill. The most logical way to box, is to not get hit. Hit and not be hit. It is a cultural thing. It is the way we think nowadays I think.

5 With that thought in mind, I think that P4P the fighters back then had better chins and more power than today. They could take a better punch than we could today, and they could give a better shot to the face. Watch them hit the heavy bag, they do not throw fast combinations, that is not how people fought then, that was "Sissy". They hit it, one punch at a time as hard as they can, that was how they fought and used their fists. Today no fighters do that, it is the opposite. They do not hit it as hard as they can, instead they do it as fast as they can, in combination. The smart way....that is how I am thinking right now...

6 They were primitive. They would not do well against our latest great champions because if our best could not KO them, they would just dance away and jab to a decission, which would be ludicrous in the Old eras, you would be booed out of the stadium! Our understanding of medical sciences and sport science is far superior to what it was then. So, instead of asking would Lennox Lewis destroy Jack Dempsey or such and such, the real question is, if Dempsey were born to fight around Lewis' era, with his hard work, mentality, and determination, how would he do? I think when we ask that, then the Old Era becomes very dominant...

7 Today we have big fat heavyweights(and 2 very talented ones eating them alive). Then you had guys like Rocky Marciano, who through hard work got to the point that they could hit harder than any of today's bigger stronger fighters despite a 40-50lbs weight difference...It was the mentality then...the style.

[BennyST]

1 I have always wondered about the old fighters...I have read many threads about how bad their style was, how ridiculous and barbaric they were, how any fighter of today would mop the floor with them and I think...

2 The first thought that enters my mind is the way great guitarists work...Today guys like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are amazing technicians, guys like Page and Hendrix don't even compare. They are actually quite comical and amateurish the way they play, it is primitive and ineffective. Simple...But if they had not existed, discovered and created new ways to play, pioneered the way we look at solo guitarists then the guitarists of today simply would not exist. Their would be no solo guitarists. Guitarist styles, like Boxing styles, evolve down a linear path...Each link in the chain just as important as the last, and the next.



4 The mentality was much different then also it seems to me. Then it was a Roberto Duran mano-e-mano machismo mentality, you hit me, I hit you, we do it till the other drops. No dancing, no avoiding the shots because that is now how MEN fight! The focus was on toughness and determination, it was a cultural thing. Today we focus on logic, intelligence, and skill. The most logical way to box, is to not get hit. Hit and not be hit. It is a cultural thing. It is the way we think nowadays I think.

Doesn't work that way at all, otherwise guys like Toney, Hopkins, Mayweather would not be using Charles, Walcott, Duran, Locche, Leonard etc as their greatest inspirations.

With experience often comes skill that cannot be gained any other way no matter how much you train. Boxing is the best example of this. You can gain every skill on earth by putting together everything that old fighters did, you get in the ring, someone hits you and you forget everything and get ****ed up by some guy who is just crazy and doesn't know much but can simply fight.

There are many things differ from today's boxing but skill level is most definitely not one of them. Skill level, due to numbers of trainers, gyms and fighters on amateur and pro levels dramatically decreasing is much less than it was.

Go back just forty/fifty years and the skill level across the board is much greater than today, apart from a few guys who could have fought in any era. Why do you think guys like Hop, and Toney constantly refer to themselves as 'old school' fighters? You think it's because they are literally old? No, it's because of the way they fight. They know every trick in the book, can fight inside, outside, dirty, brawl, box, counter, lead....

If you think they are less skilled you need to really go watch more fights from forty/fifty years ago. Boxing is one of the very, very few sports that relies on hidden factors that cannot be taught. All the greatest trainers have said this. That's why boxing is so different and cannot be compared with other sports in which increases in anatomy/physiology, cross training etc relate to an increase in their performance. It simply does not work that way with boxing.

It's two guys in a ring trying to kill each other and yet it's ninety % mental. It's why the great trainers say they can tell if a guy can become a world champion so quickly before they have even learned any great boxing techniques. Boxing has **** all to do with how much you know. Margarito knew one way to fight but beat the much better all round fighter Cotto. It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on like this.

It wasn't what he learned through evolutionary methods that he beat the better trained and more knowledgeable Cotto. He simply broke Cotto down with his will and determination. No amount of technique, special training, nutrition, cross training can help with that. When you have a guy that just doesn't ****ing stop no matter what you do, any and all of that stuff disappears and it becomes a primal struggle between you and your will, heart and determination and the other guys. Nothing else matters.

