The sport and the art

[squealpiggy]

All sounds good but I dont buy it ,, the techniques of today are more refined with the same goals , hit the guy in the jaw , there are punches thrown today that werent even thought of back then , there is feints and combinations that would destroy a Jim Sullivan , you could land bolo punches and uppercuts with ease against them ,,, what do you think a fighter like Ali would do to a guys face with bare knuckles , 30 rounds lol , gimme a break Ali would bust you up so bad in one round with bare knuckles it would be a blood bath his jab alone would blow a mans face apart ,,, I watched an ex lightweight world champion in a bar fight go through a 6 ft 200 lb guy like a dose of salts and the guy had fought 8 rounders in kick boxing and his head basicly exploded from one combination ,,, old time fighters with that stand up stance whether they got gloves on or not wont stop a Joe Louis from nailing them to the wall , its about technique and they are better today at punching a man to the head and body than they were 100 years ago ,, I have not a doubt in the world of that .

Are the techniques really more refined though? Read fight literature and accounts of fights from bare-knuckle days (accounts exist of bouts) and you'll find that although there was more wrestling pre-Queensberry, much of the striking took place in the same way as it does now.

As for your little lightweight champ in a bar fight, we're not talking about trained fighters taking on bigger but untrained guys, we're talking about trained guys taking on other trained guys. And the question of the winner would be decided depending on the rules in a large way.

ALl this is superfluous to my principle argument however which is that the goal of the sport of boxing is the knockout.

[RodBarker]

Off course the techniques are better today they have had a 100 yrs improving them , I really cant see your logic here , look at what Mayweather snr has done with technique and thats just one man what do you think the sport as a whole has done over a 100 yrs , mate I dont care what a book says , that is just another guys rhetoric that wasnt there , look at the earlist fights on film with your own eyes those guys would get slaughtered today , they have no footwork they have no lateral movement and they have no defense , todays fighter is like a F1 compared to a Tmodel ford of that era , do you really think they went 30 rounds because they were better conditioned , thats ludicrous , they went 30 rounds because they did nothing , apply some common sense here not fables and story telling .

Look at the European style , the Mexicans , the Cubans they all do things different and with the money involved today the best science has to offer is at an astute trainers fingertips , the world amateur organisations have sports institutes running computer generated simulations on perfecting form to within millimeters and you ask has technique improved .

The bar fight I spoke of wasnt a trained fighter , he was retired had a taste for a beer was 20 lbs over his fighting weight and 10 yrs past it , the 200 lb kickboxer was actively fighting at the time , his face was pulp in an eye blink.

Mate with all due respect you need to see some real fights to see what damage can be done and then apply that sight to Ali , Louis Tyson and ask yourself what those guys would do with just wraps on ,, dam they kill people with gloves on it would be criminal what they would do in just wraps .

[squealpiggy]

Firstly there is no video footage of the golden age of bareknuckle boxing. There is however plenty of evidence of how bouts were conducted. The fight world changed when bare-knuckle went out the door. Gloves drastically changed the way the sport was fought. Jim Corbett would probably have failed to upend Jim Sullivan if it were still bare knuckle rules. Which is why I would be willing to bet that transplanting a top heavyweight from today to bare knuckle days would not go well for the boxer if they took on a top bare-knuckle fighter. The reverse is also true.

I think it would be a good idea however not to make assumptions about my experience of fighting both in and out of the ring. I don't need to see any more bare fist fights, thankyou very much.

[RodBarker]

LOL dont you think bare knuckle fights is still going on , toughman comps are fought all over the world , cage fights where anything goes with mitts on , its never stopped , the real bare knuckle just went underground , in some third world countrys they fight to the death ,,, mate if you can give solid reasons why what Ive said is wrong , Im all ears , so far in this debate you havent said a thing to bolster your statement or added anything to the debate that refutes what I have put forward , all you have is a glory story out of book designed to sell books ,, mate if this was a court your case would be thrown out because you have nothing to back it up ,, I suppose the Three Musketeers could beat the 2006 Olympic Fencing champion or Robin Hood was a better archer than the current world champion ,,, history is intertwined with storys fables and romance heros get larger as time passes , writers make a living out of it , but the record books dont lie modern mans performances are better today than at anytime in history in any subject you want to put under the microscope , FACT !

