Are today's boxers bigger & better than those who fought in the 70's n 80's?

[Left Hook Tua]

If aaron pryor, Roberto duran and sugar gay leonard and thomas hearts was still at 135, 140, 147.

Pac and floyd would have stayed their asses at no higher than 130.

True story.

[Kigali]

Definitely not better, with the exception of a few once in a lifetime type talents like Tyson Fury.

Bigger, sure, that could be argued, but size only matters to a point.

Nutritional knowledge and science has improved, but the knowledge of the intricacies of boxing has largely diminished.

The fact that you compared boxing to other mainstream sports shows your ignorance on the subject, as it's fairly well accepted in boxing that it's quite the opposite, the talent pool has shrunk dramatically, and the old sage masters of the science are but all but a memory at this point.

[Reloaded]

Another example. Nolan Ryan threw 108.1 mph fast ball in 1974.

Bob Feller threw 107.6 in 1946

The fast that has been thrown since that time has been 106mph.

WTF DUDE! SCIENCE! HUMAN PROGRESSION!

So you are telling me that science has allowed only 1 pitch faster than 107mph to be thrown since 1946?

What gives?

Your having trouble thinking outside of individual athletes, you need to distinguish between the top and the average, dont name anyone look at the sport in general and magically the entire equation and perspective changes when you visualize athletes and not fighters.

Interesting study done here.

https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article...human-athletic

Sources of data
Data were gathered for the years 1900–2007 from the database of the International Olympic Committee.



There has been a dramatic improvement in athletic ability over the past century. This is reflected by the continuous progression of WRs in Track and Field Athletics from the early 1900s which was best fitted by a linear rather than an exponential model.


The performances of athletes are the product of genetic endowment, hard work and, increasingly, the contribution of science. The latter began many years ago, when scientists, physiologists, kinesiologists, nutritionists, biomechanists and physicists began applying their knowledge to the benefit of athletic performance. As a result, ongoing practicing of a sport for hours is no longer enough to enable an athlete to win. Future limits to athletic performance will be determined less and less by the innate physiology of the athlete, and more and more by scientific and technological advances and by the still evolving judgment on where to draw the line between what is ‘natural’ and what is artificially enhanced.

[!! Shawn]

Your having trouble thinking outside of individual athletes, you need to distinguish between the top and the average, dont name anyone look at the sport in general and magically the entire equation and perspective changes when you visualize athletes and not fighters.

Interesting study done here.

https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article...human-athletic

Sources of data
Data were gathered for the years 1900–2007 from the database of the International Olympic Committee.



There has been a dramatic improvement in athletic ability over the past century. This is reflected by the continuous progression of WRs in Track and Field Athletics from the early 1900s which was best fitted by a linear rather than an exponential model.


The performances of athletes are the product of genetic endowment, hard work and, increasingly, the contribution of science. The latter began many years ago, when scientists, physiologists, kinesiologists, nutritionists, biomechanists and physicists began applying their knowledge to the benefit of athletic performance. As a result, ongoing practicing of a sport for hours is no longer enough to enable an athlete to win. Future limits to athletic performance will be determined less and less by the innate physiology of the athlete, and more and more by scientific and technological advances and by the still evolving judgment on where to draw the line between what is ‘natural’ and what is artificially enhanced.

You are having trouble wrapping your head around the fact that Athleticism in the terms that you are discussing isn't really a factor in boxing.

How many times have we seen incredibly athletic fighters with fast hands and tons of powers who get bodied over and over again.

Would anyone argue that Maidana is even half as athletic as Broner? I doubt it, but look what happened.

Would anyone argue that Mayorga was as athletic as Vernon Forrest? Doubt it. Look what happened.

The thing about boxing is that you have fighters like Andre Ward, and Bernard Hopkins (I know you are going to say but but they are one fighter) who use craft to defeat superior athletes, stronger fighters, etc.

Studies on this stuff are fairly unreliable for one main reason. The emergence of PEDs.

Take Cycling for example.

Before the introduction of EPO which boost redbloodcell count, a rider needed to be able to generate 6Watts/kg to keep up in the Tour De France.

from 1990-2000 a rider needed to be able to generate 6.7Watts/kg to keep up.

Thats a 10% difference, and now we are talking average riders as you want.

After the implimentation of the blood passport system, where riders hemacrit level was measured and they were flagged as cheating if it changed through the course of the year, guess what happened?

