Has the skill set declined in heavyweight boxing?

Yea but you keep mentioning different a HW for each of Wlad deficits.

 

I think choklab pretty much nailed it to the point of ending the discussion. He knows what he's talking about.

 

Who are all of these huge HWs?

V. Klitschko
W. Klitschko
L. Lewis
R. Bowe

Those 4 guys are/were very good, great even.

Ali
Holmes
Foreman

Those 3 guys are all-time greats, no doubt.

These 7 had height, reach, size, and overall skill. They all had good strength and punching power... Ali is looked at as the lightest punching of the 7 but he stopped a lot of good fighters.

Ali, Holmes, and Foreman didn't weigh as much as the other 4 but they had similar frames, they were leaner and fought when they didn't have to be any bigger. Maybe they would have put on more weight had their opponents consistently been bigger... as was/is the case with the other 4 fighters.

In between the first Ali reign and the current Klitschko reigns we saw Frazier, Tyson, and Holyfield. Frazier beat Ali, Tyson beat Holmes, and Holyfield beat Foreman, Holmes, and Bowe... he also drew with Lewis. Holyfield also beat Tyson twice.

We also saw great things from Louis and Marciano. Where do they fit in? Louis beat some really big guys but they did not have the overall skills of any of the big men mentioned above.

Valuev was a HW titlist. A modern HW at 7' tall and over 300 Lbs. He was slow, predictable, had below average boxing ability, and wasn't a huge puncher. He was strong and durable. He was outboxed by much smaller HWs like L. Donald (Valuev won by MD), J. Ruiz (Valuev won by MD in their first fight, he won by close but clear decision in the rematch), R. Chagaev, E. Holyfield (Valuev got the MD over the 46 year old Holyfield but didn't deserve it), and D. Haye. Ruiz, Holyfield, and Haye all came up form CW. Chagaev could have easily made CW and is under 6' tall.

Jameel McCline, Michael Grant, Shannon Briggs, Lance Whitaker, Andrew Golota ranged from 6'4" - 6'8", with reaches as long as 86", and as heavy as heavy as 275 Lbs. Modern HWs, good HWs... but far from great. Am I supposed to assume these guys would beat the likes of Louis and Marciano just because they were so much bigger? How about Frazier, Tyson, and Holyfield?

Size isn't everything. I'm fine with thinking guys like Ezzard Charles or Floyd Patterson would be outsized and beat by some of the much less skilled but way bigger fighters like the last 5 guys I mentioned. When you start talking about guys who are very high skilled and a bit bigger like Tyson and Holyfield... I don't see them getting simply outsized and beat by any HW I've ever seen... it takes much more than that.

 

Holmes said Shavers hit him harder than Tyson
Tillis said Shavers hit him harder than Tyson
Holyfield said Foreman hit him much harder than Tyson
Pinklon Thomas said Morrison hit harder than Tyson

 

Vitalis face retired Lewis' fists.

Its also a coincident that the majority of his opponents are pure garbage

youve already established that you dont know **** about boxing.

You can recognize the strength of an era by the amount of legendary fights made. How many legendary fights have the Klitsckhos or any other heavy been in in the past decade?
The only fight to get a good bit of attention was Haye/Klitskchlo, and let me tell you, that wasnt because of Wladmir.

 

You don't need great fighters to make great matches. See Gatti vs Ward, Pawel Wolak vs Delvin Rodriguez, Bernard Dunne vs Ricardo Cordoba, Aaron Davis vs Mark Breland, Tommy Cordova vs Freddie Roach, William "Caveman" Lee vs John LoCicero.

Floyd Mayweather may be a great boxer but his fights are boring. Also, judging by the amount of hype that goes into a Mayweather fight, the way you judge the Haye vs Klitschko bout, we have one of your "legendary" fights every year.

Rocky Marciano reigned during the weakest heavyweight era of all time but he was such an exciting fighter to watch he managed to be in four or five classics. Holmes reigned in a crummy heavyweight era, ducking everybody decent, but he had at least two exciting fights with Weaver and Norton.

A competitive era is not the same as an entertaining one. Though we aren't living in either as far as heavyweight boxing goes.

