What makes 60-80's fighers so much better than today?

[violaandme]

One of the key reasons is that the best fought the best. Nothing makes you better than constantly facing the best. Today there are 3-4-5 belts and often times the top 2 or 3 fighters never meet. GGG and Quillin and Martinez and Barker should be fighting each other. We shouldn't be arguing about who *should* be able to win - they would be fighting each other. And if there were close fights they would fight again. And again.

How good, for instance, was Calzaghe? We will never know. Was he a protected, feather-fisted slapper. Or had he deceptive power and better skills than his detractors (like me) realize? We will never f**king know.

It's like if in football the GreenBay Packers and the NY Jets in SuperBowl III never met due to contract disputes. We would all "know" that of course the Packers would win.

I love the football reasoning here imagine 2 wildcard games get played then skip the second round all together then an afc championship but no nfc championship then the winner plays one of the wild card loosers and says well we're the greatest no superbowl or just imagine the BCS system thats pretty much modern boxing but with 5 belts and a couple gold belts and throw in a diamond belt and boxing has no real champions with the exception of dare I say Wladimir Klinchko

[WilkinsOlajuwon]

Thats not true.

SRL didnt fight hagler for years when people wanted it. Most forget about this. Hagler was at the tail end of his career and Aaron Pryor was calling out SRL for years and that never happened.

Nostalgia at its best.

70's and below fought the best but they didnt have different champs and promoters. We live in a different time but we have some tremendous fights that do occur.

Hagler was 32 and the middleweight champ. Oh, and SRL had fought duran x2, Hearns, Benitez, etc oh and then he fought terry norris

the fact that you are trying to discredit SRL resume shows you know dogsh.t about this sport. you're out of your element.

[dan_cov]

I always scoffed at the thought but over the last years I've came to the realisation we have a few fighters that could go into other era's but on the whole of it. Oldschool fighters was much better than the fighters of today; They had more subtle skills, fought more regular, far tougher, better stamina, better at pacing themselves, higher ring I.Qs
Hardly any fighters of today can adapt. Adapting today = Getting on your bicycle.

Open your eyes people its plain as day; come on really you've guys like Tim Bradley at the top of the sport ffs, before that you had guys like Khan up there, Holt etc are you fuc.king serious? Don't get me wrong Tims solid but he ain't elite and only in this era is he anywhere close.

Have we really gone from Foreman, Tyson, Bowe, Holyfield, Arguello, Pryor, Jones, Monzon etc etc these are just more recenter fighters to the **** of today?

Todays era on the whole is garbage. Not to mention how many belts there are today, just anybody can pick one up.

[BennyST]

This: http://*************/watch?v=jQhFhdmW6Vs
Vs
This: http://*************/watch?v=5oxbHu07lV4

Defines it well.

[dynomyte1444]

Hagler was 32 and the middleweight champ. Oh, and SRL had fought duran x2, Hearns, Benitez, etc oh and then he fought terry norris

the fact that you are trying to discredit SRL resume shows you know dogsh.t about this sport. you're out of your element.

Um not at all. SRL is a great but some of things that you are complaining about today SRL did those things. He didnt fight all the fighters that people wanted to see.

You dont know what your talking about. the same thing that People say about floyd they said about SRL when he wouldnt fight Hagler.

Age doesnt meant so much when you went through battles like Hagler. He was at the end of his career. regardless of what you say

[violaandme]

Just go to the top left of this page where it says boxing champions and click you will see 5 sanctioning bodies and 16 divisions and maybe and in all those divisions there are only about 5 fighters that have more than one belt they just don't fight the best period it really started in the late 80's they started taking one of the three belts and calling it good now there are 5 belts if these fighters would unify the divisions and the belts we could then maybe start to compare them to anyone from earlier eras untill then they aint shnit

[violaandme]

Hagler vs Leonard should have happened earlier but anyone that says leonard and pryor was what the fans wanted really does not know nobody except Pryor wanted that fight it was only later that people say he ducked pryor nobody cared about that fight then

[WilkinsOlajuwon]

Um not at all. SRL is a great but some of things that you are complaining about today SRL did those things. He didnt fight all the fighters that people wanted to see.

You dont know what your talking about. the same thing that People say about floyd they said about SRL when he wouldnt fight Hagler.

Age doesnt meant so much when you went through battles like Hagler. He was at the end of his career. regardless of what you say

Donnie, you're out of your element.

No current fighter save Hopkins has a resume close to SRL.

[Citizen Koba]

Hagler was 32 and the middleweight champ. Oh, and SRL had fought duran x2, Hearns, Benitez, etc oh and then he fought terry norris

the fact that you are trying to discredit SRL resume shows you know dogsh.t about this sport. you're out of your element.

I think you were a bit quick to jump on the guy there. I don't think he was trying to discredit SRL, but make the valid more general point that these top guys didn't spend all their time fighting other top guys. We remember and point to perhaps 7 or 8 'superfights' over a period strung out over a decade, forgetting the unmemorable fights in between. Thats the way memory works - we recall the exceptional, forget what is routine.

We have this image of lighting fast, iron willed warriors beating on each every weekend, but the reality is not all that different from today, except things are now more diffuse with fewer US stars and more guys fighting around the globe.

[dynomyte1444]

Hagler vs Leonard should have happened earlier but anyone that says leonard and pryor was what the fans wanted really does not know nobody except Pryor wanted that fight it was only later that people say he ducked pryor nobody cared about that fight then

Ya pryor wasnt that popular to where fans were calling for it but anyone who paid attention to pryor knew that he would be a sure test for Leornard.

If we use todays standards leornard ducked pryor