Now riders only need to be able to generate 6Watts/kg to keep up again...

Now imagine you were doing a study on the improvements on human performance over time and you used data from those year as part of your data set. Now that we know the performance increase was 100% artificial in nature, your findings would be invalidated.

Now I am not saying improved understanding of physiology and nutrition well crafted exercise plans has not helped athletes, it definitely has in many sports.

And to keep up with your paper posting.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4536275/

Conclusions:
Performance in humans and animals (frogs, greyhounds, and thoroughbreds) has experienced a plateau in the last 20–30 years. Physiological, environmental, historical, societal, and economic aspects are among the parameters that may contribute to such stationary behavior. However, technological innovations may alleviate the observed stagnation, depending on the evolution of rules and regulations.

[True-Boxing-Fan]

Here's the deal. I see a couple of threads where people reference the "better" competition during SRL, Duran's time. But was it really better competition? Or is it an illusion just because boxing was MUCH more popular during that time?

In every major sport...baseball, basketball, football, hockey.... It's widely understood that athletes today (in those sports) are bigger, better, faster, possibly more athletic than athletes in past eras.

It's just natural. Training programs, nutrition, coaching, access to resources... have improved over time.

So does this apply to boxing? I think today's boxers might be better than those of past eras because of this.. But people who watched during those times might just feel 'nostalgic' or bias because their favorite fighters fought during those times.

So what is your opinion? Are boxers 'bigger, better' today?

The difference between boxing and the other sports is boxing has weight classes. Those other sports don't. So of course those other sports has bigger people than years past. But a 135lbs of yesteryear is the same as a 135lber now. Just science is more involved more than yesteryear.

[LockardTheGOAT]

Several of them are. Several of them aren't. That simple.

The whole "Athletes get bigger and better over time" has some truth to it, but is way overstated by many. It's mainly superior training regimes and whatnot - plus PED's and the like - that makes most athletes today advanced in ways, not some deeper level of innate talent. It's just the Modern-Day Effect in action, where people always like putting the present over the past, whether it makes complete sense to do so or not.

[Kigali]

Several of them are. Several of them aren't. That simple.

The whole "Athletes get bigger and better over time" has some truth to it, but is way overstated by many. It's mainly superior training regimes and whatnot - plus PED's and the like - that makes most athletes today advanced in ways, not some deeper level of innate talent. It's just the Modern-Day Effect in action, where people always like putting the present over the past, whether it makes complete sense to do so or not.

Not that **** again.

[ИATAS]

The difference between boxing and the other sports is boxing has weight classes. Those other sports don't. So of course those other sports has bigger people than years past. But a 135lbs of yesteryear is the same as a 135lber now. Just science is more involved more than yesteryear.

Exactly. The only time this is a factor is when comparing heavyweights, since heavyweights are all very big compared to the smaller heavyweights of the past. Other than that its the same.

Boxing really hasn't evolved a ton from the 50's to now. You can watch fighters in the 50's/60's who have the exact same styles as guys today (Mayweather for example didn't invent the wheel, his style was used by fighters back then too). Some sports have changed dramatically in the same time period, but boxing very little has changed. In fact it's regressed in some areas (guys fought ~10 times in 2 months, 15+ rounds, etc., so they typically had very good stamina and were tough as nails). So when someone uses track as an example of how man has "evolved", which is silly, it holds no merit when talking about boxing. Track & Field over 50 years they figured out ways to do things better, uses better technique, etc to the point where guys are running faster. That doesn't exist in boxing. We aren't shaving off milliseconds of world records here, boxers are simply fighting in the ring and there is no right or wrong style of fighting or right or wrong training methods. It's not like track & field sports where it's extremely repetitive and through that repetition people figure out slightly better way of doing it.

Also the talent pool in boxing was sooooooo much deeper back than it is today. Everyone boxed in the 50's. New York for example had 95 boxing gyms and they were all packed. Now? New York has 1 boxing gym and it's a hybrid not even a full boxing gym. In order to reach the top as a pro, you had to fight better opponents, even the "bums" were tough guys who could hold their own. Now the road to the top is so much easier, "bums" are literally bums, guys who do not know how to fight, and a fighter may have 20-25 fights before taking a "step up" against a somewhat competent opponent (usually one that has already got KO'd one or thrice).

With exception to heavyweights, there is no reason to say fighters today would absolutely beat guys from back in the day, not with weight classes being a thing and since boxing simply hasn't changed much over the years.

