Are modern fighters better?

[billeau2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oAEt6CIKEY

This kind of sums it up for me. its a similar thing with martial arts. There is a whole complex of movement skills that take time and effort, most guys start too late to learn them and few guys can teach them.

Boxing has become for the most part two guys squaring up and trying to get better punch stat numbers. Even win and losses have become lacking because we need the championship rounds for many things to happen in the ring.

[Suckmedry]

Surely that is counter-balanced by the increased influence of amateur boxing? If you are a talented young fighter, in the US and many other places, then you are going to be kept very busy training and fighting during your younger years in the amateur system.

Theres tons of things that you don't learn in the amateurs that need to be perfected in the pros.

[Anthony342]

Technique wise yes,toughness no.

This pretty much sums it up right here.

[RED REP]

Dempsey would really really hurt Wlad if they were to fight in a fantasy match up.

That's all that needs to be said.

[RED REP]

When we pads first widley used?

You never see footage of the old greats doing pads, from this i think boxers combinations are better, faster and more accurate, but as said above the old greats and their era were just tougher, harder. They fought more with a deeper level of talent.

[BennyST]

I mean, athletes are bigger, stronger, and faster today than they were in the past.

Track and field runners are faster today than past runners. Basketball and football players are bigger, faster, and stronger than past players. Weightlifters today are stronger than past weightlifters.

Athletes are better today in just about every sport. Do you really think the same doesn't apply to boxing?

I ****ing hate this argument with a passion.

Boxing, unlike basically every single other timed, individual sport on earth, does not rely on being bigger, stronger, faster etc.

There's weight classes, so if you're bigger, you just go up in weight.

Anyway, how does an easier, longer weight cut and getting to weigh in a day earlier compared to before the fight equal a better fighter? Todays and yesterdays fighters all still struggle with weight. It simply means one weighs in a day earlier and thus gets to add more weight. That would happen at any time, in any era though. It doesn't change the fighter. It changes the weight divisions and their meaning.

Or do you think that today's middleweight at 180 pounds vs yesterdays middleweight at 160, when we're talking P4P fantasy fights, is the same thing?

No. All it means is that guys fighting in fantasy match ups that will never happen, they don't get the fake weight advantage. They wouldn't be in the same classes today. For ****s sake!

But, the big thing is that in every other sport, whilst doing your thing, it doesn't involve you getting punched in the face. You don't run, being bigger, stronger and faster against a clock, while someone punches you in the face. Do you?

What happened to bigger, stronger, faster athlete than nearly every olden day heavyweight Seth Mitchell, when he got punched in the face hard once? He collapsed. Because boxing doesn't rely on being bigger, stronger, faster. It has a different set of criteria, along with those, that get you to the top that aren't in any other non-fighting sport.

He was bigger, stronger, and faster than the fat, ridiculous excuse of an athlete that easily knocked him the **** out. Easily. Hardly even had to try. Why?

If they played every other sport that you say has evolved Seth Mitchell would make The Nipple look like a complete chump. He would embarrass him. In every single way.

In boxing? He gets his ass absolutely whipped because it's a primitive sport that doesn't rely on the stuff you think it does, and won't evolve in the same way and the history of the sport shows this over and over and over and over. History has repeated itself a thousand fold with boxing. The bigger, stronger, faster guy does not equal the better guy. It's not a team sport, so an entire team of bigger, stronger, faster guys might mean something...but boxing doesn't work that way. It's just you and someone else punching each other.

The bigger thing doesn't even come into play. They would just be in different weight divisions or you compensate for P4Pness.

Floyd. Usually faster, not always, but in today's world nearly always smaller and arguably less strong in a statistical, measured way. He makes every bigger, stronger guy he fights look like ****ing idiots.

Did you see Joe Frazier in that wacky challenge back in the 70's or whatever? He went up against other athletes in an 'athletic super challenge!' of sorts and got embarrassed. He got out lifted by a pole vaulter or something, out coordinated by some other dude...cant remember exactly. I just remember he lost all his challenges.

Question: Would he have beaten those superior athletes in a boxing fight?

[BennyST]

By primitive, I don't mean in terms of skill. It's obviously not. I mean in the sense that what shoes you wear aren't going to make nearly as much of a difference as a sprinters would have. The surface that a track guy runs on now compared to 50 years ago alone would make a huge difference in time. Add in streamlined clothes and lightweight spiked shoes and you increase time by a significant margin with that alone. That is a huge part of the evolution of sprinting. Steroids are obviously a much bigger one.

Then comes the body type. In boxing, it really makes no difference. A small asian dude, a lean black American and a huge white slavic are among the best athletes in boxing.

