Look let's be realistic here. Wlad/Vitali/Lewis would dominate any era of HW boxing

Except you've shown no intelligence or education. You've offered no rational arguments or critical insight. Thank you for responding repeatedly and allowing me the opportunity to post the main argument repeatedly, to allow others to see why past ATG's can't compete with current ATG's on an H2H basis.

 

Thank you to both the imbecilic posters (here's looking at you, sp) and the rationale ones. Its important that this thread remain in discussion and rational boxing fans become more educated on the topic. This thread is meant for people who have been convinced by biased commentators, trainers protecting their own glory and financial interest etc that modern HW's can't compare head to head with past heavyweights (nothing wrong with having that belief initially, I did too), BUT have the intelligence and self control to understand rational arguments and change their mind. Even if you have a HW "hero" you just can't accept would lose today, if you can evolve your opinion on the topic overall, then the thread is doing its job. When someone posts something new, I'll post a similar post, responding to any new arguments and tweaking my below statement to better explain. So below are the relevant facts and features:


Old ATG's should be respected as great for many reasons, I have Ali and Louis #'s 1 and 2 respectively on my all time great list for these reasons. However, it is for pfp and in era accomplishments, and import to boxing and history they deserve those designations. Its wrong to say they could contend with modern HW's H2H for the below reasons.

1. Progress. It happens. When you look at all sports with a quantifiable result, today's athletes are blowing past the old ones. In sports as diverse as swimming, sprinting, and javelin throwing, among many others, the old records are being shattered. In all the innumerable sports out there, I'm not aware of a single record that wasn't set mid 80's or later, and usually in the 2000's. Even in nonquantifiable sports with quantifiable aspects (i.e. tennis's serving speed), the quantifiable aspects have increased. Those sports all have about as much relation to each other as they do to boxing, so it would defy all reason for boxing not to progress as all other sports have
2.Size and relation to progress. Per #1, it's likely (although not certain, per size limitations mentioned here), that even middleweights of today would easily defeat middleweights of 40 years ago. However, HW is even more pronounced, because the is no size limitation in HW boxing, as opposed to other classes. HW's have been getting dramatically larger, both taller and heavier, just like the athletes in the sports where quantifiable results are better. So, again, it makes no sense that the same process is happening in boxing as with sports where quantifiable results are getting better, but somehow the result isn't better as well
3. Statistical analysis of size on performance. Other websites document this. Old time greats fought much smaller boxers, generally, but when they did fight larger boxers they had less success. Ali's ko ratio against fighters who would be designated cruiserweight today was a very good rate, in the 70's. Against 200 and up it was 40ish percent, against 215 and up it was a featherfisted 33%. Frazier and even the renowned ko artist Shavers had similar numbers. Shavers ko ratio against 215 and up fighters was about the level of Chris Byrd. Shavers was a power only fighter, Byrd was power last fighter, to show how much performance has gotten better. Meanwhile, LL and the K's ko percentage again 215 boxers is 75% and higher. There is no reason to think Ali could have coped with the size and power of todays fighters and every reason to think he couldn't have.

