Why have modern fighters not evolved to be better than SRR

[Willie Pep 229]

You may very well be right.

Do you also think there are historical foot prints, that can tell us about (for example) the average boxer's toughness and willingness to fight - in one era compared to another?

Do you believe that on the very first day of boot camp, the kid who took his first step into war, born in 1923 and was 19 years old in 1942, was already a harder man than the kid born in 1946 and was 19 in 1965?

Not how they fought their wars, or how those wars came out, just . . . Were they different men that first day of boot camp?

I would say circumstances (life experiences) made the GI generation tougher than the baby boom generation? Yes!

How to apply that to fighters?

First task is to define tough: 'a willingness to take abuse.'

Then ask what can we measure, what can we reasonably extrapolate?

I believe that happened several pages back in this thread.

Either way, short answer, yes. Not in the absolute but one could put forth a reasonable historical argument (assuming the point argued is true.)

We know much about the realities of their world. The 20th Century historical record is deep. We can look in and see them closely enough to draw conclusions about their character, about what kind of men they were. It's not like we are trying to look back at Rome.

Here's a cliche question . . . Does a man fighting for enough money to buy dinner willingly take more abuse than a man participating as a professional athlete?

Does a willingness to take more abuse mean you're tougher?

[Bundana]

Do you believe that on the very first day of boot camp, the kid who took his first step into war, born in 1923 and was 19 years old in 1942, was already a harder man than the kid born in 1946 and was 19 in 1965?

Not how they fought their wars, or how those wars came out, just . . . Were they different men that first day of boot camp?

I would say circumstances (life experiences) made the GI generation tougher than the baby boom generation? Yes!

How to apply that to fighters?

First task is to define tough: 'a willingness to take abuse.'

Then ask what can we measure, what can we reasonably extrapolate?

I believe that happened several pages back in this thread.

Either way, short answer, yes. Not in the absolute but one could put forth a reasonable historical argument (assuming the point argued is true.)

We know much about the realities of their world. The 20th Century historical record is deep. We can look in and see them closely enough to draw conclusions about their character, about what kind of men they were. It's not like we are trying to look back at Rome.

Here's a cliche question . . . Does a man fighting for enough money to buy dinner willingly take more abuse than a man participating as a professional athlete?

Does a willingness to take more abuse mean you're tougher?

Yes, that's the all-important question... what does "harder times" mean, in relation to what went on in the ring?

Here's the way I look at it:

Were times harder, and everyday life tougher, back in the 1920s than today? YES, undoubtably!

Can we from this deduce, that fights back then were harder and more action-packed than today? No, I don't see how we can do that.

The vast, VAST majority of boxers must have been men trying to supplement an otherwise meager income, with whatever little money they could earn in the ring. It was all about providing for your family, and put food on the table.

Is it crazy to assume that these men, who were all "in the same boat", didn't go all out in an attempt to clobber each other - but rather (in many cases, of course not all) went easy on each other, so they could all live to fight another day, so to speak?

My guess is, that many fights were probably between boxers, where both wanted to finish on their feet, without taking too much damage - and therefore put in just enough effort, to prevent the ref from throwing them out for lack of action. Do you think, this is a completely unreasonable idea?

[them_apples]

There's this idea out there... that the oldtimers were these brave warriers, who fought all the time, bettering themselves in tough fights and gaining experience, that modern fighters can only dream of!

Let's go back to boxing's "Golden Age" - the roaring 1920s. Smack in the middle of the ND era, where many boxers had a much busier schedule than today. But how much do we really know, about what was going on during that time?

In BoxRec's database there are more than 330,000 fights from that decade. How many of those can we watch on YouTube today? I don't know - but possibly less than 1%, would be my guess. As I said, I don't know - so I'm prepared to be corrected on that one!

Anyway, whether it's 1% or 2%, or whatever... what we have access to seems to be the absolute cream of the crop from that time. I can't find any down-the-bill 4 or 6 rounders between two journeymen, who would never amount to anything. Again, there may be some on YouTube - I just haven't come across any!