Ive made a lot of statements here , common sense ones , show me with evidence where I am wrong ?

[crillz]

I think this thread is sincere BUT I think that once the structure of Boxing changed so did the object of it, when you decrease the amount of rounds you alter the object of the game, these guys went for knockouts because the way the game was made to be didn't leave no options for otherwise, either he was gonna fall out or you was just gonna KO the guy but that was only due to the circumstances, even then it required skills that these guys obviously didn't have if they were going 50-60 rounds to KO the other guy, that was organized fighting, it wasn't Boxing, believe it or not we still have fighters of that time here with us today and those are the Vinny Pazienza's and Ricardo Mayorga's of our era, guys who fight with no skills and look for KO's, no style or nothing just war, THATS not Boxing, even back then it wasn't Boxing..

organized fighting in Boxing still goes down today, not everyone Boxes but the more successful ones do, that is no coincedence, those guys used to kill each other because of the rules and regulations but guess what? rules change, even back then the jab was used but due to overall lack of skill and the brute force that them conditions provided there was no room for improvement, it took a change in organization for what we call today Professional Boxing, I can definitely agree that a KO is a big part of the game even today but it isn't the fundamentals of Boxing, when you bring up that era you talking about gladiators, guys who fought bare knuckle in a constructed ring, it was ALL Boxing accept as time progressed so did the persons involved and something got done about the harsh conditions the fighters were going threw..

ask Jack Johnson right now (R.I.P) if he could have fought 12 round fight's for 5 million++ dollars as opposed to bare knuckles, countless round fight's for chump change what would he do? I am sure he would pick todays conditions and it wouldn't mean he's not a Boxer but at his time and era the conditions were at it's beginning stages, it evolved to a much more safer and competitive sport, the key word there is evolved though because it grew from those warrior days, today just like back then Boxing was an art, it still had trainers training fighters and opponents getting studied, training camps, styles and all of the above but it wasn't as comfortable for the fighters as it is today..

I see it like this yo anyone can fight bareknuckle and go down, anyone can fight with gloves and go down, anyone can fight period and go down but NOT everyone can do it with skills, I could punch you wildly in a Boxing match a la Vernon Forrest-Ricardo Mayorga and beat the hot **** Boxer me myself being a fighter because there is no tuition for Boxing, it's a gladiator sport BUT when the change occurred it brung it down a notch so that now anyone can fight and win off their skills, before you couldn't and now you can, the change only narrowed it down more to the skills of a fighter and how he can use it to win, it didn't seperate the art and the sport, it was ALWAYS hit and don't get hit, they used to guard and counter just like it gets done today..

in closing it's a great article and gives you insight on how **** went down back then BUT it doesn't mean Boxing changed from a sport to an art and likewise because they always hit and didn't get hit it's just before they weren't as skilled and were prone to KO's.. 100

[CH0ZEN]

Dude why are you being an ass??? They guy writes a great Post, a tonne of people agree, and your dumb ass has to start telling Tall Tales of Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers... What the hell is wrong with you, the Canadian guy here is the one speaking common sense, and he's provided you with a history lesson to go with it!!! Karma for you my Canadian friend, great Post!!!

[RodBarker]

Yeah your right I apologize to the author it wasnt his initial post I was getting up but the idiot post of Wileys and got lost in the gyst of what the thread was about .

[CH0ZEN]

That was Cool of you to say, good on ya man...

[shawn_]

Beautiful.

[joepal]

Yeah your right I apologize to the author it wasnt his initial post I was getting up but the idiot post of Wileys and got lost in the gyst of what the thread was about .

There are minimum standards before you can post in here, you know.