Responses to these facts. Nostagliaists typically respond in one of 5 ways. I note the ways, and why they are irrelevant as counters to the above facts, below.
1 "Single examples", whether of a fight a modern fighter lost, or something a modern fighter did that (they say) Ali didn't do. Immature posters like sp and loudon love this, which is usually completely irrelevant. Any single example you can give, I can apply to Ali (look at the past thread posts here with sp and loudon). If you find one that I can't apply to Ali, good for you, then I'll give you a single example of dominance for WK (etc) that doesn't apply to Ali (Ali had to rely on biased judges to get him his many of his best wins, WK never did, etc). A couple in particular. sp went on about modern HW's not being "true" champs because they didn't defend their mandatories. The k's never failed to do that, and LL never ducked a mandatory (he chose Grant over Ruiz when Grant was uniformly regarded as the better fighter and VK over CB, when VK was regarded as LL's biggest threat in the division). I could point out that Ali was stripped of his WBA belt as well after the first Liston fight because he didn't fight who the WBA wanted him to, but either way its irrelevant because 1. Ali, LL and the K's have indisputably (to rational persons) been dominant champs for a long time beating the best and moreover 2. It really has nothing to do with the broad premise of why prior HW's could contend with modern HW's outlined above. Same thing with pointing out single defeats. All boxers (save Marciano, who I hope no one will say is the best h2h of all time) have defeats, but it is to opponents in their own era. So, pointing out their defeats is meaningless to the broader era argument. Ultimately, "single example's" are meaningless, and do nothing to contradict the broad picture painted by the logic and stats above. It is the context of the era that matters.
2. Prime. Ali was never beaten in his prime". This is circular logic, I can do the same thing with LL or the K's when I want. Primes occur at different times for different fighters, in part because "prime" is really just a sliding scale of different important attributes, some of which peak sooner and some later. For taller and heavier, harder hitting HW's the prime is usually mid thirties, because chin prime occurs later, hard punching lasts a long time, and properly utilizing your height uses a lot of experience and technique. That's why Foreman was able to be effective into his mid 40's, and LL and the K's were at their best mid to late 30's. Conversely, shorter, high octane fighters like Tyson broke down quickly.
3. "What's good for one sport isn't good for another". Basically the argument that boxing is a special flower that, alone of all sports, is immune to progress. Well, I'm open to learn why not. Just give me some statistical evidence or logical, comparative arguments. But I have yet to hear a real argument. NOTE: "Ali has way better footwork, and is just faster and better than ll and the k's that's a fact" is not evidence, it is an unsubstantiated opinion. Posters like sp love to say that is evidence, but its only repeating an item of faith. You can believe that Ali would be the K's and LL as an item of faith, there's nothing wrong with that. Just accept that all factual evidence and logic points to the contrary.
4. Smilies. When all else fails, nostagiaists love using smilies, (or insults, I include "na na you're stupid" in this category). This may make you feel better but it does nothing to contradict the facts above.
5. Denial. In this case the last stage of grief over ingrained opinions. Just stating "Ali would easily beat LL and the K's" with no other statements. This also includes things like blind statements of belief like "modern fighters haven't beat anyone" etc. LL and the K's have beaten the top contenders numerous times. The records of the current era top contenders are generally better than the records of the past era top contenders. There is no reason to logically state the earlier contenders are better than current contenders, per main arguments #1-3 above. Again it may make you feel better, but it does nothing to change the above facts.
6. "Modern HW's are crap because (someone) says so". Thanks dblfl for reminding me of this. Hitler said monogamous marriage was good, and smoking and drinking was bad, does that mean we should cheat on our wives and smoke and drink? Using someone else's belief is not proof for or against any argument. Many boxing analysts recognize the top HW's of today would beat the top HW's of yesteryear, although many of them still rank old timers higher, just as I do, for non H2H reasons. Manny Stewart is a great example, who left modern HW's off his toplist, but noted that it didn't mean he though those old timers could have beaten the modern boxers. Other analysts/trainers do state old HW's would beat modern HW's. They do that to glorify their own past accomplishments, improve sales of things they market when US was more dominant, or otherwise out of delusion. Citing another's opinion is not an argument, you need to actually use facts and logic for that.

So, if these facts outrage you, please comment. I will repeat and or tweak the facts above and respond to any new arguments. By responding, you are helping keep this great topic at the forefront of the posts, and thus helping educate boxing fans. By keeping this thread at the top, you are helping detoxify fans of the self serving blather given by old trainers and commentators used to demean current boxers and laud old timers for all the wrong reasons. For true appreciation of the sport, we need to speed this detox process and help fans come to grips with the truth.

 

andrewa1,

No not at all.

PLEASE don't repost it AGAIN. We all get it, we don't need to see your opinion for the 10th time in two days.

We know all about weight classes.

Usain Bolt being bigger and more powerful gives him a huge advantage over sprinters that don't have his physical attributes.

But Usain is sprinting from point A to point B.

He's not timing a guy trying to take his head off, using his footwork and reflexes and then countering etc.

So the circumstances are completely DIFFERENT.

How you can't see this, truly baffles me.

Size in boxing can play a factor.

I explained this last weekend.

