The "Greatest of All-Time" Discussion

[Rusty Tromboni]

I'm not sure who would beat Gans at LW. We'd have to agree on gloves, ring size, the number of rounds, all that crap. How would a contemporary dude handle going 20 or 42 rounds? How would Gans handle competing for the figure skating scores that judges today hand out for only 12 rounds?

So instead of going with fantasy matchups -- not unless we're going to define the specific rules for these fights that happen across different eras -- I rate resume as the top indicator of greatness. Not all fighters were blessed with great competition during their primes, but that's their problem, not mine.

Who did you beat? How good were they when you beat them?

Fantasy matchups should use the "who'd you beat?" criterion as the departure point for discussion. If you beat Benitez, Duran, Hearns and Hagler, you're a MFer.

We can judge, using footage, how good a fighter was/is/could be.

Fantasy Fights should always occur under the conditions the earlier fighter fought under. It's ****** to do it any other way.

As for Gans, even with the benefit of his rule-set, he's not going to beat many Lw greats. It's clear from the footage. The starting point for the modern Lightweight should be MacFarland, who wasn't technically a Lw in his era, but was smaller than most top Lightweights who've come since.

[billeau2]

We all have a tendency to seek absolutes. Boxing in the older times was more related to combat, take that as one may. Just like tournaments in karate used to be very rough and tumble before they became sanitized games of tag. So what does that tell us about greatness?

I think people naturally rise to the level they can set a goal to accomplish. You cannot have a 4 minute mile without a 5 minute mile.

But to say that there is a supreme athlete, like Thorpe is ridiculous. Thorpe had two lungs, two legs, a set of standards that could be eclipsed... like any other athlete has today. It is straight out ignorant for my ******ed younger brother to say that because of different training methods, nutritional methods and chemical enhancements, that there are not athletes on the level of the past. Nonsense.

Finally? we have to consider social demographics and the hidden history that makes for change in sports as a whole. I mean individual sports specifically.

Football players are monsters today and totally different from when football was more similar to a club sport, back in Artie Donovan's day. Why is this? First off, colleges have become farm systems for the NFL with money pouring into these programs. A quarterback today probably has to have an IQ if above 150, a great memory and have great physical gifts. In the old days guys like Stabler and Montana for example were cut from a different cloth. They were smart, but lived by their wits not by the best training that money can buy.

With football in the 1980's in Florida, Arthur Jones invented machinery to train athletes so they could exhaust every major muscle group in a workout, in a circuit, in a five minute workout. This allowed football players to get bigger, stronger...pushing the muscles to muscle failure during the workout, in under ten minutes! And smarter because now practice could be spent on strategy, and training drills.

This is why we start to see the emergence of things like the West Coast Offense at this time, and today why football has become so specialized per each position and what every player has to know.

I used football as an example because lets consider if we are evaluating Johnny Unitas versus Peyton Manning to consider who is better. Well, they come from very different times in history with very different amounts of natural versus conditioned skills so this is very difficult to evaluate. in a pure head to head Manning would be superior but this is because of the things discussed above, do we cut Unitas some slack?

and every sport is different in this way. So there is no general consensus that all athletes go through the same processes in the same situations.

Now...Thorpe as a football player (he played college I believe) would never even make it today. Does this mean he is an inferior athlete? Something to think about right? Football players today, with machinery and drugs and nutrition can become very big, very strong and very fast. They may not do well in other sports but they can do well in football because of these measures. some of which may apply to other sports obviously.

Another point is that progress is not just taking steriods. Nautilus type training ushered in training to muscle failure, something that allowed an athlete to get stronger more efficiently. Nutrition and chemicals also have allowed an athlete to progress more efficiently.

But this is not always an advantage. Boxing and wrestling are two sports where this is not the case. Wrestling's golden age with people like Karl Gotch, who was a physical marvel, was such that few wrestlers today are as strong, gifted physically, and technically sound as the wrestlers who trained before them. Boxing is similar. Boxers have not gotten better if we believe our eyes. fighters cannot do the things technically that fighters could do in the golden age, they cannot fight as long, and they do not throw as many punches on average. This tells us that not all sports progress.

