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Just as many people in the general population don't seem as "old" as they used to at age 50 due to better nutrition and the acceptance of the importance of exercise, modern training and nutrition methods allow athletes to compete at higher levels longer, to delay the ageing process. You didn't used to see many 40 year old athletes in this kind of condition (Vitali following his win over Adamek):
Last edited by Lucky Jim; 12-28-2011, 12:17 AM.Comment
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Reasonable question, applied to a sport appreciated by folks that are lured into a fighter based on more than just raw skill. It's no coincidence that I can vividly recall entire days and events that were held close to a fight. The tenseness that comes with watching a fight and following a fighter, to me transcends almost any sport. I think the problem comes in when fans are unwilling to admit their bias, instead they try to read their infatuation into statistics and facts, they creatively bend reality based on nothing more than hope in their favorite fighter.
Boxing is a sport of gratuitous extremes that attracts a fan base as radical as the sport itself. So transcending time, or reason, or conditioning or whatever such thing isn't the point, the fan is the point.Comment
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it is purely a matter of perspective. if you debate someone intelligent about this it becomes a stalemate everytime. boxing is highly stylistic, high class fighters have an artistic quality to them and trying to figure out why something artistic appeals to one man and not the other becomes an esoteric and nonsensical conversation. it is a matter of taste, not everyone can see this and they will continue arguing that one way or the other is, in fact the correct way but neither side can establish anything. i could think of a sensible defense for either side or argue it either way but it is actually totally pointless to do so, each person should simply appreciate what appeals to them and as they branch out to others perhaps their ideas will change, perhaps not. in the end, some progress will be made because the person is now into the sport that much more.
it is only beneficial to modern fighters if they feel like they are competing with the legends of the past. if i heard a young fighter say "i want to be the next joe frazier" I would be happy about that. what is wrong with having a small "mythology" in boxing? they have it in all sports. when the rubber hits the road, it is the fighter that has to do the work and take the punches. I just never felt it necessary to take shots at the traditions and "mythology" in boxing. how is it bad? people love to have nostalgic talks about old fighters, and the same people love to go see fights that happen today.
in a nutshell it comes down to taste. some people simply appreciate the "vibe" of the old time fighters more. there is no scientific explanation other than the fact that people have the freedom to scan through hundreds and hundreds of fights and they will remember some as more "striking" than others and influence their personal tasteComment
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There is nothing at all wrong with a sport having a mythology and a history that people appreciate. But that is not the point being argued here. The point is that boxing is the one sport where the past is constantly being presented as and promoted as being totally superior in all ways to the present, to the ultimate detriment of the sport.
You'll never hear the media people in any other sport constantly denigrating the current product they are promoting in favor of the past -- only in boxing will you hear that from supposed "experts" like Bert Sugar. It's crazy and counterproductive to keep telling people that there is no point in watching what is going on now, because none of it measures up to the past.
And then people wonder why boxing is "dying" in America.
Use the past to promote the sport and create interest in the present. Not to bury the present. Big difference.Comment
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The reason has to be, that it is correct. I look at it this way, in the older days, there were at least a hundred times as many boxers around as there are today, whidh has a much smaller group particpating. In the older days there were only 8 weight classes, and a champion would certainly have to have fought his way through perhaps the equivalent of 25-30 present day contenders, maybe more, before he got a title chance. Even in later years, Hagler had over 50 fights before he got a title shot. In earlier years, a champion might have had up to 100 fights, was vastly experienced in every kind of style or opponent.
Today's fighters don't even begin to approach this level.
The reason that track, athletics, basketball, baseball, football etc. have progressed whilst boxing is seen to have regressed is that these sports are not merely man-against-man, or team against team, they are against verifiable records. And it's by pitting themselves against these records, that we can see the progress they have made compared to the earlier players.
The records are ALWAYS there, they survive, faster times, swimming records broken, longer hits, longer throws, longer kicks etc.
Boxing is different, and always will be. Today's champion is champion of a division half the weight dimensions of an earlier division, and king of a group of competitors counted literrally in the tens, where on older days they would be counted in the thousands.
It's logical...................Comment
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in that sense you are correct. if someone has taken the "mythology" of the sport and used it to somehow make the current product less than it could be, they have "abused" the tradition. in this situation it is the person at fault not the underlying ideas. i don't exactly share your opinions about bert sugar, I actually think he is more of an ineffectual "nothing". if you really, really "listen" to him then you are fool because he is clearly a joke. i just dont happen to hear many people that sound like they have bert sugars words coming out of there mouth, ten years ago maybe it would be a little different?
im just saying, maybe some idiot took the **** to far and i agree, that was wrong. but im also here as a dedicated boxing fan saying the tradition matters and i don't want that "suffer" any more than i want modern boxing to "suffer"Last edited by MonsieurGeorges; 12-28-2011, 01:31 AM.Comment
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In America the "Bert Sugar Syndrome" is alive and well, especially among the old guard of boxing writers and media people. Perhaps time will eradicate that as these types inevitably die off, but let's hope boxing doesn't die off with them.
There is no danger whatsoever of boxing tradition as you describe it suffering. That tradition is strong and entrenched.
The danger is in that tradition snuffing the life out out the sport in the present day.Last edited by Lucky Jim; 12-28-2011, 01:39 AM.Comment
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