If you get two fighters with similar abilities, but one has huge physical advantages over the other one, then that would play a significant part in the outcome of the fight.

But physical attributes can't win a fight alone.

All-around skills is what will determine the outcome of most fights, unless there's exceptional circumstances.

Styles make fights.

Wlad K, has physical advantages over Ali. If they'd have fought, he'd have gone into the ring taller, with a bigger reach, and he'd have been more powerful.

But that wouldn't have guaranteed him the win.

Because those physical disadvantages that Ali faced, could have been overcome by footwork, hand speed and all-around skill.

You are saying that a bigger guy will always beat a smaller guy, and when I keep giving you examples, you just keep dismissing them saying they're single examples.

Mike Tyson was 5'10 and weighed 220 pounds.

This is a very simple question for you.

How was he so dominant?

He was at a physical disadvantage for nearly all of his fights.

So either he was the luckiest fighter EVER, or his skills and speed played a SIGNIFICANT part in him overcoming his bigger opponents.

Which is it?

Using Tyson isn't a single example is it?

So you're wrong.

Size is not the only factor involved.

A bigger guy will not ALWAYS beat a smaller guy.

Right, now we're getting somewhere.

So your not saying that boxing has evolved as a WHOLE?

Just the HW'S?

What pattern of progress?

I can't see them beating Duran at 135.

It was about 30 years ago. In your opinion he'd have beaten any other modern LMW. So there's exceptions then. You can't think of anyone else who fought at LMW who'd have beaten him. I thought boxing had progressed?

I don't think many people would agree with you that those three would have all beaten Spinks at 175.

Right, so are you going to stop being so stubborn?

These questions that I've asked you, and the answers that you've given, are PROOF that boxing as a whole has not progressed.

I will agree that HW's have gotten bigger, and a lot of today's crop would have huge physical advantages over the guys from the past.


1. That does not mean that boxing has progressed as a whole.

2. It doesn't prove that today's bigger guys could beat the smaller guys of the past. Because again, size ALONE does not determine the outcome of a fight.


Let's assume that I know Michael J. Fox, and I can borrow the Doc's time machine.

Let me go back to 1988 and bring a 22 year old, 5'10, 220 pound Mike Tyson, and let him loose on today's guys.

Are you telling me he wouldn't have been able to compete??

How would Tyson Fury have done in the 70's, 80's and 90's?

What about Valuev?

Ray Robinson's peak was 70 years ago.

Ray Leonard's WW peak was 30 years ago.

You've got an unhealthy obsession with size.

It can play a part, but it cannot GUARANTEE A WIN!

Why?

Because there's many other factors to consider.

A boxer has to master a whole variety of skills.

It was relevant, and many thanks for answering them.

 

You've already made exceptions for Robinson, Hagler and Hearns.

There'll probably be hundreds of examples.

I've given you many examples of why size alone can't guarantee a win.

You keep saying boxing has evolved because the fighters are now bigger.

I'd put a 5'10, peak Tyson in with any of today's HW's.

 

Of course-dream on

 

If you are comparing boxing fundamentals, Wlad is better than Ali. Ali technical flaws are well-documented.

 

As for your other post, again, you offer absolutely no rational counter comparisons or statistics. Each "point" you have falls into one of the categories I list below of typical responses, especially #'s 1 and 3. Read below to see why they fail.

Thank you to both the imbecilic posters (here's looking at you, sp) and the rationale ones. Its important that this thread remain in discussion and rational boxing fans become more educated on the topic. This thread is meant for people who have been convinced by biased commentators, trainers protecting their own glory and financial interest etc that modern HW's can't compare head to head with past heavyweights (nothing wrong with having that belief initially, I did too), BUT have the intelligence and self control to understand rational arguments and change their mind. Even if you have a HW "hero" you just can't accept would lose today, if you can evolve your opinion on the topic overall, then the thread is doing its job. When someone posts something new, I'll post a similar post, responding to any new arguments and tweaking my below statement to better explain. So below are the relevant facts and features:


Old ATG's should be respected as great for many reasons, I have Ali and Louis #'s 1 and 2 respectively on my all time great list for these reasons. However, it is for pfp and in era accomplishments, and import to boxing and history they deserve those designations. Its wrong to say they could contend with modern HW's H2H for the below reasons.

