Were the past greats really that great!?

[AlwaysOnTop]

The updates in conditioning and nutrition mean that yesterday's greats would get dominated by the average fighters of today. The same is true of all sports.

You can only really judge a fighter against those of his own era.

There are no "updates" in conditioning and nutrition....

That

Is

A

Lie

Mayweather eats anything you put in front of him and he trains the same way those old school guys train.

I don't see anybody dominating him.

[shadeyfizzle]

You act as if only old school fighters are the only ones capable of great mental will & determination.

If both fighters are mentally tough, technically gifted, physically gifted, but one fighter is from the 30s-40s and one is from the 80s-90s... i would go with the much modern athlete who has advantages that oldschool fighter doesnt have.

I think you're getting the wrong idea about what im trying to say. Im a big believer that modern era fighters can compete on an even level with golden era fighters.

All im saying is unlike other sports...boxing is not completely driven by athletic abity. In basketball jordan will always school cousy. In football jerry rice will always be better than michael irvin. But in boxing ali wont necessarily always be better than tyson or vice versa because there are plenty of examples of the less talented, less genetically gifted fighter emerging victorious in boxing.

[shadeyfizzle]

There are no "updates" in conditioning and nutrition....

That

Is

A

Lie

Mayweather eats anything you put in front of him and he trains the same way those old school guys train.

I don't see anybody dominating him.

You keep associating floyd with old school. Im curious what exactly does floyd do in common with golden era fighters that absolutely noone else today does???

[deuce_drop]

Lets talk about a subject that becomes very heated amongst the old school and new of boxing fans. How do the old legends of boxing stand up to the new breed?

Im not talking about fantasy matchups between duran and pacquiao, the pugilistic art hasnt changed that drastically in that space of time. Im talking about the likes of gene tunney, jack johnson etc......All are are ring legends, and deserve to be, but how would they fare against the modern era?

The reason i ask this is because i have been a boxing fan for 9 years now, there is only so many archived fights i can watch until i wound up looking up these guys that so many boxing historians talk about. And i know im going to get blasted for this....but i was not impressed.

Jack Johnson, who many historians believe would have beaten any heavyweight from any era is one that stands out. In the fight i watched with jess willard i wasnt overly impressed. Its not that its in black and white and old grainy footage. Ijust dont see the skill shown by the older boxers. Wheres the head movement? the bobbing and weaving? the defense!?!?! most of the time the 2 fighters are winging punches from the waist and dont have their hands up to defend themselves.

Dont get me wrong, i respect the hell out of these guys, youd have to respect fighters that have hundreds of fights back in those days, with the small gloves etc...It just seems to me that it was more fighting back then as opposed to boxing. It was about hard as nails men who could punch and take a punch. When you look at the likes of mayweather jr, with his impeccible defense, fast as lightning hands. is it logical to assume that these primitive fighters would have beaten our new breed??

Maybe im being ****** and am missing something. But isnt it just a case of boxing has evolved? A 1920s manchester united would be dumbfounded by the 2011 squad. Is boxing much different???

yes they were that great, limited resources, they didn't have all the sports medicines and sciences to aide them into being superior ATHLETES, remember, the OLD SCHOOL guys were FIGHTERS, not the athletes that we have participating in boxing today and for the last couple of decades.

they didn't have all the knowledge that they do now, and they were on some special level.

we're talking about same day weigh ins/fights, larger gap in the weight divisions, nutritionalist and dietitians didn't exist, or strength and conditioning specialist coaches didn't exist, just hard work with your trainer and corner.... etc, type stuff.

now, with that being said, all the way since the OLD SCHOOL days up to the present day and beyond into the future, just like everything in this world, IT HAS BEEN EVOLVING!!!! paths and trails have been blazed, new information and styles have been expanded upon, new boundaries have been pushed.... fighters today have hypoxic training, and supplementation, various different exercises....... etc, all this stuff has been expanded off of the old stuff, and has made it what it is today.

are these fighters better than the old school? Athletically...... yes!! but as a FIGHTER!?!?!?!? NNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! for the old school fighters to get themselves to where they would be on the physical level as fighters today, they put themselves through way more and tougher exercise programs to get in that shape...... where as today, fighters have relied more on sports science to get the same results, FASTER, and not as much hard work as the old schooler who was either doing not a 100% right which would take more hours of work to get the same results as the scientific method.

so my point would be more along the lines of, the old school fighters are more of the FIGHTER ilk, and the new aged present day fighters are better ATHLETES within the sport ( with only a few that possess the old school toughness )

also, there are more rules that benefit the fighters today than those of yesteryear...........

[AlwaysOnTop]

that is so wrong it's not even funny. Today's fighters are much less versatile. That's the biggest difference. A guy like benny leonard, thought of as a purists dream, was a better inside fighter than all of the 'inside' fighters today.

Anyway, this has been done to death. People often miss the point of boxing. Unlike most other sports, modern training, science etc has very, very, very little impact on boxing apart from some of the cross training techniques, but again, someone like pac is no better conditioned than someone like duran who was able to go 15 rounds harder than anyone today.

