Todays athletes aren't always better

[Cardinal Buck]

Half a second in a 100 metre race is an enormous amount of time. 5 hundreds of a second is a big difference. That you cannot understand this is beyond belief.

I know. It's probably his most indefensible f uck up ever and he still tries to defend it. Funny stuff.

[StarshipTrooper]

I know. It's probably his most indefensible f uck up ever and he still tries to defend it. Funny stuff.

That fact that you think it IS huge is quite possibly one of the most ******ed things I've ever seen claimed on here. Then again, since you're a known ******, it shouldn't be surprising.

[Suckmedry]

Did I say boxing was long jump? The point is that boxing is a sport,long jump is a sport, they are not totally unrelated in regards to the athleticism needed for high competence in them. I don't think it is me that is the ****** if that simple point goes over your head.

The point you are trying to make is worthless. Boxing is FAR TOO DIFFERENT to a sport like long jump. Your obsession with athleticism is ridiclulous, because boxing takes far far more than athleticism.

[DeepSleep]

Today's athletes are bigger/stronger/faster than athletes from the past.

Today's boxers are not as skilled as their predecessors due to the decline in popularity in the sport and the dearth of high quality trainers.

The lack of great American heavyweights is due to Boxing not being popular while NFL football is. If your +6'2" and athletic you play football/basketball. The top flights American heavyweights are wearing pads on Sundays.

[billeau2]

Probably not too well, unless they could keep the Gracies from pulling guard or avoid their muay thai leg kicks and knees to the face. Are you saying they only brought in guys they could beat? I just think that was the talent level then. The rest of the world caught up and Royce didn't do as well after his 2000 comeback against the better opponents. And I thought the fights then were called Vale Tudo.

Lute Livre was the main competitor and i think it was sometimes used interchangably with Vale Tudo to indicate an anything goes match. The best way to beat the guard is not to wind up there in the first place and the older guys had great balance in the standing grapple. But yeah they could get pulled down.

The talent level? Well it should be said that the Gracies did game the tourneys to a degree, they had a generational head start on the specific conditions that constitute an MMA match....But lets be philosophical and ask: Are people better martial artists now because they also train for these ring contidions? Or....Does the UFC illustrate a point about the primacy of mastering techniques to accomidate a particular situation? A lot of the early guys were not technicians who fought in a ring, they were martial artists who applied their art and believed that it would suffice in all situations. It seems almost silly now but at the time (and even in some of the early Gracie fights in Brazil when Rorian was the man) it was thought that the mere learning of an art was such that it could be applied in all circumstances. All the Gracies really did was apply Judo/JiuJitsu to a particular combat environment. We now know that trying to pull guard in a street situation for example is dangerous to say the least, but to this day if you fight in a ring in MMA you better learn something about how the guard works.


This point about martial arts applies throughout: Experts in violence have concluded after many studies and events documented that context specific training is the best for working in that environment. In other words learning how prisoners operate to defend as a prison guard is better than learning how to fight MMA and expecting to be succesful when under duress in that environment.

[billeau2]

Here's the thing though: Today's athlete doesn't hit a curveball any better than the chunky strong guy did. Of all the teams sports baseball is the most skill driven and least athletic driven. The athleticism may help you steal more bases but since teams try stealing far less than they used to any advantage in that is lost.

I agree. there is some interesting point, counterpoints with baseball:

a) Today there is a movement to utilize better statistical models. As this is done players will be managed better because of smarter managers. Anyone who had better data is "smarter" in this respect. For example: As a manager I would rather know a hitters clutch percentage than their on base percentage.

b) the more athletic guys can probably get around on a pitch a bit quicker, the pitchers can probably throw harder but in the old days location pitchers were very good. Catfish Hunter threw about 88 mph on average and could get out anyone today me thinks. As far as hitting goes the primacy of hand eye coordination is still the supreme mark of the great hitters.

c) Because of free agency the concept of a strong team has changed. Today's strong teams are chock a bloc full of superstar players all lured by the money as hired guns and naturally this makes for a strong team....yet by and large the team that wins it all is usually not the strongest team on paper. Actually for the past years the strongest team has usually NOT won the world series and even the pennant.

In the old days you had incredibly strong teams that did not have superstars at every position but were team oriented. I would put the 70's A's or the Reds that beat the Bosox in 73 against any team in history....Even the superstar teams of free agents today!

[New England]

Just think. 72 years and the only improvement is so miniscule that if you didn't have electronic timers and stop-action photos you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Secretariat winning the Preakness by 31 lengths is huge. Beating a time in 100m by a cvnt hair isn't.

a half second lead in a race that lasts less than 10 seconds is a huge deal.

[Scott9945]

a half second lead in a race that lasts less than 10 seconds is a huge deal.

It can even be a big deal in a horse race that lasts two minutes.

[Cardinal Buck]

Scott and NE, STFU! Poet said it! He's always right!

[Sugar Adam Ali]

a half second lead in a race that lasts less than 10 seconds is a huge deal.

It can even be a big deal in a horse race that lasts two minutes.

yeah i gotta agree,,, half a second is huge amount in such a small time frame,,
Its not like its a marathon