I really, really hate this view because it means you don't understand how boxing works properly. It's not about a gathering of the old which makes the newer generation better. It doesn't work in that way. It's too diverse for one.

It's like Goody Petronelli said "PETRONELLI: Putting it frankly, speaking not only for myself but for other trainers as well, God didn’t create us all equal. God gave us different abilities in different areas. In boxing, some guys have a strong chin; others have no chin. Some guys have a punch; others have none. Some guys are fast; others aren’t fast. I can’t give those qualities to someone. Those abilities are either there or they are not. The trainer has to have faith in the fighter to make things work. If I think the guy doesn’t have the right things going for him, well, then I sit down and talk to him, and let him know he should find another trade. The fighter has to have the talent and the desire to start with."

In other sports it really doesn't matter how well your chin takes a damn punch because no one is trying to take your head off. It's why a fantastically skilled athlete will often not make it to any decent level as a boxer. They take a punch, get hurt, their brain stops working and they don't like it. It's also why the meekest kid, skinny as a rake and shy can be a ****ing psychopathic monster in the ring but suck at most sports. His will and determination to kill the other guy and not go down from being hit is what matters.

Boxing is a primitive sport and this supposed evolutionary accumulation of knowledge is BS and doesn't relate to boxing. To other sports where all you need to do is beat a time, do something faster than someone else and go further, sure, it does matter. But, while they are swimming, running, throwing something, the guy who's turn it is next is not trying to kill him.

It's also why, the amount of skill level and the increase/decrease of numbers of fighters is directly related to the skill of the fighters across the board in boxing. The more fighters you have, the tougher it's going to be. It's makes it hard to get out of city level, state level, national level, then international level.

Boxing in Aus was massive in the 30s 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. Huge. There were numerous gyms in every area of every city and there was a great trainer (who knew a million tricks and had tons of experience) in every city at one of those gyms (among the ****e ones). People marvel at Roach today, but don't realise that fifty/sixty years ago there was a Freddie Roach in every country, in every damn city nearly. They are all gone and with them, the knowledge that can add to those special fighters repertoire of tricks. Because there were so many gyms, so many amateur fighters, so many pro's trying to make it, the talent pool is deeper, you have to wade through more styles, more types of fighters just to get recognition at state and national level.

It just doesn't work like that anymore. The overall talent pool, because of decreasing numbers of great trainers, gyms and fighters at amateur and pro level has decreased and is further decreasing because even at the top of the pro game you don't have to fight every single contender just to get your first shot at a title. Having five, six, seven different titles in one division does nothing but spread the talent out. You had to fight through what would today be the top ten contenders of the WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO, IBO, etc etc etc just to get one title shot.

So, a guy like (just as an example) Paulie Malignaggi would have had to go through Cotto, not for the title shot, but simply for a place in the top ten. Cotto wouldn't have been champion but just one of the top contenders. Whoever was the big daddy at the time would have been the only champ. Hatton after beating Tszyu I think it might have been. Paulie became a champ by beating Lovemore N'dou, who would never have been a champ, but just one of the other measly contenders trying to get his shot. So, Paulie would have been beaten by Cotto, then he would have had to use N'Dou to simply climb back up the ranks but he still would have had to go back through Cotto if he wanted to get above him for a title shot and we know he would never have won, so he would never have gotten another title shot.

That's how it worked. Great fighters like Hector Thompson who would have beaten just about everyone I can think of today but the very best at his weights was only a forgotten contender, and lost his only two title shots against the greats Roberto Duran and Antonio Cervantes. But, who he had to beat just to get there ****s on someone who is now considered a 'champion of the world' like Maliagnagii. It's why so many guys who have watched boxing all their life for decades laugh at the state of it today and why they laugh when someone says "Boxing is better today. The athletes are bigger (even though is simply due to being able to weigh in the day before and not on the day of the fight; the few guys you see who actually weigh in at the weight they fight are kind of small-Pac and Mayweather at 140/147 years ago are two examples), stronger, better conditioned (bull****) and more knowledgeable" because they know it's just not true. All you had to be a part of was boxing back then to know that there were fighters better than the majority of champions today who never even got to hold a title.

