Do people tend to overrate throwback fighters because of biased views?

[!! Shawn]

It not really an old time bias, its the way the sport worked changed. It use to be the best guys fought the best guys in their prime, because thats where they made money.

Now they just wait until everyone is old and fight, and in the meanwhile making nothing of their career, fighting hand picked opponents and bums.

Pernell Whitaker for Example fought Azuma Nelson, Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad, Julio Cesar Chavez, and more in and past his prime. You never saw him picking on past their prime vetrans, it was always the young dogs coming up.

Same with SRR, he fought all the best guys at their best, and regulararly.

Same with Ali, he fought all the best of his era, then sat out his prime, came back, and took out all the young challengers to his throne.

Now guys sit around and avoid each other like the plague.

Cotto pretends GGG doesnt exist. Floyd pretended Pac didnt exist for ever, now Pac is old and lost twice, so suddenly he forgets all the reasons he didnt want to fight him, and its on.

All the while avoiding legit challenges like Erislandy Lara, who did beat Alvarez, and Kell Brooke, and Keith Thruman.

Not fighting the young hungry dogs, fighting the old well fed dogs.

[tredh]

Yes is easily is the answer.

95+% of the people here say Sugar Ray Robinson is the best but nobody here has ever seen him in his prime and at his best. They just parrot what others are saying.

The footage of Robinson that is availble doesn't show a person who is the best to ever do it.

[BodiesInFlight]

Yes is easily is the answer.

95+% of the people here say Sugar Ray Robinson is the best but nobody here has ever seen him in his prime and at his best. They just parrot what others are saying.

The footage of Robinson that is availble doesn't show a person who is the best to ever do it.

What about the people that saw him in the flesh and claim he was ATG?

[Furn]

More likely fighters like Floyd want to overate their own era.

[tredh]

What about the people that saw him in the flesh and claim he was ATG?

They have that right cause they acutally SAW it for themselves. Not repeating what some one told them that can't be verified.

[Basco]

I believe they do get overhyped. The problem is people nowadays are judjing them within the context of the this era's boxers. The sport has evolved in so many ways, its almost a different undertaking. From excercise, to supplements(not to mention PEDs), technique etc. I believe the sport back in the day depended more on raw talent. Another theory I have is, I believe the talent pool for the sport was lower therefore, when you had a really good guy, he looked "out of this world good".
Then you have the motivation factor. There was not the kind of money we have to make a living by getting punched in the face back then. Even if the talent was available from a pool, not many were motivated to test their abilities. People had to put food on their tables and they were not willing to gamble with that. Again, this will make the good ones look great. This don't take away their greatness as they fought the opponents who were available at the time. The question will remain as to what would happen if you could have a time machine and put Robinson vs GGG or Greb vs Leonard. We will never know.

[The Big Dunn]

The same stuff people say about Floyd-didn't fight anyone, wasn't that good-is the same criticism Ali and SRL faced by people prior to the Liston and Duran fights.

When people do not like you or are threatened by your greatness, they will question your talent in this kind of way, they make whoever you didn't face better solely because you didn't face them.

[Dindu_Nuffin]

Yes...

Most posters don't even have a clue on most of these throwbacks whose names they toss around.

They just want to sound "in the know" by claiming all these throwbacks from past fistic eras were "the real deal" while the best boxers of today are "frauds."

While it is true in many cases - it's idiotic when people say Pac ad Floyd don't belong being mentioned with guys like Hagler, Hearns, Duran, and Leonard.

Or Wladimir KLitschko would "get wiped out" by Ali, Foreman, etc. When in fact Wlad would be competitive against any HW from any era.

[vorgaphe]

Lol at repeating one of the biggest myths surrounding this debate. Modern science and training methods is bs there's no great new innovations in Boxing training going quite far back

There may not have been great innovations in the technique side of boxing training, but there have been huge advances in strength and conditioning training since say the 1960s. Sports science has come on leaps and bounds and the result is that fighters in the modern era are, on average, stronger, faster and fitter than their older counterparts.

Sports science has also increased the knowledge of sports nutrition which was relatively basic before these innovations. Strength and conditioning training does not necessarily mean that today's fighters are any better than those of the past, but it is a mistake to state that there have no advances in training since the ear of Ali and others.

[Swatty]

Do People tend to overrate throwback fighters...

@TheMexHurricane
Entirely too thoughtful, with too much tolerance and understanding. Good post.

[QUOTE=TheMexHurricane;15588658]Of course, and it's simply because of race, but there's nothing wrong with that tho. For example, there is an intense anti-Mexican bias...