Today's fighters vs yesteryear fighters

[boliodogs]

They fought much more often but 20 fights a year was not the average and they didn't have to fight that often. Robinson fought about 5 non title fights for every title defense. There was only one champion but he could still duck a top contender if he wanted to. I think 10 fights a year would be closer to the average and that many fights would be hard on a boxer. They wouldn't last as long taking that many punches. Some very good boxers never did get a title shot.

[boliodogs]

I checked Robinson's record. He did fight 20 fights in 1950 and 1941 but he fought less than 10 fights a year in most years. There were years he fought only 1,2, or 3 times. He took 2.5 years of after he lost to Maxim. He had 199 fights in 22 active years for an average of about 9 fights a year. That's much more than any boxer fights today.

[CubanGuyNYC]

They fought much more often but 20 fights a year was not the average and they didn't have to fight that often. Robinson fought about 5 non title fights for every title defense. There was only one champion but he could still duck a top contender if he wanted to. I think 10 fights a year would be closer to the average and that many fights would be hard on a boxer. They wouldn't last as long taking that many punches. Some very good boxers never did get a title shot.

I checked Robinson's record. He did fight 20 fights in 1950 and 1941 but he fought less than 10 fights a year in most years. There were years he fought only 1,2, or 3 times. He took 2.5 years of after he lost to Maxim. He had 199 fights in 22 active years for an average of about 9 fights a year. That's much more than any boxer fights today.

In another thread, I looked up a random stretch in Kid Gavilan’s career, merely to demonstrate activity decades ago. The Kid fought on 10/13/56, 11/13/56, 12/04/56 and 12/20/56. Insane by today’s standards. And, as you know, this kind of schedule wasn’t unusual for a fighter. Willie Pep fought 241 professional bouts in a career spanning 26 years. You don’t have to be good at math to immediately see that’s an average of almost ten fights per year.

Being a professional fighter is a bad career choice today, but in the old days, it was even worse. That accounts for a lot of the activity. These guys literally had to fight for a living. No fights, no money; no money, no food.

[juggernaut666]

Boxers today would just adjust the punch counts per rnd and train to go longer at a slower pace with LESS action if they were doing 15 rnds ,its not something magically unattainable . lol

Boxing today is by far much more structured where one isnt taking fight 1 weeks notice or champion arent fighting 10 times a year .

The guys today train longer with averaging around 2 months per fight for a specific opponent making the contest more fair today . So you are actully getting the best possible fighter out there with less injuries so the same question can be reversed ....


How would the older era fighters do against better trained ones where once they had a greater level of skill almost always over the opposition in a dark ages era compared to now with healthier opposition who have endless media to study them as well?

['b']

Today's boxers would whoop them in all honesty. It is generally agreed that sports evolve, and so do the athletes - even in combat sports like MMA we see this, but people still hold on to the past in boxing with rose-tinted glasses.

I respect the fighting spirit of the old guys though, even if they were just beating glorified amateurs once a week

[Luilun]

If they had to fight so many times a year many fighters would have to move up a weight class or two.

So Jacobs would probably be a cruiser weight fighting about 185 to 190 , Crawford would be a Jr Middle for sure

[KidDinamita]

Could they do it 20 times in one year?, with injuries?

Dont think they will do it 20 times in one year. Not because of injuries only though, but they are paid to much nowadays.

[Thraxox]

Today's boxers would whoop them in all honesty. It is generally agreed that sports evolve, and so do the athletes - even in combat sports like MMA we see this, but people still hold on to the past in boxing with rose-tinted glasses.

I respect the fighting spirit of the old guys though, even if they were just beating glorified amateurs once a week

So you don't think Tommy Hearns would clean out 147 quite easily?

[Tony Trick-Pony]

Some would make it. Many wouldn't. The old guys really went through hell compared to what the guys go through today. That's why I usually rank them higher on an all-time scale.