Old fighters

[JayID]

I've never really given it much thought until now. Did old time fighters know how their opponent boxed (style wise) before they climbed into the ring? Of course due to lack of footage and number of fighters.

Example would be Sugar Ray Robinson vs Randy Turpin 1. Did SRR know how awkward of a style Turpin had? Or did he find out in the first round of their fight. It's not like SRR could have seen Turpin fight in person prior to their bout as I'm almost certain that Turpin hadn't fought outside of the UK before their second bout.

It really makes you think how high the ring I.Q was back then. To be able to adjust to a fighters style without any prior knowledge on them.

[billeau2]

I've never really given it much thought until now. Did old time fighters know how their opponent boxed (style wise) before they climbed into the ring? Of course due to lack of footage and number of fighters.

Example would be Sugar Ray Robinson vs Randy Turpin 1. Did SRR know how awkward of a style Turpin had? Or did he find out in the first round of their fight. It's not like SRR could have seen Turpin fight in person prior to their bout as I'm almost certain that Turpin hadn't fought outside of the UK before their second bout.

It really makes you think how high the ring I.Q was back then. To be able to adjust to a fighters style without any prior knowledge on them.

Film did create a tremendous tool for fighters. Schmelling studied tapes of Louis and found a telegraph when he threw his right. So guys were up on that as soon as they could be. My own opinion is that sometimes while there may be less of a resource, the people who use it can maximize the resource considerably. So, while there was less tape around, most fighters in the golden age were technically savy and could really use what was around.

Today guys like Tyson used tape extensively. With that said, there were great books written as well, including one written by Dempsey on how to punch properly.

[OctoberRed]

A lot of times trainers would fly all over the place and scout potential opponents or be forced to do at the moment game plans.

[Eff Pandas]

I'd imagine word of mouth was huge back then since film was so scarcely had.