So in a sense if we compare Duran to Armstrong for example, Hank fought a lot more th an Duran, so he could develop more skills...Hank had better guys to fight, so he could test himself against better competition...not saying Duran did not fight good comp... but there is a difference in the landscape of each fighter. Armstrong had more opportunity to increase his skills. he fought more rounds, more fights, more competition and he fought at a time when boxing was considered much more common place. Just something to think about.

[QueensburyRules]

- -Duran fought better comp than Henry.

And if you can't see that rules and equipment changes including the equipment coaches and personnel use more than athletes affect how any sport is played, then I don't hold out much hope for you.

The guy who invented the wheel cannot be surpassed in intelligence and creativity though there is room for him to be matched for the right person.

[Anthony342]

We all have a tendency to seek absolutes. Boxing in the older times was more related to combat, take that as one may. Just like tournaments in karate used to be very rough and tumble before they became sanitized games of tag. So what does that tell us about greatness?

I think people naturally rise to the level they can set a goal to accomplish. You cannot have a 4 minute mile without a 5 minute mile.

But to say that there is a supreme athlete, like Thorpe is ridiculous. Thorpe had two lungs, two legs, a set of standards that could be eclipsed... like any other athlete has today. It is straight out ignorant for my ******ed younger brother to say that because of different training methods, nutritional methods and chemical enhancements, that there are not athletes on the level of the past. Nonsense.

Finally? we have to consider social demographics and the hidden history that makes for change in sports as a whole. I mean individual sports specifically.

Football players are monsters today and totally different from when football was more similar to a club sport, back in Artie Donovan's day. Why is this? First off, colleges have become farm systems for the NFL with money pouring into these programs. A quarterback today probably has to have an IQ if above 150, a great memory and have great physical gifts. In the old days guys like Stabler and Montana for example were cut from a different cloth. They were smart, but lived by their wits not by the best training that money can buy.

With football in the 1980's in Florida, Arthur Jones invented machinery to train athletes so they could exhaust every major muscle group in a workout, in a circuit, in a five minute workout. This allowed football players to get bigger, stronger...pushing the muscles to muscle failure during the workout, in under ten minutes! And smarter because now practice could be spent on strategy, and training drills.

This is why we start to see the emergence of things like the West Coast Offense at this time, and today why football has become so specialized per each position and what every player has to know.

I used football as an example because lets consider if we are evaluating Johnny Unitas versus Peyton Manning to consider who is better. Well, they come from very different times in history with very different amounts of natural versus conditioned skills so this is very difficult to evaluate. in a pure head to head Manning would be superior but this is because of the things discussed above, do we cut Unitas some slack?

and every sport is different in this way. So there is no general consensus that all athletes go through the same processes in the same situations.

Now...Thorpe as a football player (he played college I believe) would never even make it today. Does this mean he is an inferior athlete? Something to think about right? Football players today, with machinery and drugs and nutrition can become very big, very strong and very fast. They may not do well in other sports but they can do well in football because of these measures. some of which may apply to other sports obviously.

Another point is that progress is not just taking steriods. Nautilus type training ushered in training to muscle failure, something that allowed an athlete to get stronger more efficiently. Nutrition and chemicals also have allowed an athlete to progress more efficiently.

But this is not always an advantage. Boxing and wrestling are two sports where this is not the case. Wrestling's golden age with people like Karl Gotch, who was a physical marvel, was such that few wrestlers today are as strong, gifted physically, and technically sound as the wrestlers who trained before them. Boxing is similar. Boxers have not gotten better if we believe our eyes. fighters cannot do the things technically that fighters could do in the golden age, they cannot fight as long, and they do not throw as many punches on average. This tells us that not all sports progress.

So in a sense if we compare Duran to Armstrong for example, Hank fought a lot more th an Duran, so he could develop more skills...Hank had better guys to fight, so he could test himself against better competition...not saying Duran did not fight good comp... but there is a difference in the landscape of each fighter. Armstrong had more opportunity to increase his skills. he fought more rounds, more fights, more competition and he fought at a time when boxing was considered much more common place. Just something to think about.

