How Good were the past American champions, REALLY?

[BrometheusBob.]

These days, pretty much no Americans are the best in the world, now granted they will try to feed us the crawfords, broners, wilders and the rest.

But since the UK has increased it's participation in boxing, with the eastern euro nations now dominating since they entered the pro game, and the emergence of cuba, American dominance is well and truly at an end.

This got me thinking to the Ali's, the leonards, and all the rest.

Were these guys even real "world" champions? They only really had to compete with other americans

How good would Ali have been if he had to face a Klitschko?

How good would Roy Jones have been if he had to face a Golovkin?

This is ridiculous Andre Ward beats any fighter out there

[Mr. Philadel]

I've seen OP post some really dumb things, but was on the fence. This clarifies things.

[Earl-Hickey]

This is ridiculous Andre Ward beats any fighter out there

lol Kovalev is going to turn him into a cabbage

[BrometheusBob.]

lol Kovalev is going to turn him into a cabbage

Kov is crazy overrated. Stevenson KOs him if they ever fight.

[Dr Rumack]

The highly technical Russian style would have been a nightmare for those guys. Robinson would have really struggled with Korobov.

[betmen]

These days, pretty much no Americans are the best in the world, now granted they will try to feed us the crawfords, broners, wilders and the rest.

But since the UK has increased it's participation in boxing, with the eastern euro nations now dominating since they entered the pro game, and the emergence of cuba, American dominance is well and truly at an end.

This got me thinking to the Ali's, the leonards, and all the rest.

Were these guys even real "world" champions? They only really had to compete with other americans

How good would Ali have been if he had to face a Klitschko?

How good would Roy Jones have been if he had to face a Golovkin?

you also have to include talent and environment

i believe past champs from us are real deal because not only they are great talent but also because they came from great boxing environtment which nurture their talent.

just look at the past olympic, with almost all nation participate u.s still dominant.

it just now other country real good too, i think is great because i still think U.S boxing community is still the best in the world and american public are very welcoming to outside talents.

[soul_survivor]

The fact that Klitschko just lost his title to a guy who barely threw 50 punches tells us a few things, what that is, is dependent upon your level of intelligence.

The fact that GGG and Kovalev are yet unproven against any truly great middleweight or light heavyweight (not entirely their fault) also tells us a few things, however, both do seem to pass the eye test but that means jack if you haven't faced anyone to really test you.

I could go on and about these stupid comparisons. The fact is, guys like Ali, Leonard, Hearns, Robinson, Oscar and so on, proved their worth on an almost consistent basis against the very best the sport has ever had to offer, it's not that they were American, it's that they were damn good.

What has led to the downfall of American boxing currently is the proliferation of big money paydays against worthless opponents over the last decade or so and possibly more importantly, the falling apart of the American amateur system. The British, Ukrainian, Kazakh and Russian amateur systems are simply better.

[Weltschmerz]

They were good at the time and boxing was more popular in general. If you are thinking about the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's in particular, a great deal of nostalgia is attached to those eras and it will continue to be so for some time (until those generations 'die out' to put it bluntly). If you're thinking 'how good they were' in comparison to our current times, it will always be a discussion much subjected around personal feelings more than anything else. It is true that American professionals were not challenged the way they are today from the rest of the world, in terms of their domination of pro boxing. Also, the introduction of UFC/MMA has had a clear impact on popularity.

If you go to Russia and Eastern Europe today, fighting is hugely popular and the amateur system is great with a a lot of fighters turning pro eventually. This has had an impact already and will continue to in the coming decades.

[deathofaclown]

Athletes now are just strong and better than ever, but that's down to advancements in training and dieting and everything else (possibly/probably illegal things too).

It's hard to say. I do believe if you transported a fighter from the 60's and 70's exactly as they were then and made them fight todays fighters, they would get smashed. But give them all the same strength and conditioning and training of today and obviously we might have a different story. All sports have basically continue to get better physically and records are always broken, there's no way of measuring boxing for records like measuring time or something so that's why it's all down to opinion. But it would be naive to think boxers today are not better athletes when there's pretty much proof in all other sports where you can officially measure it. People don't want to believe it because of the nostalgia element, but the fact is today people are just better athletes in general and that must go for boxing.

So really there's no way of comparing, there's too many factors involved and advancement in certain things that it can never be a fair comparison. But if you could bring them into today and give them all the same benefits current fighters have, then we might be able to compare but of course that's impossible.

That's why i never think anybody can claim to be "TBE" - All you can be is the best of your time.

[Scipio2009]

These days, pretty much no Americans are the best in the world, now granted they will try to feed us the crawfords, broners, wilders and the rest.

But since the UK has increased it's participation in boxing, with the eastern euro nations now dominating since they entered the pro game, and the emergence of cuba, American dominance is well and truly at an end.

This got me thinking to the Ali's, the leonards, and all the rest.

Were these guys even real "world" champions? They only really had to compete with other americans

How good would Ali have been if he had to face a Klitschko?

How good would Roy Jones have been if he had to face a Golovkin?

Roy Jones Jr would've brutalized Gennady Golovkin, at any weight, but Klitschko would've been all bad for Ali (Ali being 3" shorter, having the shorter reach by ~4", being the smaller man by about 20 lbs, while not really being comfortable fighting on the inside and not having otherworldly power shrinks the different paths that Ali could've had to victory).

Still, history being what it is, it's not like there weren't any records of non-Americans that were fighting when Ali, Leonard, etc were fighting; BBBoC has records for the British heavyweight championship, and likely the rest of their weight classes, that go back to 1905. It may not be a complete history, but I'm pretty confident that there's logs for any fighter that was competing around the times in question.

People have had the conversation that you're seeking to restart here countless times before, with the only name that's consistently drawing notice being Teofilio Stevenson possibly being better than Muhammad Ali (how Stevenson would've transitioned into the professional ranks, in addition to how his discipline would've kept up as money started rolling in, will never be known but he had the raw material to have people wonder).