So my question is... what happened in the 98-99% of the (lower-level) fights, we can't examine? Is it too outlandish to think that, this being the ND era, some (certainly not all!) of these many fights between journeymen could have been "exhibition style" bouts... where the emphasis was more on getting to the finish line relatively unscathed, that it was on knocking each other's head off? I mean, they were all just trying to make a buck during hard times - so no reason to go all out on each other. Especially not, if they had another fight coming up just around the corner... which they of course sometimes had.

Yes, it's great to fantasize, that our heroes of yesteryear were all these courageus, tough men, who always came to fight. A nice thought indeed - but how close to reality is it?

What do you guys think?

well, that is a good point you make for sure. we can't watch all the bad fighters. I generally watch only the good ones and compare them to the good ones of each era.

[The D3vil]

So if 200 pro fights makes you a better boxer (presumably because of more experience) - why have so few throughout history reached this milestone?

BoxRec lists 123 boxers with at least 200 pro fights. From the dawn of gloved boxing until today, there have been hundreds of thousands pro boxers... so isn't 123 a shockingly low number? What do you think, could be the reason for this?

I didn't say it had to be exactly 200 fights.

There's a median between 200 fights and fighting maybe once a year, you know?

Duran & Chavez are ATGs who fought about 100 times in their career.

It's not 200, but it's not the 20 or 30 most modern fighters might get to with all their multiple fight years coming early in their careers before they became champion

We'll never get back to guys fighting 200 times, but we can get to a place where guys fight about 3x per year over say 20 years, which would get them to 60.

It appears like Canelo's going to be the only high-profile fighter in this generation to get anywhere near 60 fights & that's a shame

[Bundana]

I didn't say it had to be exactly 200 fights.

There's a median between 200 fights and fighting maybe once a year, you know?

Duran & Chavez are ATGs who fought about 100 times in their career.

It's not 200, but it's not the 20 or 30 most modern fighters might get to with all their multiple fight years coming early in their careers before they became champion

We'll never get back to guys fighting 200 times, but we can get to a place where guys fight about 3x per year over say 20 years, which would get them to 60.

It appears like Canelo's going to be the only high-profile fighter in this generation to get anywhere near 60 fights & that's a shame

You're right - the time where some top boxers retired with 200 pro bouts under their belt is long gone, and will never be back.

Personally, I don't really care how many fights a boxer has! Two of today's top P4P boxers, Usyk and Inoue, have so far had 20 and 23 pro fights, respectively. Would they be even better, if they had doubled those numbers, by taking a lot of meaningless "stay busy" fights in between the important ones? I doubt it!

[QueensburyRules]

Do you believe that on the very first day of boot camp, the kid who took his first step into war, born in 1923 and was 19 years old in 1942, was already a harder man than the kid born in 1946 and was 19 in 1965?

Not how they fought their wars, or how those wars came out, just . . . Were they different men that first day of boot camp?

I would say circumstances (life experiences) made the GI generation tougher than the baby boom generation? Yes!

How to apply that to fighters?

First task is to define tough: 'a willingness to take abuse.'

Then ask what can we measure, what can we reasonably extrapolate?

I believe that happened several pages back in this thread.

Either way, short answer, yes. Not in the absolute but one could put forth a reasonable historical argument (assuming the point argued is true.)

We know much about the realities of their world. The 20th Century historical record is deep. We can look in and see them closely enough to draw conclusions about their character, about what kind of men they were. It's not like we are trying to look back at Rome.

Here's a cliche question . . . Does a man fighting for enough money to buy dinner willingly take more abuse than a man participating as a professional athlete?

Does a willingness to take more abuse mean you're tougher?

- - I'd personally bristle over any generation younger or older than me being tougher, but I've personally witnessed whether by boxing or in personal life experience there is no shortage of truly tough guys.

However, in sports baseball and football, no doubt players have it easier because of modern rules, coaches, and prob the same with hockey and basketball. These changes in the rules and culture cannot be denied.

Why has no war hero ever emerged to come near what banty pipsqueak Audie Murphy accomplished in WW2 that makes pro sports look kindergarten level tough?

[billeau2]

Do you believe that on the very first day of boot camp, the kid who took his first step into war, born in 1923 and was 19 years old in 1942, was already a harder man than the kid born in 1946 and was 19 in 1965?

