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

[them_apples]

eh parts of boxing have evolved. not not a whole lot since the 70's. The training is very similar..the dieting has improved in some fighters though.

some fighters are incorporating more weight lifting, but it just means the have to move up a weight class if they put on too much muscle.

But if you take the best of each era then I guess you can see some advancement.

I really can't though, throw prime Duran in there at 147 and I really can't see anybody dealing with him aside from maybe Pacquiao. Maybe..just maybe..Mayweather. All close fights.

the whole era before all this though, the era with the rocky's and Lamottas..etc, then yes I can definitely see some advancement. Those guys trained for stamina and toughness, that's pretty much all they had. I'm not so sure if they even hit harder since power has a lot to do with velocity/accuracy. They had a ton of heart and determination though, so knocking them out would have been tough.

Even when I watch Louis and Rocky..I have a really hard time picturing them beating some of the hw's that came after.

[McGoorty]

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.

I got to the 2nd point about the guitarists, and that's where you lost me completely----------------.... I've been a guitarist for thirty years, and I can name a hundred guitarists from BEFORE PAGE & HENDRIX........ FOURTY YEARS BEFORE......... Seriously what the **** do you know about guitar technique ?????..... WHAT matters with guitar playing is the SOUL, and there are so many greater guitarists than Vai who is a cardboard cutout of fllashy but relatively meaningless wanderings.......... a bit like your train of thought on this one.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have any more to say about guitar playing and if you think you can out-pick me...... I'd be happy to hold a cutting contest with you any day...... Trust me,... you don't want to go there....... Fingers McGoorty.

[McGoorty]

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.....

Awesome awesome post, you put the TRUTH down in a very logical way and I've never heard the case for the obvious explained so simply and perfectly..... Post of the year !! . IMO..... and thank you very much......... and it was all true, every biy of it..... I tried to give you green K but apparently I did so not long ago and been told to spread it round, enjoy the wine I bought you mate,....... Aussie rule !!!!