If you have a guy like Pac at the top today with a stranglehold on the 'number one spot', no one else could have become champ while he was there but you have a million other guys fighting for titles all around him today.

Oh, and Duran was one of the most brilliant defensive minds to ever fight. He exemplified hit and don't get hit. Jesus.....

[XionComrade]

Lets put it another way. As that post was just a thought, a quick brainstorm I put down.

Lets say hypothetically I am a developing fighter TODAY. My style, way of thinking, and physiology dictate that I will be a boxer. I will want to display speed and skill, not get hit, and hit. Not necessarily hit hard, but just outfox and outwit the opponent. Humiliate them. I know this before I even step first foot into a boxing gym. I do not know, however, the details involved. So I sit around just meditating about fighting. I have no experience, I really never got to watch much boxing, I just think.

Nowadays we have the internet, and TV. We can watch and read about all of the great fighters, watch every little detail in high definition. I know, as I think anyone seriously considering being a fighter, how I want to fight. I have a strong general idea of what I would do, how I want to be. Now one day I find out about youtube, and now I go and watch fighters that fight the way I want to, because for one, of course, that is the most entertaining aspect of the sport to me. And for two, I want to study him, most importantly. I still have no first hand experience however. But I can cognitively construct myself as a fighter, I can begin to mold myself and to understand. It all starts with the mind. Boxing is a intelligent sport. Sure you brought up the point of getting sent to ******treet and only having "Instinct" to go by, but in boxing one solid punch and the fight is over, period, that is how it works, their is never any room for error. Hit and not get hit, that is success.

Now normally, back in the old days, you had none of this. By old days I mean 50s and before, mainly the 40s back Their was no real television to watch the greats, just newspapers. Here I would have to develop my style from scratch. With only lines of ink to fuel me and inspire new ideas i the ring, to discover things that could work for my style. That limits my planning and ideas to my own mind, which only knows what it has experienced, my trainers mind, and what I have seen first hand. Very limited here.

But now I can sit and watch, and brood and think for years if I wanted. I can read, watch, all of that. Strategise. That is a huge advantage. Just imagine if you were a boxer in the 20s, and you were champion. You were about to face the toughest fight of your career, but your opponent had never been filmed, all you had was newspaper articles. How would you prepare? You can't watch him, he is training for you! You wouldn't much know what to expect would you? Nope...You wouldn't know how to adapt until you were in the ring, which is something very very few ATG's can do even, adapt in the ring.

Now days you can watch the fighter fight! Hell you can watch him train! Watch every fight he ever had from 3 different angles and hear his trainer screaming out instructions from the corner! Compare and contrast that to what they had before this...Huge tactical advantage nowadays eh?!



Take note, Muhammad Ali has stated that his biggest influence was Ray Robinson(And when you watch Ali fight, it is very obvious). Ali had seen him fight, but had not nearly the amount of footage we have today. All he had to go by was a little bit of film and second hand encounters to build his style. Ali built himself from Robinson, and Leonard built himself from Ali etc, etc. Newer fighters learn from watching the past ones for ever and ever, that is what fighters do. That is how they learn to train, and it is how they learn to fight, inspiration. The more material their is available, the more inspiration and ideas....the fight game evolves.


What I meant by Duran, albeit all of this thread is just a huge dump made by my brain, one big brainstorm that doesn't make sense, was that he was not afraid to get hit. He didn't give a **** arse. Duran would take one just for fun then hit you in the face, machismo. He was a fighter.

[BennyST]

I do understand what you mean. But, training doesn't start until you get in the gym. Because forming yourself cognitively doesn't work in boxing. It's not until you actually get in the ring and spar/fight that you understand what type of fighter you will really be or if you even can be one. You don't know whether you can fight back until you do it. You don't know whether you can take someone's punch without going all funny until someone hits you in the face.

When I first started training I wanted to be Ray Leonard. I used to move around and trained to move like a bastard throwing quick flurries. I would watch Leonard and try to do exactly what he did for a long time. Then, when my dad started training me after hassling him for long enough, he used to slip and counter me every single time. I didn't have the arm length or speed to do it. I didn't find any of that out until I started fighting. Then when he took me to the gym and a great old trainer that used to train Johnny Famechon and a bunch of other greats from Ausland, he just about laughed in my face when I tried that in the ring in my first sparring session.