Not how they fought their wars, or how those wars came out, just . . . Were they different men that first day of boot camp?

I would say circumstances (life experiences) made the GI generation tougher than the baby boom generation? Yes!

How to apply that to fighters?

First task is to define tough: 'a willingness to take abuse.'

Then ask what can we measure, what can we reasonably extrapolate?

I believe that happened several pages back in this thread.

Either way, short answer, yes. Not in the absolute but one could put forth a reasonable historical argument (assuming the point argued is true.)

We know much about the realities of their world. The 20th Century historical record is deep. We can look in and see them closely enough to draw conclusions about their character, about what kind of men they were. It's not like we are trying to look back at Rome.

Here's a cliche question . . . Does a man fighting for enough money to buy dinner willingly take more abuse than a man participating as a professional athlete?

Does a willingness to take more abuse mean you're tougher?

Pep... I don't think it is nearly that simple... I will qualify: Regarding GI's. No... I do not buy the "tougher" GI hypothesis. For one thing, the Vietnam War averaged age of inductee was significantly lower than in the "great war." I say this as someone with a father who lied about his age (16) to become a marine in the second world war lol. I think the comparison is apples to oranges. There are really no "men" at 19. I say that as someone who does so based on the development of the brain and our physiology. The brain fully matures, including those parts with ethical decision making capability at the age of 30.

You say it yourself... "Does the tendency to take abuse make one tougher?" I would say: " we could certainly add it into a bunch of metrics that correlate to certain personality traits... But in itself? has to be qualified.

I tend to be skeptical of the arguments in combatives that state some class of citizen is/was {tougher, stronger, evolved, etc}. There are always skills underlying so called "toughness." LaMotta who had to have been one of the more intelligent, self reflective fighting philosophers once remarked, when discussing his fights with Robinson: "people think you take those shots...no, you have to pull back at the last minute and take most of the power off of them."

When you know what to look for as someone who has studied body mechanics related to combat for a long time, the first thing you notice is how the older pre classical fighters looked so biomechanically sound. Japanese classical martial arts, including with the sword, look very similar. the legs are spread out with weight anywhere from 50/50 to 70/30, the body is in slight profile, the lead arm extends BUT that elbow is only a bit from the ribs...(when your elbow starts to turn out progressively you are losing your structural integrity), the shoulder is relaxed and able to protect the jaw, the back arm is usually near the mouth, as though one is stifling a yawn...

I tend to think people were not so much only tougher (probably were lol) but also smart enough to study things carefully, and not rely on natural ability. IN the older times a butcher apprentice (for example) could not say "screw this I don't like meat, let me go to school for farming, ill just take out a loan." You took a vocation and were mentored in it... choysnky:Johnson style... lol. People made the most of what they had. besides you knew your goose was probably cooked by the time you were heading to fifty... Why care about old age? People lived to old age back then, but alot fewer did so.

I know from my own experience I was the absolute runt in our fighting Karate club... I was so bad that all the rest of the club took an interest in me... I became the highest ranked student of my teacher, and to this day have a reputation, yet I always hated to fight, loved to teach! and more important, because of others, I was an excellent fighter, despite hating it. So was I just tough? or was I motivated? Because if others valued it... I could not let them down.

[them_apples]

Do you believe that on the very first day of boot camp, the kid who took his first step into war, born in 1923 and was 19 years old in 1942, was already a harder man than the kid born in 1946 and was 19 in 1965?

Not how they fought their wars, or how those wars came out, just . . . Were they different men that first day of boot camp?

I would say circumstances (life experiences) made the GI generation tougher than the baby boom generation? Yes!

How to apply that to fighters?

First task is to define tough: 'a willingness to take abuse.'

Then ask what can we measure, what can we reasonably extrapolate?

I believe that happened several pages back in this thread.

Either way, short answer, yes. Not in the absolute but one could put forth a reasonable historical argument (assuming the point argued is true.)

We know much about the realities of their world. The 20th Century historical record is deep. We can look in and see them closely enough to draw conclusions about their character, about what kind of men they were. It's not like we are trying to look back at Rome.

Here's a cliche question . . . Does a man fighting for enough money to buy dinner willingly take more abuse than a man participating as a professional athlete?