The biggest thing about boxing is very simple so most modern training and science has very little impact. The training techniques of boxing are exactly the same, and as so many people are finding out, weight training (which is basically the only thing modern training has made a big impact with) is minimal. Boxing is about basic aerobic and anaerobic capacity. You do the same thing 50 to 100 years ago. Sprints and running. For boxing, the usual.

You aren't trying to beat a time in boxing. This is the part that nearly everyone misses. You are not racing against the clock and trying to beat someone a certain way, otherwise anyone that's faster would win and anyone with better technique would win. Not how boxing works.

We see it every single ****ing day and people still don't get it......someone who wants it more, despite the better technique, faster hands, faster feet etc etc can win.

Pac is among the best athletes and has the most modern training available. An older, smaller, slower, less powerful fighter just beat him using basic boxing. In any other sport, pac would have wiped the floor, but boxing isn't about times and just being a greater athlete and it never has been. Sometimes, someone comes along who has great talent in fighting and is a great athlete and it translates to success, but time and time and time again the greater athlete has been put out because boxing is not about being a better athlete. It's about fighting for ****s sake. Bigger, stronger, faster does not equal success. How many times do you need to see it happen before people realise that boxing is about boxing, fighting, taking a punch, giving one back.

The fighters from past era had more talent to fight against, more trainers, more contenders, more gyms....boxing was just bigger and had much more depth across the board.

ya'll

need

to

read

this

!!!!!

[Ragnar Lothbrok]

This guy is ******...lol

How are WW's and MW's for example bigger today??

WW and MW have ALWAYS been 147 and 160

Is Sergio Martinez bigger and stronger than Gene Fullmer...??

LOL

C'mon..

where did you see me post that you trollicious alt? I was making a general statement about modern athletes in general not making a specific statement about a specific sport.

but if you were smart enough or "always on top" of things which you arent, you would know today's welterweights or middleweights are bigger than yesteryear's welterweight/middleweights due to the fact there is 24 hour rehydration today.

welterweights of yesteryear on fight night weigh in at 147 while today's welterweights enter the ring as 154/160 pounders. Its like that across the board in all divisions of boxing.

LOL...

C'mon...

Troll...

Alt.

[JAB5239]

The updates in conditioning and nutrition mean that yesterday's greats would get dominated by the average fighters of today. The same is true of all sports.

You can only really judge a fighter against those of his own era.

Conditioning? Fighters today struggle to go 12 rounds and fight 3 times a year in comparison to fighters of the past going 15, 20 and even longer as well as fighting half a dozen times a year and more. Nutrition? Are fish, meats and vegetables so much more nutritious today than they use to be? I'd like to see the study proving this.

As far as other sports go, you can thank technology for giving us better fields, tracks and equipment. Records will always be broken, but athletes as a whole have not evolved to be better overall. Evolutions takes thousands and thousands of years, this is an irrefutable scientific fact.

Boxing has in fact regressed as a whole because of a few things. One, because their are many less fighters which make the competition much thinner. Two, because fighters fight much less often causing the to not be as sharp. Three because they are coddled along to remain unbeaten for promotional reasons. Four, because of boxing's decline in popularity training methods and skills have not been passed along from previous generations. Things such as feinting, body work, body work, catching and blocking punches and setting traps. They're still done by some, but as a whole we don't see this consistently in boxing.

These are FACTS, feel free to debate them.

[JAB5239]

Athletes have evolved. In some Olympic events records times from the 40s would be laughble for today's Olympic events

And that would have nothing to do with rubber tracks as compared to dirt or the evolution of running shoes, would it?

[JAB5239]

Great video...

It actually proving me wrong in a way.

Good to see some open minded posters still remain on this forum.

[shadeyfizzle]

Conditioning? Fighters today struggle to go 12 rounds and fight 3 times a year in comparison to fighters of the past going 15, 20 and even longer as well as fighting half a dozen times a year and more. Nutrition? Are fish, meats and vegetables so much more nutritious today than they use to be? I'd like to see the study proving this.

As far as other sports go, you can thank technology for giving us better fields, tracks and equipment. Records will always be broken, but athletes as a whole have not evolved to be better overall. Evolutions takes thousands and thousands of years, this is an irrefutable scientific fact.

Boxing has in fact regressed as a whole because of a few things. One, because their are many less fighters which make the competition much thinner. Two, because fighters fight much less often causing the to not be as sharp. Three because they are coddled along to remain unbeaten Ure for promotional reasons. Four, because of boxing's decline in popularity training methods and skills have not been passed along from previous generations. Things such as feinting, body work, body work, catching and blocking punches and setting traps. They're still done by some, but as a whole we don't see this consistently in boxing.

These are FACTS, feel free to debate them.

The olden fighters fightin up to a dozen times a year and the coddling of fighters today ive always believed to be irrelevant in the big picture.

Olden fighters fought more but didnt fight contenders any more frequently than modern fighters. Sugar ray robinson for example closing in on 100fights was still fighting guys with 2-15 records up to 4x a year. It would be considered an unnecessary formality today because techniques can be sharpened in training camp regardless.