1. Progress. It happens. When you look at all sports with a quantifiable result, today's athletes are blowing past the old ones. In sports as diverse as swimming, sprinting, and javelin throwing, among many others, the old records are being shattered. In all the innumerable sports out there, I'm not aware of a single record that wasn't set mid 80's or later, and usually in the 2000's. Even in nonquantifiable sports with quantifiable aspects (i.e. tennis's serving speed), the quantifiable aspects have increased. Those sports all have about as much relation to each other as they do to boxing, so it would defy all reason for boxing not to progress as all other sports have
2.Size and relation to progress. Per #1, it's likely (although not certain, per size limitations mentioned here), that even middleweights of today would easily defeat middleweights of 40 years ago. However, HW is even more pronounced, because the is no size limitation in HW boxing, as opposed to other classes. HW's have been getting dramatically larger, both taller and heavier, just like the athletes in the sports where quantifiable results are better. So, again, it makes no sense that the same process is happening in boxing as with sports where quantifiable results are getting better, but somehow the result isn't better as well
3. Statistical analysis of size on performance. Other websites document this. Old time greats fought much smaller boxers, generally, but when they did fight larger boxers they had less success. Ali's ko ratio against fighters who would be designated cruiserweight today was a very good rate, in the 70's. Against 200 and up it was 40ish percent, against 215 and up it was a featherfisted 33%. Frazier and even the renowned ko artist Shavers had similar numbers. Shavers ko ratio against 215 and up fighters was about the level of Chris Byrd. Shavers was a power only fighter, Byrd was power last fighter, to show how much performance has gotten better. Meanwhile, LL and the K's ko percentage again 215 boxers is 75% and higher. There is no reason to think Ali could have coped with the size and power of todays fighters and every reason to think he couldn't have.

Responses to these facts. Nostagliaists typically respond in one of 5 ways. I note the ways, and why they are irrelevant as counters to the above facts, below.
1 "Single examples", whether of a fight a modern fighter lost, or something a modern fighter did that (they say) Ali didn't do. Immature posters like sp and loudon love this, which is usually completely irrelevant. Any single example you can give, I can apply to Ali (look at the past thread posts here with sp and loudon). If you find one that I can't apply to Ali, good for you, then I'll give you a single example of dominance for WK (etc) that doesn't apply to Ali (Ali had to rely on biased judges to get him his many of his best wins, WK never did, etc). A couple in particular. sp went on about modern HW's not being "true" champs because they didn't defend their mandatories. The k's never failed to do that, and LL never ducked a mandatory (he chose Grant over Ruiz when Grant was uniformly regarded as the better fighter and VK over CB, when VK was regarded as LL's biggest threat in the division). I could point out that Ali was stripped of his WBA belt as well after the first Liston fight because he didn't fight who the WBA wanted him to, but either way its irrelevant because 1. Ali, LL and the K's have indisputably (to rational persons) been dominant champs for a long time beating the best and moreover 2. It really has nothing to do with the broad premise of why prior HW's could contend with modern HW's outlined above. Same thing with pointing out single defeats. All boxers (save Marciano, who I hope no one will say is the best h2h of all time) have defeats, but it is to opponents in their own era. So, pointing out their defeats is meaningless to the broader era argument. Ultimately, "single example's" are meaningless, and do nothing to contradict the broad picture painted by the logic and stats above. It is the context of the era that matters.
2. Prime. Ali was never beaten in his prime". This is circular logic, I can do the same thing with LL or the K's when I want. Primes occur at different times for different fighters, in part because "prime" is really just a sliding scale of different important attributes, some of which peak sooner and some later. For taller and heavier, harder hitting HW's the prime is usually mid thirties, because chin prime occurs later, hard punching lasts a long time, and properly utilizing your height uses a lot of experience and technique. That's why Foreman was able to be effective into his mid 40's, and LL and the K's were at their best mid to late 30's. Conversely, shorter, high octane fighters like Tyson broke down quickly.
3. "What's good for one sport isn't good for another". Basically the argument that boxing is a special flower that, alone of all sports, is immune to progress. Well, I'm open to learn why not. Just give me some statistical evidence or logical, comparative arguments. But I have yet to hear a real argument. NOTE: "Ali has way better footwork, and is just faster and better than ll and the k's that's a fact" is not evidence, it is an unsubstantiated opinion. Posters like sp love to say that is evidence, but its only repeating an item of faith. You can believe that Ali would be the K's and LL as an item of faith, there's nothing wrong with that. Just accept that all factual evidence and logic points to the contrary.
4. Smilies. When all else fails, nostagiaists love using smilies, (or insults, I include "na na you're stupid" in this category). This may make you feel better but it does nothing to contradict the facts above.
5. Denial. In this case the last stage of grief over ingrained opinions. Just stating "Ali would easily beat LL and the K's" with no other statements. This also includes things like blind statements of belief like "modern fighters haven't beat anyone" etc. LL and the K's have beaten the top contenders numerous times. The records of the current era top contenders are generally better than the records of the past era top contenders. There is no reason to logically state the earlier contenders are better than current contenders, per main arguments #1-3 above. Again it may make you feel better, but it does nothing to change the above facts.
6. "Modern HW's are crap because (someone) says so". Thanks dblfl for reminding me of this. Hitler said monogamous marriage was good, and smoking and drinking was bad, does that mean we should cheat on our wives and smoke and drink? Using someone else's belief is not proof for or against any argument. Many boxing analysts recognize the top HW's of today would beat the top HW's of yesteryear, although many of them still rank old timers higher, just as I do, for non H2H reasons. Manny Stewart is a great example, who left modern HW's off his toplist, but noted that it didn't mean he though those old timers could have beaten the modern boxers. Other analysts/trainers do state old HW's would beat modern HW's. They do that to glorify their own past accomplishments, improve sales of things they market when US was more dominant, or otherwise out of delusion. Citing another's opinion is not an argument, you need to actually use facts and logic for that.

