The aforementioned Golden Age of boxing means roughly the Ali's era , which consists of his fights (61 fights against 50 opponents) and his opponents fights (approximately 2600 fights). Let's add to the mix George Foreman's era (3300+ fights), Sonny Liston's era (1900+ fights), Rocky Marciano's era (2000+ fights), Joe Louis' era (4100+ fights). Heck, let's add all eras of all heavyweight world champs. Let's see how many 13+ rounders there were. When we add up ALL fights of ALL champs plus ALL fights of ALL the champ's opponents (which adds up to approximately 70000 unique fights) it turns out that approximately 1600 fights (= 2%) were 13+ rounders. Let me get this straight: Overlong fights (13+ rounders) are EXTREMELY rare in the history of boxing. And that's no wonder. No boxer WANTS to have such long fights. No boxer PLANS to have such long fights. Such long fights are not a sign of strength but of FAILURE. A failure to win by KO. Such fights are fights with weak punches or a lot of missed punches or a lot of clinching And indeed, when you analyze all heavyweight champs (approximately 80 to date), it turns out that approximately 50% of the champs (= 40) had no such long fights. Boxers never(Except exceptions, around 2% of all cases) had to train for 13+ rounders. for those who say HW today sucks because you don't have 13+ rounders anymore, you'r wrong. Most never trained for it anyway. Which is why there were so few KOs after the 13th round(a rather small percentage from already 2%), the boxers were too tired to KO eachother.
:rofl:rofl Sexio recovered very well, I doubt Chavez Jr could have even finished him inside 15 rounds. frank bruno - mccall is one of the few exceptions I can think of that would have been a KO if it had been 15 rounds.
"His belly billowing over his trunks, an overlump Ali weighed almost 230 pounds as he waited to spar in his 5th street gym 4 weeks ago." "Ali's training camp is less disciplined than Frazier's. During the six weeks he lived in Miami Beach, there were days when he skipped a workout altogether. Some days he did not spar… He had trouble with his weight. When training began, he was near 230 pounds and he vowed not even to look at scales until one week before the fight. But three weeks ago he ambled by a scale in the gym, stepped on and whistled "226!" he cried. He vowed immediately to cut out the several Pepsis he drinks every day, but the vow did not last long. " (LIFE magazine, March 1971) "Muhammad Ali is the worst gym fighter I ever saw." (Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer, March 1971)
That was never Ali's strong point. Ali had the most freakish reflexes in the 60's out of any heavyweight ever. He had great hand speed, movement, and combinations along with a great jab and a pattern of fighting that nobody could figure out. In the 70's he was done. People tend to forget in the 70's Ali won through chin,heart, and a few edgy decisions. Frazier on the other hand didn't have those physical gifts and that made him a much higher volume work horse. I agree with the thread though, I believe work rate is everything. NO ERA work harder than the other imo. It all just pertains to individuals. If Lennox Lewis wasn't such a lazy lion, he would have been undefeated. Destroyed Mccall, Destroyed Rahman FIRST TIMES, don't need rematches. He would also have ensured Vitali won maybe 2 minutes of their fight at most.. Lewis was lazy in not one but a half dozen different camps.
I know about Lewis being lazy. Actually I'm most forgiven about Lewis almost having a sealed place for me as the nr 1 HW ever. frazier was also blind in his left eye, which does matter a lot.
Looking at your analysis critically it loses merit and is misleading because you consider only the heavyweight demographic for this assertion, the group of folks with the most ability to end a fight with one punch and the least likely due to size to have the capacity to go a strong 15 rounds
Because I'm only talking about the heavyweights. I should have said that in my thread title, but when I defend present boxers I'm always defending the heavyweight without exception.