Does a willingness to take more abuse mean you're tougher?

whenever Bundana responds, he re-words what he's responding to to make it sound so far fetched.

I don't think anyone thinks genetically men were tougher back in the day, I mean maybe some people were but that rule should still apply today. Men were tougher because their circumstances were tougher, and people belief systems were different.

I make a pretty simple point that boxers were "tougher back in the day" on the sole stance that times were harder, the game was different and that has changed. Most of my points are about what has changed. Nothing is magical or even genetic. I believe there's a skinny fat 6 ft 8 er that was around in the 1930's that never took up boxing, but would have been good at it had they.

[them_apples]

Pep... I don't think it is nearly that simple... I will qualify: Regarding GI's. No... I do not buy the "tougher" GI hypothesis. For one thing, the Vietnam War averaged age of inductee was significantly lower than in the "great war." I say this as someone with a father who lied about his age (16) to become a marine in the second world war lol. I think the comparison is apples to oranges. There are really no "men" at 19. I say that as someone who does so based on the development of the brain and our physiology. The brain fully matures, including those parts with ethical decision making capability at the age of 30.

You say it yourself... "Does the tendency to take abuse make one tougher?" I would say: " we could certainly add it into a bunch of metrics that correlate to certain personality traits... But in itself? has to be qualified.

I tend to be skeptical of the arguments in combatives that state some class of citizen is/was {tougher, stronger, evolved, etc}. There are always skills underlying so called "toughness." LaMotta who had to have been one of the more intelligent, self reflective fighting philosophers once remarked, when discussing his fights with Robinson: "people think you take those shots...no, you have to pull back at the last minute and take most of the power off of them."

When you know what to look for as someone who has studied body mechanics related to combat for a long time, the first thing you notice is how the older pre classical fighters looked so biomechanically sound. Japanese classical martial arts, including with the sword, look very similar. the legs are spread out with weight anywhere from 50/50 to 70/30, the body is in slight profile, the lead arm extends BUT that elbow is only a bit from the ribs...(when your elbow starts to turn out progressively you are losing your structural integrity), the shoulder is relaxed and able to protect the jaw, the back arm is usually near the mouth, as though one is stifling a yawn...

I tend to think people were not so much only tougher (probably were lol) but also smart enough to study things carefully, and not rely on natural ability. IN the older times a butcher apprentice (for example) could not say "screw this I don't like meat, let me go to school for farming, ill just take out a loan." You took a vocation and were mentored in it... choysnky:Johnson style... lol. People made the most of what they had. besides you knew your goose was probably cooked by the time you were heading to fifty... Why care about old age? People lived to old age back then, but alot fewer did so.

I know from my own experience I was the absolute runt in our fighting Karate club... I was so bad that all the rest of the club took an interest in me... I became the highest ranked student of my teacher, and to this day have a reputation, yet I always hated to fight, loved to teach! and more important, because of others, I was an excellent fighter, despite hating it. So was I just tough? or was I motivated? Because if others valued it... I could not let them down.

great post.

[them_apples]

You're right - the time where some top boxers retired with 200 pro bouts under their belt is long gone, and will never be back.

Personally, I don't really care how many fights a boxer has! Two of today's top P4P boxers, Usyk and Inoue, have so far had 20 and 23 pro fights, respectively. Would they be even better, if they had doubled those numbers, by taking a lot of meaningless "stay busy" fights in between the important ones? I doubt it!

meaningless? totally not meaningless. Try fighting only 2 times a year on the high levels, the psychological buildup is immense, many fighters have already lost before they step into the ring. Stepping into the ring sharpens the mind. sparring is not the same, you work on things in sparring, gloves are bigger, you get headgear - you can try things and make mistakes - and most of all - no massive crowd and cameras everywhere.

And while most tune ups were against over matched opponents, they frequently would take on a veteran if they needed a stiffer test to stay relevant. Not all of them were bum fights, once again you jump to one extreme to the next. the fact is you were fighting all the time. I would "think" this would really harden someone.

Another reason for lack of fights is the loss of smaller clubs that would house events every week. Boxing just isn't as popular anymore, proportionately.