Totally dude. Something these young kids don't seem to realize either is that just because athlete progress doesn't mean boxing always does. It depends on the fighter and who trains them nowadays.

What you said about training the muscles reminds me of that 30 for 30 short I saw called The Sweat Solution. I haven't seen the full length version yet, but it's about the Florida scientist who invented Gatorade for the Florida Gators to use during and after practices and games. The electrolytes in it proved a lot more effective that just water. Now in your local supermarket, you can get water with electrolytes if you're not as active, so you don't take in as much sugar.

When you said we all have a tendency to seek absolutes, you reminded me of Star Wars Episode 3, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" haha.

[billeau2]

Totally dude. Something these young kids don't seem to realize either is that just because athlete progress doesn't mean boxing always does. It depends on the fighter and who trains them nowadays.

What you said about training the muscles reminds me of that 30 for 30 short I saw called The Sweat Solution. I haven't seen the full length version yet, but it's about the Florida scientist who invented Gatorade for the Florida Gators to use during and after practices and games. The electrolytes in it proved a lot more effective that just water. Now in your local supermarket, you can get water with electrolytes if you're not as active, so you don't take in as much sugar.

When you said we all have a tendency to seek absolutes, you reminded me of Star Wars Episode 3, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" haha.

Yes "Gator" ade as in the Florida Gators. When money went into football football became a testing ground. Then, just as with electrolytes these forms of fitness came to the public. Its fascinating. I learned about it as a trainer while I was teaching martial arts in Baltimore of all places. This was the eighties.

Nautilus fitness machines were originally designed for athletes...they were supposed to be used a very specific way. Its very interesting actually. I learned from a guy that everyone thought was an idiot. But I will listen to anyone lol! Ill give them a chance.

This guy was kind of pudgy BUT he had definition. he had a nice build but very specific development on the different muscles, not at all like a body builder. He taught me what the concept behind what Arthur jones and Nautilus was about. you would maximize the intensity of the lift, and shorten the reps, and make sure form was impeccable. What would happen is you would work the muscle group to muscle failure which made the muscles grow. Thing is the general public could not get it, its very difficult to work at that intensity. Professional athletes could do it, but most people could not work that hard.

When you did things this way you got results and your workout time, your reps for each set of an exerscize all decreased... You could work every major muslce group in your body to exhaustion in ten minutes! If you really trained properly.

[QueensburyRules]

- -when Gatorade was developed, that was in the era of not only withholding water from athletes, but giving them salt tablets to chew on.

In days of yore, fighters were given whiskey or schnapps between rounds. Fact is that moderns ingesting too much Gatorade are almost impaired as much as the salt tablet era.

Pure water is the stuff of life no matter how you want to adulterate it.

[billeau2]

- -Duran fought better comp than Henry.

And if you can't see that rules and equipment changes including the equipment coaches and personnel use more than athletes affect how any sport is played, then I don't hold out much hope for you.

The guy who invented the wheel cannot be surpassed in intelligence and creativity though there is room for him to be matched for the right person.

Duran did not fight better comp than Armstrong.

Many things affect sports, so? Again searching for absolutes.

[billeau2]

- -when Gatorade was developed, that was in the era of not only withholding water from athletes, but giving them salt tablets to chew on.

In days of yore, fighters were given whiskey or schnapps between rounds. Fact is that moderns ingesting too much Gatorade are almost impaired as much as the salt tablet era.

Pure water is the stuff of life no matter how you want to adulterate it.

what the hell? What are you on about? Lol. Queeny your a piece of work. Ill remember that and not drink too much gaterade.

[BM dnobagaV]

Duran did not fight better comp than Armstrong.

Many things affect sports, so? Again searching for absolutes.

Explain to me how Henry fought better opponents than Duran.

[QueensburyRules]

- -I suppose he'll list Robinson and Ross, and then quickly move to cut his losses.