Why are the fighters from the first half othe 1900s looked as Gods

[Poet682006]

?? most of their fights weren't even recorded, and the ones that were, are terrible quality where u can't even see wtf is going on. and people bash fighters today for fighting "nobodies". how do u know the fighters back then fought good opposition? (particularly rocky marciano, sugar ray rob, joe louis, jack dempsey, jack johnson, etc)

How do you know the fighters of today are fighting good opposition? After all the only thing you have to go on is what other people tell you in magazines, sports broadcasts, and forums like this.

PS. Not ALL those fights were in terrible video quality as black and white does not automatically qualify the quality as "terrible".

Poet

[Poet682006]

old fighters always get overrated

Current fighters always get overrated.

Poet

[Poet682006]

good looks 'TheMachine'.
PS: technically they are cruiserweights by todays standards

Cruiserweight is an illegitimate division cooked up by the alphabet boys to create more titles and collect more sanctioning fees.

Poet

[Poet682006]

old time fighters like Henry Armstrong? damn, they look good. I can see tons of skill there.

guys like Jimmy Wilde? hmm. no. not that impressed.

Homicide Hank sweet!

Poet

[larryx]

because their old school fighters and can beat anyone 2day(lmfao)

[Poet682006]

lol You read that type of stuff in the Boxing History Forum all the time.

Boxing History = Boxing Scene's elite forum. NSB = the place where demented fan-bois go to drool over their favs while telling us how Superman couldn't possibly beat them.

Poet

[Poet682006]

we all know back then fighters use to fight 3-5 times a month (because of the need of money) and how the gloves were smaller than the ones today, but people need to stop overrating boxers from the early 1900's or older like jim jeffries and jim corbett.

in ESB, people pick those old-timers over modern day boxers .

Sometimes with very good reason.

Poet

[Poet682006]

I hate how ppl jump on the Sugar Ray Robinson and some other ol' timers bandwagon and not have seen ever 20 of their fights.haha.

Come on Versatile you're better than that.

Poet

[Poet682006]

if you look at the names of the fighters records back in the days you will see that all or most of the top fighters faced each others and it didnt matter if it was recorded or not they really faced the best of the best and the pay was ****ty!!fighters today cherry pick their oponents and claim they are the best!!!!

Let Mayweather fight a ten fight series with Pacquiao like fighters used to do then his fan-bois might have something to talk about.

Poet

[GJC]

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
Rating old timers against current fighters is always tricky. One thing you can't do is simply look at numbers and decide who is or isn't a great fighter. Henry Armstrong lost over 20 fights as did Archie Moore. Willie Pep lost 11 Sugar Ray Robinson lost 19 etc etc. They all lost fights in their peak so does that make them bad fighters or the people who beat them greater? Of course not. They fought in the era where fighters kept busy and fought everyone and hopefully got a shot at holding the one title which was on offer. Generally they could realistically only fight for 2 or 3 titles.
You need to factor in nutrition, training regimes the fact that fighters didn't learn their trade in the amateurs such as in recent times. They learnt their trade by fighting and by winning and losing. Also fighters have the technology to study each other better these days and come up with a fight plan. There was also less pressure on having a pristine record, nowadays a fighter who has 3 losses on his record will rarely fight for a world title. I believe Henry Armstrong lost 3 out of his first 4 fights. Many fighters pre 1960's used to have 100 to 200 fights. There were a lot of good fighters in those days who never got a shot at the few titles on offer. Nowadys I believe that any good fighter will at least hold a version of a title at some time in their career. This can then inflate the record of other fighters by showing that they have beaten 10 world champions at some point.
When I look at a fighter like Jack Johnson I see a fighter who was 30 years ahead of his time and also a big man physically of that era. I would imagine had he been born 100 years later he would have been bigger physically, fitter and with the information that television gave him as clever a fighter and I would be suprised if he would not hold a version of the Heavyweight title now. But if you simply look at an old film of him and compare him with a modern day heavy he will not look as impressive.
That said old timers do have a tendency to pick out names out of a history book, I have seen 100's of old fight films and the quality of many especially pre 1930's is poor. Harry Greb is rightly regarded as an ATG but this opinion can only come from reading his record and accounts from the time there is no existing fight film of him. Any comparison of him and modern fighters is impossible. I think all in all ATG's of any era would enjoy the advantages or suffer the disadvantages of moving to another era. Anyhow that is a few of my rambling thoughts on this.