What about sprinting? Does it work the same way? Is there a small asian in the top 1 million? Basketball, if you're not tall, that nearly precludes you.

When you get punched in the face, it no longer matters what shoes you are wearing. Mike Tyson wore basic leather shoes without socks. Do you think it made as much of a difference to his performance as it does to the footwear of modern sprinters?

What do you mean when you say 'modern' anyway? I'd say boxing peaked around the 60's and 70's, stayed true through to the 90's and has very clearly declined since then except for a few exceptions.

[Anthony342]

The answer is no because methods and techniques haven't evolved as much, boxers don't have to fight as often, so there's more ducking involved and less hunger, as money is guaranteed and not reliant on their excitement.

[Joe Beamish]

Guys fighting around 1900, 1905 such as Joe Gans, Sam Langford and Barbados Joe Walcott are better than anyone fighting today.

[The Old LefHook]

I ****ing hate this argument with a passion.

Boxing, unlike basically every single other timed, individual sport on earth, does not rely on being bigger, stronger, faster etc.

There's weight classes, so if you're bigger, you just go up in weight.

Anyway, how does an easier, longer weight cut and getting to weigh in a day earlier compared to before the fight equal a better fighter? Todays and yesterdays fighters all still struggle with weight. It simply means one weighs in a day earlier and thus gets to add more weight. That would happen at any time, in any era though. It doesn't change the fighter. It changes the weight divisions and their meaning.

Or do you think that today's middleweight at 180 pounds vs yesterdays middleweight at 160, when we're talking P4P fantasy fights, is the same thing?

No. All it means is that guys fighting in fantasy match ups that will never happen, they don't get the fake weight advantage. They wouldn't be in the same classes today. For ****s sake!

But, the big thing is that in every other sport, whilst doing your thing, it doesn't involve you getting punched in the face. You don't run, being bigger, stronger and faster against a clock, while someone punches you in the face. Do you?

What happened to bigger, stronger, faster athlete than nearly every olden day heavyweight Seth Mitchell, when he got punched in the face hard once? He collapsed. Because boxing doesn't rely on being bigger, stronger, faster. It has a different set of criteria, along with those, that get you to the top that aren't in any other non-fighting sport.

He was bigger, stronger, and faster than the fat, ridiculous excuse of an athlete that easily knocked him the **** out. Easily. Hardly even had to try. Why?

If they played every other sport that you say has evolved Seth Mitchell would make The Nipple look like a complete chump. He would embarrass him. In every single way.

In boxing? He gets his ass absolutely whipped because it's a primitive sport that doesn't rely on the stuff you think it does, and won't evolve in the same way and the history of the sport shows this over and over and over and over. History has repeated itself a thousand fold with boxing. The bigger, stronger, faster guy does not equal the better guy. It's not a team sport, so an entire team of bigger, stronger, faster guys might mean something...but boxing doesn't work that way. It's just you and someone else punching each other.

The bigger thing doesn't even come into play. They would just be in different weight divisions or you compensate for P4Pness.

Floyd. Usually faster, not always, but in today's world nearly always smaller and arguably less strong in a statistical, measured way. He makes every bigger, stronger guy he fights look like ****ing idiots.

Did you see Joe Frazier in that wacky challenge back in the 70's or whatever? He went up against other athletes in an 'athletic super challenge!' of sorts and got embarrassed. He got out lifted by a pole vaulter or something, out coordinated by some other dude...cant remember exactly. I just remember he lost all his challenges.

Question: Would he have beaten those superior athletes in a boxing fight?

The only records in sports that are definitive are track, swimming & weight lifting. The rest are made up categories. A passing record does not tell us someone was a better or stronger passer. It is the same in all ball sports, from golf to football.

With the shoes Louis and Dempsey had to wear, how could they beat anyone today? Vladver Klinchko would float around them in his air soles. If he gets to wear his new Kevlar-infused mouthpiece and they have to chew rags as usual, the old boys would have no chance. Now let's get to the boxing trunks. Have you seen the old trunks? Guys in those trunks aren't winning too many fights today.

Diet? The old boys didn't even know what an energy bar was, so 'nuff said about that.

The oldsters had none of our outstanding media tools. Can you imagine Dempsey with a huge reel to reel in his room at training camp to view his opponents' fights in grainy, awful balck& white? Yes, no Youtube makes a victory for the old boys even more remote. They may as well be blindfolded.

Our modern huskies have sports psychologists and counselors to pule to, Dempsey only had the one-eyed janitor to shake a response out of.

Those old idiots never heard of trainer-in-a-bottle, now did they? You couldn't hurt those modern, muscled bellies with a pitching machine, as they guzzle some more trainer.

Let's get to the stools. That's a big one, so I am goona save it for next time.