Why todays era is better than past eras. Discussion.

[ShoulderRoll]

Be honest: are Klitschko's jab jab grab or Wilder's windmills really superior to the skill sets of a Joe Louis or even a Sonny Liston?

How can anyone say with a straight face that today's era is better?

[Bundana]

Be Honest: Are the skill sets of Freddie Mills and Joey Maxim really superior to the skill sets of an Andre Ward or even a Bernard Hopkins?

How can anyone say with a straight face, that the huge influx of boxers from former Eastern Bloc countries has not resulted in a serious upgrade of the worldwide talent pool?

[ShoulderRoll]

Andre Ward and Bernard Hopkins are a rarity in this era, it's not like the sport is teeming with them.

And even then their particular skill sets were not unknown in previous eras. They aren't exactly bringing anything new to the table that we haven't seen before.

So you can't really point to them as evidence of boxing evolving and upgrading on the past.

Same goes for the fighters from the Eastern Bloc.

[The Old LefHook]

Mythical matchups have a definite place in the discussion of era vs era, for mythical matchups will always take place between top practitioners.

The legions of club-level fighters in any era were not very good representatives of the techniques of their respective eras anyway, for they were usually not talented or dedicated enough to become proficient. The top guys in the various eras still sort it out amongst themselves better than 10,000 nonen******. The cleanest picture is still in the highend mythical matchups.

[Bundana]

Same goes for the fighters from the Eastern Bloc.

So the Eastern Bloc opening up to professional boxing has had no effect on the sport? How one can follow today's boxing, or take a look at the current world rankings, and reach that conclusion... well, that is very hard to understand!

Look, the boxing scene today is very different from the 50s. Back then everything had to do with the US. Take The Ring's heavyweight rankings from 1955: The world champ plus the top 10 contenders were ALL Americans! That's the top 11 heavyweights in the world all coming from the US! During the whole decade there were 21 heavyweight title fights... each and every one taking place in the US, and all but 3 all-American affairs. In The Ring's 2016 heavyweight rankings 6 different nations are represented.

In the 50s there was a total of 19 fights for the middleweight crown. 18 took place in the US (the exception of course being Robinson-Turpin in London). This decade, so far, GGG has defended his middleweight title 17 times - in 7 different countries, against boxers from 8 different nations.

The obvious difference between now and the 50s, is that boxing no longer is an almost exclusive American affair - but is spread out all over the world. Many Americans take the view, that this must mean a slump in interest, and that boxing isn't what it used to be. That sports such as baseball and NFL are taking away the attention from boxing. What they forget, is that there's a world outside the US. A world where 95% of this planet's inhabitants live. You know, those 95% that aren't interested in baseball, and have no clue who Tom Brady is! In that part of the world, boxing is not just doing ok; it has been growing rapidly over the past several decades.

Last year Norway saw professional boxing return after a 35 year ban! The politicians finally had to give in to the demand, that Norwegians should be able to see Cecilia Braekhus defend her world title on home soil. Of course Americans wouldn't know who Braekhus is, but every man, woman and child in Norway do.

Earlier this month Mikkel Kessler announced he was coming back after a 4 year lay-off. Huge, breaking news in Denmark! A couple of month ago an eagerly awaited fight took place in Australia: A clash between two bitter rivals, Anthony Mundine and Danny Green. Two over-the-hill boxers in their 40s, but still the most talked about fight "down under" in years. It's called "local interest", which is what is fuelling boxing around the world. Remember, 99.9% of boxing fans aren't nerds like us, who go on a forum like this to talk about the sad, watered down state boxing is in these days. Or the lost art of feinting (LOL) and body-punching. Nor do they wonder about whether or not Canelo will man up an face GGG this coming fall. No, they talk about the things that interest THEM - which is what is going on in their own backyard. And there are a LOT of backyards these days!

In 1955, 63 different countries hosted pro boxing... in 2016 that number had increased to 115 (116 if you count Puerto Rico as a separate country). Thousands of boxers are coming out from these new countries (and not just from the former Eastern Bloc), resulting in an ever growing number of fights taking place around the world. Make of this what you want.


Edit: Sorry, I wasn't quite correct in claiming that all the Ring rated heavyweights in 1955 were Americans. Their #6 guy, Nino Valdes, was actually from Cuba. My mistake.

[Fury4daWIN]

H2H I suspect most top HW boxers from the 80s onwards could wipe the floor with their comparable brethren from past eras. That's based on a number of factors but boils down to a general increase in size, strength, general athleticism and the added factor of performance enhancing drugs. There are outliers of course, but by and large I don't see too many fighters from, say, Louis's era performing well at any time in the last thirty years.

Whether that translates into thinking that modern eras are better depends entirely on your definition of the word. Boxing to me is an entertainment first and foremost, and one in which I demand clarity as regards the layout of the current landscape. In that respect eras like the seventies are so good because almost everyone fought everyone else, so we had a very good idea where each fighter stood in the pecking order. They also fought to win, not to cash out, so there was a tremendous energy and uncertainty going into each big fight and a high probability of excitement once the fight commenced.

That competitiveness and drive is seriously lacking in the modern era, or more specifically from the 2000s onwards, where fighters routinely avoid tough challenges, pad their records to boost their ratings, and enter title fights grossly out of shape and/or utterly unconcerned whether they win or lose. From an entertainment POV it makes for an extremely dull and frustrating experience. For years, outside of Wlad, we really had no idea where anyone stood because they hardly ever fought each other. However skilled they may have been (and I believe there were more than a few very good fighters during Wlad's reign) we never got to see the best they had to offer.

There may be a potentially larger talent pool today than in the past, but it's not just a numbers game. The fighters have to actually compete and fight to win. There's too much easy money flying around nowadays and too many gullible punters willing to lay down cash on mismatches involving their favourite fighters for any sensible promotor to risk putting their cash cow into money losing situations.

