Greb vs Hagler.

You'll get slaughtered for this, even though in plain sight we can see this for ourselves. People were calling the likes of Joe Gans, Pep, Benny Leonard the most intelligent. In terms of raw intelligence, that could be so, but in the ring, these old timers' competitive advantages do not hold up against a crisp, specialised phenom like Guillermo Rigondeaux, that's clear. Maybe you can hustle on the inside, but let's not overblow every aspect. You're not fighting in the conditions an old timer did, i.e at least fighting once a month where it all starts to wear and tear on your body from an early age, carrying injuries into your next fight, not focussing on the very important element, 'recovery', training in an era where you're built a little more like marathon runner with slower twitch muscle fibres, with smaller, tougher gloves without looking like you're lacking crispness, against someone like Lomachenko (who actually only fights twice a year and trains all year round). These guys that you have footage of were not in the condition of todays fighters.
As Dempsey put it himself, “When I was a young fellow (he started fighting at 15 against bigger and older opponents) I was knocked down plenty. I wanted to stay down, but I couldn’t. I had to collect the two dollars for winning or go hungry. I had to get up. I was one of those hungry fighters. You could have hit me on the chin with a sledgehammer for five dollars. When you havn’t eaten for two days you’ll understand.”

Greb is probably my personal GOAT, that's the funniest part of all of this, and this is what I think of boxing in the last 20 years:

1. Next day weigh-ins has negatively impacted the sport - boxers are spending more time cutting weight than they are honing their craft and talking strategy
2. A, B, C belts - cherrypicking is prevalent, best avoiding the best and avoiding valuable experiences. This hampers the development of a fighter as they are not growing from experience.
3. Impact of amateurs - this carries a lot of clout in determining and shaping a boxers fighting style.
Amateurs did away with scoring points with effective aggression for a long while, and there's thus been a growing emphasis on point-scoring without engaging in a fight, and inadequate in-fighting. This also makes the elite pressure fighters too economical, and less rough. Trainers are thus increasingly catering towards this. The eastern bloc are full of great fighters now, take Artur Beterbiev (the guy who twice beat Kovalev in the amateurs, and was a World Amateur Champ). The physically strongest 188lber of all time and most probably the hardest hitting 188lber too - a very good pressure fighter, but he's just too economical at the moment.

Contrary to the generalisation, I'm not actually a new timer nuthugger..but I'm not caught up in a very obvious nostalgia from a lot of posters here, either.


AND YET I still feel the old timers are overrated in their abilities. It's actually a double edged sword - because of the conditions of old, it makes a boxer that much greater to do what they did. So modern boxers will barely ever reach the greatness of old. I always cringe when you hear a new time fan saying 'Floyd Mayweather is undefeated in 19 years, beat 20 'world champions', he's the greatest boxer ever'.

Going into it in depth is too time consuming, and would derail this thread.

 

Yeah Benny Leonard and guys like Barney Ross didn't even have the basics, they were just bar room brawlers.
Lamotta was so bad he only had 6 fights with SRR and beat :
Basora
Lytell
Villemain
Williams
Satterfield
Zivic
Yarosz
Mitri

 

Mc,save your breath. Some of these new posters who demean fighters such as SRR, Pep, Louis, Burley, Ike Williams, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles, truly doesn't deserve a thoughtful response...Let alone a benny Leonard, Gene Tunney, Barney Ross ,Tony Canzoneri, Kid Berg, Ted Kid Lewis etc, proves the total lack of insight on boxing history...BAH !

 

We can watch the fighters for ourselves and see where they had their strengths etc.
The conditions and conditioning of the fighters you mentioned, are worse than say, a 2 fight a year Guillermo Rigondeaux (a small bantamweight who competes at super bantamweight, 122lbs, and weighs 125lbs on fight night).
Of that list, lets take his equivalent, Willie Pep..
Rigondeaux is clearly better than Pep, it's not rocket science.
But with nostalgia glasses, Pep is all of a sudden this monster who is athletically and as specialised as Rigondeaux. The Rigondeaux we see on fight nights is echelons above the athleticism we see in Pep's footage. This phenomenon reminds me (although is not the same thing) as when we see guys who look like monsters against bad opposition, but then when they step up, they are exposed - that would 100% be the case in a Rigondeaux-Pep comparison with regards to the echelons thing I stated).

This was so much the case, that even the greats of old will lose or look rather unimpressive against mediocre opposition. Opposition who have not honed fundamentals to the level of the relatively recent times.

See my above post that explains this all a little more.

[YT]4kfOfz2fBHQ[/YT]
(great song too, Papaoutai).

 

Brush up on your history sir. Willie Pep licked one of the greatest Bantamweight fighters of alltime Manuel Ortiz...You sir talk gibberish. atsch

 

I wish I could have borrowed your eyes for a night Burt.
And to your credit you have been raving about GGG for a long time.

 

Thank you, and I wish I could borrow your youth...:hi:
Some posters think that I choose my top fighters I have seen through pure "nostalgia '. How wrong they are...If I choose my top fighters I have seen frequently from the 1940s-50s it is because in the 1940s there were so many, many more licensed pro fighters in America practicing their trade, and trained by great full time boxing trainers with years of experience. Topping this there were so MANY small boxing clubs that gave young fighters a venue to practice their art by fighting often. Why, in New York City area ,there was at least one fight card every night of the week that you could see great boxing shows topped off by the Friday night great boxing card at the old MSG. In those days a main event fighter at MSG usually had 45 or more pro fights before he got to fight at MSG. in those days I would go to the
Golden Gloves Finals at MSG where there were THREE rings operating at the same time. And then on Saturday I would spend my time at my favorite haunt Stillman's gym where I would see the greatest fighters in the world training and rub shoulders with ex fighters, show business people, mobsters etc, all for 25 cents.
Great days for me growing up and for great fighters of those halcyon days. I miss them, yessir...

 

Another top class post burt and I'd agree with your views on Golovkin he is a very special fighter

 

I don't think you understand what I'm saying, I'm not one of those guys who disregard the old timers lol
Willie is one of the GOATs. Guillermo Rigondeaux isn't and he will never be. Todays era makes that impossible.

I know just as much about boxing history than anyone else here, I'm afraid. It's common sense too.
A guy like Rigondeaux who is one of the very best pure boxers of all time (arguably the best), will beat a guy like Pep.
The footage you see of Pep is of versions of him that has taken a ton of beatings, fighting once a month and even more frequently than that. Pep is more sluggish than he actually can be, physically is in an undeniably worse condition than Rigondeaux. Case in point - Morales was past prime by age 28 after being knocked out, losing his legs etc. RING AGE is a factor.
At that level, it's a game of chess, if you are just inferior in a certain area i.e for example - how much of an athlete you are, you are down and out.
It's ludicrous to suggest this guy on film is better than Rigondeaux.

And all of what I have just mentioned is but one factor. Actually watch the Rigondeaux clip of just his defensive work.

 

So now it's going up to the 50's lol.
IMO, boxing was at its peak in 70's-80's in terms of actual H2H abillities (not greatness). 50's is a different ballpark to say Gans' time and even Dempsey's time for that matter. Boxing evolved rapidly each decade then. It then plateaued.

 

I may not agree with everything Gannicus has said, but those were interesting and well-constructed posts. Thanks, I enjoyed them.

 

:good It's life, there's some things that we don't necessarily consciously assume.