Your thoughts on the Arc of Boxing

Boxing is an ever-ascending line to infinity.

 

Haven't read the book, but from balancing different sides of the reviews and the debate, I'm guessing he makes a lot of good valid points but perhaps takes a too severe line on it.
But I haven't read the book, so I don't know.

I believe there's a lot to be said for the idea that back in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, there were many more seasoned practicioners of the noble art in the ranks of contenders, many of whom didn't even get a shot at the world title.
Whereas since the TV era, and increasingly since the era of gross proliferation of titles, we've had many contenders and "champions" who were brought into that position without learning their trade so extensively.

 

Met Mike Silver a couple of years ago,spoke to him, read his book "The Arc of Boxing, and I, as a guy who saw the guys of the 1940s fight ringside,agree with him for the most part. Tell me Ko,when he implies that the fighters of those days had twice or more fights,fighting the fighters the PUBLIC demanded,trained by a slew of full-time trainers, and boxing at least 15-25 bouts a year,WHY in the world, wouldn't they be better than today's
alphabet soup champions ? If practice doesn't make someone more
knowledgable, why go to college after the first year ? Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Manny P,today would be a top-flight welterweight in the 1940s, but would not dominate as he does now. So Mike Silver's book
I would recommend, as it depict's the fighters of that golden age, of
Louis, Robinson, Pep, Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, Kid Gavilan, Ike Williams,Beau Jack, Bob Montgomery, Fritzie Zivic, Jimmy Bivins, Harold Johnson, Lloyd Marshall, Charley Burley,Holman Williams, Freddie Steele, Jake LaMotta, Marcel Cerdan,Georgie Abrams, Billy Conn, Tony Zale,and a slew of great and hardened fighters, of those truly GOLDEN days...Cheers.

 

Have you read it ?

 

I have.It has it's decent parts, though mostly far too heavy handed and hilariously biased to be of real use.

 

So he says Hagler can't beat Graziano ?
Any other clangers he drops you can remember ?

Y'know, like "Roy Jones Jr. would have been a 4-round fighter back in the day" type statements ?

 

:good:good:good

 

I read it and agree with his basic point. But after awhile it does get hard to take certain people in the book seriously and I found myself struggling to not tune them out whenever their quotes came up, just in case they produced a nugget of wisdom that might be useful.

The Graziano/Hagler quote is a perfect example and killed the credibility of that interviewee for me as well, btw.

 

A friend of mine posted his review of this book on the CBZ site. It echoes my own sentiments:

Freddie Roach, Teddy Atlas, the Late Hank Kaplan, Manny steward, Chuck Hasson, Sal Rappa, Kevin Smith and Dan Cuoco, I thought gave some great, great insight and opinions. They were not "everything new sucks and no one today or even from the past 30 years could compete with the Golden Agers."

Unfortunately, the book had WAY too much of that type of talk. The aforementioned Eight, were able to explain thier positions and viewpoints without the complete dismissal and arrogant disdain that more than a few of the other contributers clearly had.

Carlos Ortiz also contributed, but even though his comments were indeed biased, they came accross as words from a prideful ex-champion and not an arrogant windbag. And I'm sorry to say, there was far too much of that that seeped out in this book.

When you read comments like:

"Hagler could not beat Rocky Graziano. And beleive me, Graziano was no great fighter."

"Hopkins is an ordinary talent......Maybe he would have been a main event club fighter in the small clubs."

"Duran is overrated. He is a very good fighter, but top 10 (lightweight)? No."

"It's laughable to think of Pernell Whitaker in the same ring with Lou Ambers."

"Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Oscar DLH, Pernell Whitaker.....(in Previous years) They'd be ordinary contenders. Good Prospects. Same with Tyson, althogh I don't think he would get that far Mike Tyson was a built up guy. He was around at the right time."

It's comments like this that portrays a Mindset that quite frankly, is obviously very biased and a tad closed minded.
If this is what they truly think, why would I really want to lend credence to their opinions any more than I would from someone who states that every fighter today is leaps and bounds superior to fighters of the 50's and earlier?

Their Arguement of "well I was there so I know what I saw and I also see what we have had over the past 30 years up through today" holds only a little water with me. How Involved were they or how young were they when they were viewing or involved with fighters in the 50's and earlier? Are they AS involved today? Do they not consider even for an instant that it is human nature to gravitate towards the sport and how it was in one's youth?

That is bias. We all have it. It's how you communicate your point and hold onto the reigns of that bias, that dictates whether your position is worth considering or not.

Listen, this is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it to anyone who even THINKS they are a boxing fan. You WILL learn a ton from it. It will be among the books you will pull out when you want reference material.

But there are several viewpoints in the book that are heavily coated with prejudice and bias. That IMO is a bit tough to stomach at times.

The GOOD definitely outweighs the bad and it should be a must buy (even at the hefty price tag.)

 

That should just about sway any sane fan who was tempted into buying such a book.

 

the book could be taken more seriously if he would have just have written about how great the golden era was. instead, anyone who fought during that time would beat anyone from any other era. what a joke. i remember comments from the author in an interview saying that mayweather was not a great fighter because de la hoya was hitting him with the jab and that roy jones wouldn't stand a chance vs marcel cerdan. they should list this book in the comedy section.

 

The older these guys are the worse they are as far as their bias, although I guess we are all somewhat guilty of it, but this book seems overly extreme in that context.

 

If you have a fight about every second or third week a lot of your time will go to just recuperating from the last fight and getting as fit as possible for the next. You will have less time to work on flaws and fine tune your style in sparring and other types of training.

Also, most of today's top fighters have a solid and well managed amateur career spanning 100+ fights were they already have honed their fighting instincts. That's why fighters with terrific amateur pedigree like Leonard, McCallum, Jones and Ward look so much like the finished product after only some 20 pro fights, if that.