[Bundana]

So today we routinely see fighters go into world title fights, "utterly unconcerned whether they win or lose"? Yeah, that makes sense... I mean, with often millions of dollars riding on the outcome, why would anybody really care?

[Humean]

So the Eastern Bloc opening up to professional boxing has had no effect on the sport? How one can follow today's boxing, or take a look at the current world rankings, and reach that conclusion... well, that is very hard to understand!

Look, the boxing scene today is very different from the 50s. Back then everything had to do with the US. Take The Ring's heavyweight rankings from 1955: The world champ plus the top 10 contenders were ALL Americans! That's the top 11 heavyweights in the world all coming from the US! During the whole decade there were 21 heavyweight title fights... each and every one taking place in the US, and all but 3 all-American affairs. In The Ring's 2016 heavyweight rankings 6 different nations are represented.

In the 50s there was a total of 19 fights for the middleweight crown. 18 took place in the US (the exception of course being Robinson-Turpin in London). This decade, so far, GGG has defended his middleweight title 17 times - in 7 different countries, against boxers from 8 different nations.

The obvious difference between now and the 50s, is that boxing no longer is an almost exclusive American affair - but is spread out all over the world. Many Americans take the view, that this must mean a slump in interest, and that boxing isn't what it used to be. That sports such as baseball and NFL are taking away the attention from boxing. What they forget, is that there's a world outside the US. A world where 95% of this planet's inhabitants live. You know, those 95% that aren't interested in baseball, and have no clue who Tom Brady is! In that part of the world, boxing is not just doing ok; it has been growing rapidly over the past several decades.

Last year Norway saw professional boxing return after a 35 year ban! The politicians finally had to give in to the demand, that Norwegians should be able to see Cecilia Braekhus defend her world title on home soil. Of course Americans wouldn't know who Braekhus is, but every man, woman and child in Norway do.

Earlier this month Mikkel Kessler announced he was coming back after a 4 year lay-off. Huge, breaking news in Denmark! A couple of month ago an eagerly awaited fight took place in Australia: A clash between two bitter rivals, Anthony Mundine and Danny Green. Two over-the-hill boxers in their 40s, but still the most talked about fight "down under" in years. It's called "local interest", which is what is fuelling boxing around the world. Remember, 99.9% of boxing fans aren't nerds like us, who go on a forum like this to talk about the sad, watered down state boxing is in these days. Or the lost art of feinting (LOL) and body-punching. Nor do they wonder about whether or not Canelo will man up an face GGG this coming fall. No, they talk about the things that interest THEM - which is what is going on in their own backyard. And there are a LOT of backyards these days!

In 1955, 63 different countries hosted pro boxing... in 2016 that number had increased to 115 (116 if you count Puerto Rico as a separate country). Thousands of boxers are coming out from these new countries (and not just from the former Eastern Bloc), resulting in an ever growing number of fights taking place around the world. Make of this what you want.


Edit: Sorry, I wasn't quite correct in claiming that all the Ring rated heavyweights in 1955 were Americans. Their #6 guy, Nino Valdes, was actually from Cuba. My mistake.

Well said and two other things you didn't mention is the way that amateur boxing (or Olympic boxing as they are now calling it) has improved leaps and bounds since the 1950s. The level of competition at the amateur level was far superior to what it was in the 50s, partly of course because so many other countries started to develop in boxing. Secondly the popularity of 'boxing' in the US in the first half of the twentieth century is often grossly overstated because really what was popular on the wider national scale was the heavyweight championship and therefore the heavyweight champion rather than boxing in general.

Why is the shoulder roll defense practically a lost art? Most current fighters who attempt it fail miserably because they have no idea what that they're doing.

Or how about the peekaboo? Since there are now more fighters than ever before we should see a lot of improvements and evolution of Cus D'Amato's methods, right? So where are all the advanced, state of the art, new era peekaboo masters?

Or how about keeping the head off center in the fighting stance and using that as a false target to gain distance and time? That was common in the '40s and '50s but is all but extinct now. Did it suddenly become ineffective or has this generation of boxers simply lost the knowledge?

How many fighters in history mastered the shoulder roll to the standard of Mayweather? Most fighters use the front shoulder for defence to various extents, few would ever be able to master it to Mayweather's level and of course his way of fighting has its own drawbacks and there are many other ways of fighting effectively.

Why would you expect D'Amato's Peekaboo style to be popular and to be mastered?

Boxers do all the same good and bad things that boxers did in the first half of the twentieth century only that the very best of today do everything better than the very best of the distant past.

[Fury4daWIN]

So today we routinely see fighters go into world title fights, "utterly unconcerned whether they win or lose"? Yeah, that makes sense... I mean, with often millions of dollars riding on the outcome, why would anybody really care?

How much effort did Martin put into his effort against Joshua? How much did any number of Klitschko victims put into their attempts? Fcuk all it looked like to me.

Today it's all about the cash out. Put yourself into a position to demand a multi million dollar payday, negotiate a lucrative world title fight, and put in the least amount of effort possible on the night.

Seems to work well for many fighters, so it obviously makes perfect sense to them.

[Bundana]

How much effort did Martin put into his effort against Joshua? How much did any number of Klitschko victims put into their attempts? Fcuk all it looked like to me.

Today it's all about the cash out. Put yourself into a position to demand a multi million dollar payday, negotiate a lucrative world title fight, and put in the least amount of effort possible on the night.

Seems to work well for many fighters, so it obviously makes perfect sense to them.

Other than some weird scenario where a boxer has put money on his opponent, or his life has been threatened if he doesn't take a dive... give me one good reason why a boxer would enter a world title fight, and NOT wish he came out victorious.