Has the skill set declined in heavyweight boxing?

I don't think that the heavyweight division is as good as it was in the 70s or 90s. That's for sure. But the top two heavyweights, the Klitschkos are two of the best we've ever had. The current period is sort of like the early 80s. George Foreman had prematurely retired and Teofilo Stevenson never went pro. Larry Holmes was a dominant champion and while there was Thomas, Dokes, Witherspoon, and Weaver they weren't quite up to the task even when Holmes wasn't dodging them. Then you throw up a big corn fed white boy who can punch but not much else like Gerry Cooney and everyone gets excited for a minute before the champ makes short work of him. Ruslan Chagaev, David Haye, Sultan Ibragimov, Eddie Chambers, and Chris Byrd are probably as good as other second tier heavyweights of other times. You could put them up against Primo Carnera, Buddy Baer, and Tony Galento in Joe Louis' time or Jess Willard, Luis Angel Firpo, Bill Brennan, and Billy Miske in Jack Dempsey's, and probably Joe Bugner, Chuck Wepner, George Chuvalo, Buster Mathis, and Cleveland Williams from Ali's time. There are fewer stars than there were in the 70s or 90s but the base level probably hasn't dropped.

Do heavyweights box as well as lighter divisions? When have they ever done that? Lightweights, welterweights, and middleweights are almost always better than the heavyweights of their eras. Greb and Leonard were better in the 20s than Dempsey and Tunney. Armstrong was better than Louis in the 30s. Robinson was better than Louis in the 40s etc. Robinson was better than Marciano in the 50s. Jofre was better than Ali in the 60s. Duran was better than Ali in the 70s. Leonard was better than Holmes in the 80s. Whitaker was better than Tyson or Lewis in the 90s. Pacquiao and Mayweather were better than the Klitschko's in the 00s.

That last question I don't know the answer to.

 

Not jus heavy, in most divisions overall. The welter division is kind of decent. Floyd, pacman, jmm, bradley, etc.

Heavyweights have no discipline, they just want to eat cake for breakfast lunch and dinner. Most of them are fat and get tired of 3-5 rounds and are huffing and puffing. Whenever boxing goes into decline you will see big tall guys rising up to the top of the division because they use their size to tire out opponents who are of equal or similar skill. If my skill is 7/10 and your's is 6.5, but you are 6'6 and I am 6'2, you can use your size to tire me out. Guys in the olden days would not have been tired out by this. Joe frazier fought alot of guys, well every guy he fought was bigger than himself, he tired out bigger guys like buster mathis. You do not see this today, small guys are poorly conditioned and are cancelling fights for not training.

You will not find anyone near as skileld as pacman or floyd, jmm etc in the heavyweight division. Why do you think the top paid boxers are welterweights. Some will say well floyd is american. Pacman isn't from America he is from like the poorest country in the world. So why is he outearning HW's? People know the best division is with pac, floyd, jmm, bradley,etc. Pacman and Floyd could whip guys way bigger than them. Most HWs can't. Klitschko is the best boxer because frankly, he is amongst the tallest guys. And the verdict is out on whether or not they are both doping, particularly Vitali. They have been linked to the balco labs in california, where they use to live near and stopped fighting in america once it got busted. Russia and russian-germans are very corrupt place, and I am not sure if they are on the clear.

 

OK, so what heavyweight today has a better skillset than Jersey Joe Walcott, and why?

 

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He can't do it because Walcott was far superior, Janitor! He rates Walcott as a bum champion, but wanks over Haye and Chisora. Utter fool!

 

Wlad is a perfect example of how lacking in skills the HW division is. He's the champ, yet he can't fight on the inside (just leans on his opponents), never throws body shots (i.e. solely a head hunter), doesn't parry shots, doesn't know how to slip punches, never throws uppercuts, barely ever throws a hook, avenges his losses via his big brother, and whilst he moves ok for a big guy, is still stiff and robotic compared to smaller HW's. And he solely relies on a jab and a right cross. The fact that no HW hasn't beaten this guy within the last 10 years or so, is a testament to how crappy this division has become. And I couldn't give a **** where the fighters come from, UK, the UK, Eastern Europe, Africa, most of them are all equally mediocre and sluggish. And fat.

