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

So, all the critical posts once again fall under the common responses listed below. Their stupidity never ceases to amaze me, but it keeps this important topic at the forum front, and allows me to post the below facts.

Thank you to both the imbecilic posters (here's looking at you, sp and loudon) 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.

 

Thanks Decker. Agree 100%. I'm not posting it for the morons, though, I'm posting it for the smart people who already are aware of this or the ones who have been blinded by dogma, but who reason can still reach. The stupid voices are usually the loudest, but I want to make sure reasoned arguments break through the noise a bit too.

 

LOL..

Ali NEVER lost in his prime and, beyond that, Ali was never knocked SENSELESS on three separate occasions by a c-level fighter - in his prime or in his old age.

And BTW Genius, Ali WON the Cooper fight. Exactly WHO has Klitschko ever beaten?

1 + 1 = 2

Ali >>> Klitschko

 

back at ya.

Forget the K bros or LL. A David Haye or Arreola or many other top current HWs would have destroyed nearly anyone of Ali's opponents. So who has Ali beaten? By your own loony standard - nobody :yep
Sure Ali beat Cooper, a 180+ lb bleeder. If Ali got caught by a left hook or uppercut from Haye or Arreola or a prime Rahman - never mind the other 3 he's compared to - he would have been out for 10 MINUTES :dead

Great, you're at the level I was over half a century ago. Keep it up, with your skills, in another half century you might be at high school algebra.

H2H Ali's hardly > than Haye or Arreola. On an off night Ali losses to Haye or Arreola, maybe badly as in (T)KO :deal Instead of comparing Ali and these other oldies to LL or K bros, a better debate would be to compare the oldies to lessor, top modern HWs. Haye v Shavers, Arreola v Frazier, Povetkin v Quarry, Pulev v Lyle, etc.

Yet Haye lost to Wlad by clear UD and survived by fighting safe. Chris A was easily stopped by a late 30s Vitali. Ali was washed up in his mid 30s at the top level, getting gift decisions vs Norton and winning/losing bouts vs CW Spinks :-(

 

Wlad also fought safe vs Haye and continually survives by grabbing people and leaning on them. I can see an argument for Vitali and Lewis but Wlad would be in all sorts of trouble against many past greats.

 

LOL...

I see we have another braid dead Klittard in our midst.

After the Cooper fight, Ali proceeded to KO Sonny Liston - TWICE. Then knocked out an in his prime George Foreman 10 years later.

Exactly WHO has Klitschko ever beaten?

 

You have to be the saddest person on this board and the "common response" as you keep saying, you only say that because its "convenient"

convenience; if you're willing to make assumptions of this kind then your evidence is only anecdotal

 

This is hilarious!

Andewa1 is stuttering around and is UNABLE TO ANSWER my TWO posts that have answered ALL of his questions, and all he can do in response, is to copy the same text over and over and over again like a mardy little girl.

It's pathetic and embarrassing!

And then there's you, who thinks that Chris Arreola would have beaten the flat footed Joe Frazier, and everybody would be OBLITERATED by Lewis and the K's. Ha!

You two ******s are perfect for each other. You should PM him and meet up. :good

 

Looks like you've gone stupid as well, although some of your earlier posts already gave hints of that. Giving loudon and sp credit for any intelligence whatsoever certainly proves that. Their posts are nonresponsive to my points and devoid of rational intellect. How is their nonresponsive blather worthy posts and mine, which responds entirely to their argument, not? Rather, my posts keep the forum intelligent because it keeps a rational argument center stage. Most posters will not read earlier, just the latest things posted. When doing so, they see a rational, complete refutation of mindless posters like sp and loudon. Moreover, whenever someone says something that warrants a response, I update my post.

 

Except, as he recognizes, your "points" fall entirely within the parameters of the "traditional responses" that I post. I detail in depth the reasons those are invalid, see #'s 1-6.

 

glover,

SHOW ME!

If I asked anyone on here to name me the best WW's either historically or on a H2H basis, then the top 5-10 guys would all be guys of the past.

SRR and SRL are still regarded as the best WW's, even on a H2H.

Hagler and Monzon are still regarded as the MW's, even on a H2H basis.

Tommy Hearns is still regarded as the LMW, even though he fought there 30 years ago.

Spinks and Foster will always top a LHW thread.


Why don't we do a thread?


You can ask members three questions.


1. Has boxing improved/evolved in your opinion?

2. Name the top 5-10 guys from the following weight classes:

LMW, LHW, MW, WW, LW etc.

3. We could do a hypothetical H2H, the best of today Vs the best of yesteryear at ANY weight class.


That would be great.

Hopkins and Mayweather are two examples of boxers using old school techniques. Toney was also referred to as an old school fighter.

Lets ask the other members.

 

Braindead, see #1. Wlad never lost 5 times, never knocked senseless by a bummy cruiserweight, needing to cheat to survive. I can play at this all day, see #1 typical responses for why irrelevant.

 

Comments again fall entirely into the below common responses, dealt with below. Thank you to both the imbecilic posters (here's looking at you, sp and loudon) 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.
andrewa1 is online now Report Post Top

 

Me and you are done.

Don't reply to me again.

I would HAPPILY have debated with you in my spare time. I love debating boxing. But I'm not wasting my time on a mardy kid like you.

I'm not going to get anything from it.

Your questions have now being answered FOUR TIMES!

Twice from me, and twice from Mauler. All we've got in response, is THE SAME COPIED TEXT.

You started off by saying "Boxing has improved!" and since I've proved you wrong, by giving countless examples and applying logic, you've since made exceptions for Hagler, and Hearns etc, and are now saying it's only HW boxing that's improved.

Now you've no where to run to, so all you can do is re post your original link.

Anybody that knows ANYTHING about boxing, would know these two things.


1. SOME of today's HW's, would beat SOME HW's of the PAST.


2. SOME HW's OF THE past, WOULD BEAT some HW's of TODAY.


It's really not that difficult to grasp.


Anyone who says that NO HW of the past could possibly beat ANY of today's guys, don't know A ****IN THING about boxing!

"NONE of the past HW's could beat a HW today or even be COMPETETIVE, because today's HW's are BIGGER!"


Whoever says that needs to be locked up for their own safety.

 

How dumb can you honestly be?

You have to be the saddest person on this board and the "common response" as you keep saying, you only say that because its "convenient"

convenience; if you're willing to make assumptions of this kind then your evidence is only anecdotal

an·ec·do·tal

/ˌanikˈdōtl/
Adjective

• (of an account) Not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.

i.e "denial" "smiles"
and all the other dumb **** you've made up.


get outta here