So, if these facts outrage you, please comment. I will repeat and or tweak the facts above and respond to any new arguments. By responding, you are helping keep this great topic at the forefront of the posts, and thus helping educate boxing fans. By keeping this thread at the top, you are helping detoxify fans of the self serving blather given by old trainers and commentators used to demean current boxers and laud old timers for all the wrong reasons. For true appreciation of the sport, we need to speed this detox process and help fans come to grips with the truth.

 

no point arguing with a fool like andrewa he will win on experience

 

None of them have ducked mandatories. You don't know this as you have no clue about boxing or reality

It's fact Lennox Lewis dropped his IBF belt because he didn't fight mandatory Chris Byrd.

 

andrewa1,

So boxing has not evolved as a whole? Just the HW's in your opinion?

How did I give you modern era fighters?

Ray Robinson fought in the 40's and 50's.

Duran's LW peak was in the 70's.

Ray Leonard's peak was in the 80's.

Wow!

That's all you've got to say regarding my other post?

Ha! That speaks volumes.

You've answered my questions without actually giving me an answer.

You have no comeback whatsoever to any of my points, and in an act of pure desperation, you've had to copy your text from two days ago for about the eleventh time. Ha!

You're in the middle of the ocean, and you can't swim.

I think you need to leave this thread now mate.

My last post was written objectively with lots of great points and examples to discuss and consider, and you've come back with NOTHING!

You're completely out of your depth.

 

if these facts outrage you


I see no FACTS in your above message. You haven't provided ANYTHING FACTUAL towards boxing.

 

Below is the only response that he could muster up, in reply to my objective and well thought out response in post 558.

 

andrewa1,

How would a 5'10, peak Mike Tyson have done against today's big HW's?

 

atschatschatsch

 

How has this gone 38 pages? Wlad is out of the picture simply because of his chin and his 81" reach. That's one inch more than Ali and three LESS than lewis. Wlad can't handle lateral movement, so he'd get STOPPED by Ali. Wlad would lose the jab battle with Lewis, so he'd get KTFO by him. Wlad would struggle to be champion on those two eras.

Vitali on the other hand is debatable. His chin is iron and he's more of a complete boxer. Better movement and combinations than his brother.