I had to regroup and learn from the start with what actually suited me, not what I wanted be like or thought I would be good at. Boxing is a do sport, not a thinking sport (at it's basic level; later it is mostly a thinking sport but you still have to be doing it non stop. You can think up a new trick but you can't use it until you get in there against every imaginable sparring partner and do it over and over again until you learn how people are going to react and how you yourself are going to react when it doesn't work). You have to do it to learn anything. Watching is great if you want to be an expert on watching it. If you want to be a good fighter, you have to get in there and just spar over and over and over and over. Let's say you watch and strategise, learning all this great stuff from guys like Leonard, Walcott, Mayweather etc. I can absolutely guarantee that the moment you have some guy get across form you and stare at you, then walk straight at you with his fists ****ed, every single little thing you had spent all that time thinking you learnt, just disappears.

The thing is back then, you didn't watch TV and the internet, you actually went down the road to your local gym. You went into the city and saw the best fighters from your city actually fight. If you wanted to be a fighter you went to the gym and started training, not just watching. You did it. You didn't cogitate on it.

It's similar to the music example you used. Back in the early 19th century and onward, jazz was huge and up until the 80s, etc. players got their feet wet by getting up on the bandstand and playing. You wanna know why everyone says jazz today sucks compared to the golden age of the 50's and 60's when Miles Davis and Coltrane etc were playing? It's because they played every single night, every week, every month, every year. They did it non stop. They did it by going down to where the best players were near them and then watched and learnt and then did. They gained insight and experience that musicians today actually cannot get because that system isn't used. People go to Uni to pursue music now. Sitting at home watching film of the greats is useless when it comes to getting up there yourself and trying to do it. No matter how much you watch and cogitate on it and learn, it flies straight out the window when you get up there and have to do it.

You say fighters would not have been able to see the champ? Well, from everything I've read they did. Tunney went and watched every Dempsey fight for years before fighting him. He went and sat ringside and watched exactly what he did. Not only that but he was sparring and fighting every imaginable style all the time and had some of the greatest trainers you could get. Going to sit and watch the guy you're about to fight is the best experience you can get and that's what they did. They all did it. Not thought about it.

[BennyST]

Duran would take one just for fun then hit you in the face, machismo. He was a fighter.

No he wouldn't. I don't think he ever took one for fun. He liked fighting of course, but he tried to evade every punch or take it's sting off by rolling and then coming back. No fighter takes a punch for fun. They might ******ly do it to psyche out an opponent ala Mayorga, but they don't willingly take any punch. I kind of know what you mean, I just don't agree at all.

Toney was the same. He was an aggressive fighter with great defence but sure as hell he didn't like to take one for fun and then come back. He used someone punching him as a means to hit them back, just as Duran did.

But, I still disagree with your view that fighters are smarter today. They think more intelligently and use their brains more because I think it's the opposite. I think fighters today are much ******er and don't think as much.

[XionComrade]

Awesome Post! Thanks!

Dempsey is one of the All Time Greats, no doubt about that. But if Dempsey were to be warped in to fight one of the more recent greats, the general idea is that he would just be made a fool of. Do you agree with this? I have not seen but 3 of his fights, and did not actually sit and eye laser it, I just watched it, so I am not in the best position to imagine here :P

People say the same things about Liston, Louis, etc...all of the "Old timers". They say they were technically inferior to fighters of today(Which for the most part is obvious BS, but you get the idea) The older fighters get a horrible rep with the general public concerning this subject. You often hear that ANY fighter from back then would be nothing today, just a punching bag. Inferior skills and ability overall. What I say is that it is unfair to compare this way, because the knowledge, techniques, teachings, and experiences of past fighters and trainers has been passed on to the newer in various ways, and the newer has come up with their own things built ontop of that and so on and so forth. Evolving.

I am saying that instead of a head to head battle, ask what if that Old Time fighter was allowed to train for his fantasy match with today's material and trainers, would their trademark work ethics, determination, and bravery coupled with just a little bit of brushing up in the technique department bring them to the level of a Bowe, Lewis, Ali, Mayweather? COULD they beat such and such realistically I guess I am trying to say. 180lbs Rocky Marciano had a iron chin, heart, and apparently hit as hard as George Foreman, what would he do to our cruiser weight division with a propper training cession?