 

not with the Klitschko's and they have dominated but the skill set these days and the most skilled heavyweights have been Byrd and Chambers and Kevin Johnson and sorry no comparison to the skill set of the 40'5 50'5 Ali was a natural but made a lot of mistakes but talented, Ellis was skilled for his era but was beaten and dropped by Hurricane Carter at middleweight and found the heavyweights easier until he ran into Joe Frazier but Jimmy was a very good heavyweight....Jimmy Young was skilled but came up from the school of hard knocks, tough fights and thrown in gym wars with beasts...men are big, wide today but even Lennox and Tyson never KO'd a man after the 8th round (Tyson 1 time vs trial horse Ribalta) Vlad and Vitali are skilled

 

I mean the last fight between Seth Mitchell and Jonathon Banks was a stinker, Banks has some skills but did not have the stamina to pull it off. Adamak has skills with 50 somewhat fights but is not going to beat a Klitschko....Malik Scott has some skills we will see what happens with Chisora...Haye has talent and he may go after Fury for lack of fear of Fury's power but if he does not do Fury in he may get winded and caught late...we will see. Povetkin looked good in his last 2 fights cutting off the ring but Vlad is a horse of a different color...Pulev has talent but a little one-dimensional ...these guys start late and have 1-2 fights a year...

The majority of the contenders today are years older than any other era, In fact other than the 20 fight Tyson Fury and the 19 fight Helenius most of the top contenders are older than Charles,Walcott and Moore when they fought Marciano and it does not show up as experience in the skill column....Can it be a lack of good condition coaches or trainers

If you look at Box rec top 50 contenders only 13 of them in the top 50 are in the 20-29 range and most on the top end all the others are over 30 and 15 are over the age of 35 to 45

 

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Smaller guys are usually more talented, I guess because there are more athletes their size to pick from, but hardly any of the 40s and 50s heavyweights would be considered heavyweights today. Those super skilled guys you are thinking of are mostly light heavyweights.
40s
Joe Louis- heavyweight
Ezzard Charles- light heavyweight
Jersey Joe Walcott- cruiserweight
Jimmy Bivins- light heavyweigt
Billy Conn- light heavyweight
Archie Moore- light heavyweight
Elmer Ray- heavyweight
Joey Maxim- Cruiserweight
Bob Pastor- light heavyweight
Gus Lesnevich- light heavyweight
50s
Rocky Marciano- cruiserweight
Jersey Joe Walcott- cruiserweight
Ezzard Charles- light heavyweight
Ingemar Johansson- cruiserweight
Floyd Patterson- light heavyweight
Archie Moore- light heavyweight
Eddie Machen- cruiserweight
Nino Valdez- heavyweight
Zora Folley- cruiserweight
Tommy Jackson- heavyweight

Those guys would be spread across three divisions today, mostly the lower two. If you take your pick of the best boxers in those three divisions currently, you can probably find nearly as much skill, unless you want to make the point that all divisions have decreased in skills and quality.

 

It is important not to loose sight of the fact, that none of these guys were exempted from fighting opponents over 200lbs, just because they weighed under the cruiserweight limit.

The heavyweight division is an always has been the division with no upper weight limit. It has started at 200lbs, 190lbs, 175lbs, 160lbs, and even 154lbs in the past. The common principle has always been that if you cannot get under that weight, you have to fight the biggest fighters in the division.

If you are a firm believer in the importance of size, then it is only fair to give these guys credit for the weight disparities they overcame.

 

I definitely give them respect. I think that really great fighters can fight a division above their best weight. So guys like Ezzard Charles could handle 200 lb guys up to maybe 215 lbs. He can fight guys an inch or two taller than him. I just don't think he can handle someone who's 6'4", 6'5", 6'6" 240 lbs, 250 lbs, 260 lbs. He may even be able to handle a slow oaf with poor boxing skills that size just not a top contender or champion.

At one point being 6'0" 200 lbs was big enough to beat anyone in the world. But by the sixties and seventies Jack Johnson would have about as much luck as Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis. Now, he'd have even less.