[Kigali]

Exactly. The only time this is a factor is when comparing heavyweights, since heavyweights are all very big compared to the smaller heavyweights of the past. Other than that its the same.

Boxing really hasn't evolved a ton from the 50's to now. You can watch fighters in the 50's/60's who have the exact same styles as guys today (Mayweather for example didn't invent the wheel, his style was used by fighters back then too). Some sports have changed dramatically in the same time period, but boxing very little has changed. In fact it's regressed in some areas (guys fought ~10 times in 2 months, 15+ rounds, etc., so they typically had very good stamina and were tough as nails). So when someone uses track as an example of how man has "evolved", which is silly, it holds no merit when talking about boxing. Track & Field over 50 years they figured out ways to do things better, uses better technique, etc to the point where guys are running faster. That doesn't exist in boxing. We aren't shaving off milliseconds of world records here, boxers are simply fighting in the ring and there is no right or wrong style of fighting or right or wrong training methods. It's not like track & field sports.

Also the talent pool in boxing was sooooooo much deeper back than it is today. Everyone boxed in the 50's. New York for example had 95 boxing gyms and they were all packed. Now? New York has 1 boxing gym and it's a hybrid not even a full boxing gym. In order to reach the top as a pro, you had to fight better opponents, even the "bums" were tough guys who could hold their own. Now the road to the top is so much easier, "bums" are literally bums, guys who do not know how to fight, and a fighter may have 20-25 fights before taking a "step up" against a somewhat competent opponent (usually one that has already got KO'd one or thrice).

With exception to heavyweights, there is no reason to say fighters today would absolutely beat guys from back in the day, not with weight classes being a thing and since boxing simply hasn't changed much over the years.

Heavyweights are no exception...they'd get shaughtered worse than the other weight classes.

[billeau2]

Here's the deal. I see a couple of threads where people reference the "better" competition during SRL, Duran's time. But was it really better competition? Or is it an illusion just because boxing was MUCH more popular during that time?

In every major sport...baseball, basketball, football, hockey.... It's widely understood that athletes today (in those sports) are bigger, better, faster, possibly more athletic than athletes in past eras.

It's just natural. Training programs, nutrition, coaching, access to resources... have improved over time.

So does this apply to boxing? I think today's boxers might be better than those of past eras because of this.. But people who watched during those times might just feel 'nostalgic' or bias because their favorite fighters fought during those times.

So what is your opinion? Are boxers 'bigger, better' today?

Why are rich people generally smarter, better looking and more informed than poor people?

The sport of curling was invented in Scotland in the 1600's. One would be hard pressed to say curlers today are better than in the older days...why might that be?

Why do drug companies create drugs for erections and not for Aids?

If you were to answer these questions you would find in all cases the role of "popularity" vis a vis "money." Rich people get access to beauty, education and information because of money, Curling never had a lot of money thrown at it...the athletes are not really better because there is little interest. if a drug company made a cure for aids they would be expected to give it away, people in their vanity will always pay a lot of money for drugs that make a penis erect.

So what is true in all sports is the same economic physics: When a sport is "popular" as you put it, it generates an income, and it attracts better athletes, and more money is put into developing the sport, the farm system for the sport, etc. Boxing for most of its history after the days of Dempsey was very popular. Every ethnic group coming up boxed, there were boxing gyms everywhere, there were trainers, and people listened to the fights on radio...

Boxing is not that popular since it has been coopted by pay per view, since fighters have not really made much more than they used to make. Athletes seldom choose to box when they can make more money in other sports, besides we have other combatives now. meanwhile in popularity basketball is all over the world, franchises charge more for tickets every day, football and baseball have free agents that are making a fortune, and fans pay those prices because these sports have become more popular.

it has nothing to do with athletes being better, it has everything to do with where money is put...In medieval Europe barbers were given the task of being doctors. They didn't make much money and so there was not a lot of resources to train in the medical field. Doctors today make money and have to be trained and licensed. Its not that DOCTORS, OR PEOPLE ARE SMARTER TODAY!! In a world with a billion people big people who are fast and strong will go to where the infrastructure can support their economic goals. Evolution and nutrition are red herrings. The proof is that boxers were in incredible shape during the golden age of the sport.

This notion that all sports follow a similar trajectory and that people evolve in spans of a generation or two is totally ignorant!