[XionComrade]

No he wouldn't. I don't think he ever took one for fun. He liked fighting of course, but he tried to evade every punch or take it's sting off by rolling and then coming back. No fighter takes a punch for fun. They might ******ly do it to psyche out an opponent ala Mayorga, but they don't willingly take any punch. I kind of know what you mean, I just don't agree at all.

Toney was the same. He was an aggressive fighter with great defence but sure as hell he didn't like to take one for fun and then come back. He used someone punching him as a means to hit them back, just as Duran did.

But, I still disagree with your view that fighters are smarter today. They think more intelligently and use their brains more because I think it's the opposite. I think fighters today are much ******er and don't think as much.

Lol it is all thoughts and farts, I am just throwing stuff out their trying to get a good grasp and view on the subject :P

I will ask this then. I have noticed that the fighters did not actually get hit very often. They had a sort of open defensiveness to them, underrated ability to dodge punches. What people are saying is wide open is actually a sort of genius defensive position I have noticed. Baer did it against Louis, one of the fastest hitters ever, and a long time ago I just sat wondering "Why doesn't Joe just let one rip? He can KO Baer right here and now!" But now when I watch it I notice that Baer's deadly right hand is ****ed, and every time either fighter goes on the attack the opponent just seems to get away from impossibly close shots, parrying, dodging, and rolling with amazing coordination. So now I think, Joe cannot just hit him because that is what Baer wants him to try, as soon as Baer's brain registers that Joe is swinging, Baer will counter around the guard or simply roll with the shots and so on then go on the attack...

Do you think that their defense was actually very underrated?

[sonnyboyx2]

some very good posts on this thread of which i would add:

Today we don't have the great trainers like they did back in the old days like BennyST said.

Jack Dempsey is the greatest Heavyweight who ever lived.

"Guitarists".. i seen Joe Satriani at Newcastle City Hall around 7yrs ago, the place was half full yet by the end of the night half of those had left.. The following week i was back in the same venue to watch Johnny Winter who is on a different level to Satriani in guitar playing, the place was Sold-Out with Johnny cheered back on stage three times for final encore's...

Take alook at this from the night before Ali vs Foreman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcv0mKnRfnM

[SBleeder]

Too much philosophy in this thread!!!

[IMG]http://i632.***********.com/albums/uu42/yangchun_th/1238512875_boxer-uppercuts-himself.gif[/IMG]

[Sugarj]

This thread is a damn good read!

Keep it rolling guys. Oh and thanks Sonny for the BB King link, I'm listening to him right now!!

I agree with alot of the points mentioned. I'm just like Benny in so far as when I started I wanted to box like Ali and Ray Leonard. Hell, I finished up as a southpaw with my hands held as high as Floyd Patterson!!

I will say that I agree that the availability of fight film has been of benefit to fighters and trainers. I think there was a great evolution in technical skills with the increased availability of fight film! I've got an interview of Max Schmelling's (prior to meeting Joe Louis first time) in which he says 'I've seen a picture of the Paulino Uzcudun and Max Baer fight. I think I have a great chance to beat him' When pressed about whether he had seen any weaknesses in the Brown Bomber he replied 'yes I have, but I wont tell'.

Now, how many of us would have expected Max to have won that fight without first reviewing film of him first? The weakness of course was Louis's tendency to drop his left after jabbing, thus leaving him open to the counter straight right.

Even before TV, boxing was shown widely in cinemas. You can bet that fighters and trainers watched the top matches with eager interest.

As for Dempsey, if he were to fight today I dont think he would need any brushing up. The more you watch of him, the more you see how good his head movement was, how quick he was, how good at closing distance, how accurate.......

I end up getting very frustrated watching every Klitschko title defence. Now ......they are both pretty good in their own way. Not graceful or anything, but certainly effective. But for the love of the creator, why doesn't anyone try to slip their jabs and counter hook or bob and weave their way in? Every opponent fights them exactly the same way.

Dempsey would certainly not fight them like everyone else. His pace would be far superior, his use of angles, he'd get under their jabs and fire hooks and body blows. Dont get me wrong, I think that both Klitschkos are superior to the likes of Willard and Firpo.......I think Dempsey would have a real task on his hands, not least the huge weight and reach disadvantage. But I'm sure he would do very nicely with his 1920s skillset.