Yet still muppets like Tommo will go on about "advanced nutrition and training" or "ooh they don't need to do all this because they're that good, it's sssoooo refined today" atsch

 

Superman1692, surely you know that Wlad is not the first heavyweight champ with deficits. He can't fight well on the inside, neither could Ali. He doesn't have the best chin, neither did Patterson. Foreman and Frazier had many limitations of their own, and Joe Louis had poor footwork. That doesn't define them so much as what they did well. No heavyweight has ever been the complete package. Not Holmes, not Johnson, not any of them.

 

Spot-on, OE

 

Exactly, Vitali is the better fighter and his loss is to a fat old black guy with a beer gut who was at his worse and still demolished him in 2 rounds. After the beating Lennox put on Vitali, it wouldn't take much for a decently skilled fighter to finish him off. Even washed up Tyson lasted more longer than Vitali by a significant amount.

 

It's not that I don't respect the skills of past fighters. I do. But I also believe in weight classes. Guys like Dempsey, Marciano, and Jersey Joe Walcott would be cruisers today. Guys like Tunney, Charles, Moore, and Patterson would be light heavyweights. Guys like Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko aren't even heavyweights they are super heavyweights.

You have to be a very rare kind of fighter to fight two or three whole weight classes above your natural body size. Duran did it, Armstrong did it, Mickey Walker did it, but most people can't do it. I think that a really good fighter can usually jump up one division and still look good. That's why in the past the best light heavyweights like Ezzard Charles have been able to take on heavyweights like an aging Joe Louis, and heavyweights like Evander Holyfield were able to take on super heavyweights like Riddick Bowe or Lennox Lewis. Many welterweights have taken on middleweights, and many lightweights have done well in the welterweight division. What you rarely see though is lightweights fighting their way up to middleweight or welterweights fighting up to light heavyweight. It's certainly possible, but god is it rare.

Personally, I give a few of the naturally bigger guys from the past a good shot in today's heavyweight game, but I think they needed to be at least 6'1" and 200 lbs before they'd even have a shot at beating the 6'6" 245 lb monsters of the last twenty years. That means James J. Jeffries, and Jack Johsnon are in but they are on the borderline. They are about as small as you can be and still take a super heavyweight punch or give a punch back hard enough to hurt a super heavyweight. They'd probably do about as well as Jimmy Ellis and Jerry Quarry who I think are probably similar in size and skill level. They'd have plenty of success against guys up to about 6'2" or 6'3" 215-225 lbs and struggle with anyone bigger.

Sonny Liston, Joe Louis, Ali, Foreman, Holmes, Norton, and Frazier would all do great in the modern scene. Some of them would even be the champs and could probably beat a Klitschko under the right circumstances. Though Frazier might get bombed out against the bigger guys the way he did against Foreman. Meanwhile, great cruiserweights of the past like Jack Dempsey, Jersey Joe Walcott, or Rocky Marciano might even take on some of the bigger sloppier contenders like David Price or Tyson Fury and have some luck but they couldn't beat top level champs like Lennox Lewis or Vitali Klitschko. Gene Tunney and Ezzard Charles would probably have their hands full with a full sized 6'3" heavyweight like David Haye or Sultan Ibragimov.

 

This is spot on.

 

YES, but they are bigger and stronger. than in the past. While they might not have blinding speed anymore. Heavy's like the Brothers Klitchko, Lenox Lewis and Riddick Bowe are all pretty fast. Tyson while not big by any means was built like a tank. A M1A1 not Sherman..

With the expection of Louis, Ali, and maybe Foreman. I'd pick the above in any fanasty heavyweight match up. Before you go and disagree ask your self if you'd pick a crusier weight to beat them?

 

There is greater boxing knowledge and better training regimens available to heavyweights now than at any point in boxing history. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest among most heavyweights in taking advantage of it. That's what makes it so disappointing. We could be like other sports, and have stronger, faster, better boxers than ever before. We could see a wholesale evolution in the sport with all kinds of innovation. Instead, the biggest prospects in the heavyweight division tend to be old washouts from other sports who only picked up boxing as a last resort.