Do You Think Old School Fighters Get Overrated?

[pasawayako]

Yes they are overrated, fighters of today has more techniques, supplements and can use xylocaine or numbing drugs that could help him keep throwing those punches in the fight.

[TBear]

By old school fighters you are refering to many era's (or many times). Often people rate fighters from this era(or this one time) over the greatest fighters of many eras. I don't know if this makes sense,
but the greatest of many times>>>the best of one time

So I believe they are underrated. When I first got into boxing it was hard to imagine how the oldtimers could beat the current guys. But after time I realized that there were many, many eras and the one I was in was just a piece.

[JAB5239]

those are cars. not humans.

You dont have to go that extreme with the examples. Go with the natural progression of greatness in all sports.

All of the top players in almost all sports have come in recent time. Go with that.

Bobby jones to sam snead to arnold palmer to jack nicklaus to nick faldo to vijah singh to tiger woods....

bill & wilt to jerry west to pistol pete to dr. j & the iceman to magic & bird to mj & hakeem to kobe & lebron...

rod laver to bjorn borg to jimmy connors to johnny mac to pete & andre to federer....

jesse owens to carl lewis to micahel johnson to maurice green to usain bolt....

otto graham to bart starr to johnny unitas to joe montana to john elway to payton manning...


The list goes on. Every sport athletic evolution along with its greatness rankings evolve. It seems as though boxing is the only sport immune to this.

I disagree.

Why? & what is the main reason?


To preserve History.


Why cant an artist be as great or greater than da vinci? You could find 10 artist in new york who could recreate the mona lisa, but they will never rank higher than da vinci in artists p4p list.

Why?


TO PRESERVE HISTORY.



(jab,lmfao, i know we have had this argument before.)

Yes we have. Im to tired to get back into it with you again tonight, brother. But tomorrow is another day.

[B.U.R.N.E.R]

In some cases yes.

Times change.

[CubanGuyNYC]

Absolutely. Boxing, like baseball, is a very nostalgic sport. People like to claim that Babe Ruth would still destroy if he were to play today. Bull****. He was 5'10, 220 lbs, but if you look at the footage, he was a mountain compared to the players around him. Same thing with boxers. Nutrition is superior today, making for stronger, quicker fighters. Boxing has also evolved quite a bit as a sport, meaning there is a lot more technical skill. They definitely used to be tougher, but the average fighter today is better in every other area than an average fighter of 50 years ago. Now, obviously, there are greats from that era that could measure up in any era, but claiming that Jack Dempsey would destroy a prime Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis is poppy****.

There's a reason why Ruth looked so much bigger than the relatively smaller ballplayers of the day: he was 6'2", not 5'10". And, yes, he was probably around 220 lbs. (I've seen him listed at 215.)

It's an inexact science, to say the least, comparing historical athletes with their modern counterparts. I have no doubt that human beings have evolved physically, however, I'd like to focus on two reasons why I think that many (not all) of the all-time-greats should be considered superior to today's best fighters: 1-If they benefited from everything that today's human beings benefit from, they would be dominant in this era, too. 2- Dominance in one's era is often considered the most vital element to measuring an athlete's greatness. The best of the ATGs were monsters of their time.

You can make a powerful case for any of the legends below heavyweight. It gets tougher when you start comparing heavies for the obvious reason that the division has gotten so much bigger. The main reason why heavyweights were smaller years ago is because people in general were smaller. Jack Dempsey might not be able to transport through time and beat Vitali Klitschko. But if Dempsey was born twenty-five years ago, with all his historical gifts, can you honestly say he wouldn't have a shot? And, who's to say that Vitali, if he were fighting in the "Manassa Mauler's" age, wouldn't fight like Primo Carnera?

By the way, in 1920, his first year with the Yankees, Babe Ruth hit 54 home runs and batted .376. His .847 slugging average was a Major League record until 2001. Aside from the Yankees, only the Philadelphia Phillies managed to hit more home runs as a team than Ruth did as an individual. How's that for dominance?

When a man's name and reputation enters the realm of the mythical, one must not only respect it, one must wonder why. Very often, if you honestly do some research, you may not come to agree, but you come to respect.

[Dynamite Kid]

Yes they probably do, i can think of a number of modern day fighters i would put up against some old school fighters and i would back them to win, that said its too much of a blanket statement a lot of the time, just because people overrate them you dont start saying ridiculous things because you have not took the time out to watch them thoroughly.

[Dynamite Kid]

Another thing that has to be take into account is that there is no championship distance anymore, no championship rounds, take Alexis Arguello, sure he could be outboxed, sure he was not hard to hit, but the guy could knock your ass into next week, had a solid chin, good body puncher, and he started to ramp up about the 12/13 rounds, Arguello was a consistent fighter who got stronger as the fight wore on.

Could you imagine someone like Cotto going 15 rounds, not with Alexis but with some beast from yester year, Cotto can barely last 12 without getting tired.

[STREET CLEANER]

No, cause if you had an era in a weight class that was super-competitive at the time and there was a last man standing, there is a good argument from then and now. Look at the MW right now how bad it is, but the SMW right now is a hot division. There were great fighters then and now BUT THE HISTORY IS THERE

[Reloaded]

Another thing that has to be take into account is that there is no championship distance anymore, no championship rounds, take Alexis Arguello, sure he could be outboxed, sure he was not hard to hit, but the guy could knock your ass into next week, had a solid chin, good body puncher, and he started to ramp up about the 12/13 rounds, Arguello was a consistent fighter who got stronger as the fight wore on.

Could you imagine someone like Cotto going 15 rounds, not with Alexis but with some beast from yester year, Cotto can barely last 12 without getting tired.

12 rounds today is trained for which inturn creates more speed and more explosive power , thats the benefit of modern training and nutrition , todays athletes react quicker I guess thats why all world records are being broken ,

When you look at an athlete training its give and take , if you train for a marathon you cant sprint , you cant be at your fastest and also be at your most stamina , so athletes try and balance their best attributes to the task , the older fighters relied more on endurance and toughness , they did more running and bag work type stuff than todays guys who work a lot more on speed and intensity , if todays fighters had to go 15 rounds they would , it would just be more endurance based training than power based and the pace of the fights would be different ,,, lots of areas need to be looked at when comparing different eras , its all too easy to say A beats B in fantasy fights .

[gqjohnb]

Improvements in ability, or equipment and conditions? Evolution takes million of years, science doesn't.

Records continue to be broken and lowered despite very small changes over the last 30-40 years in track surfaces. The effect of shoes on performance is negligible. I'm not talking about evolution I am talking about advancements and greater availability in training and nutrition. I don't think equipment and conditions have as much to do with it as training and nutrition.