Has boxing evolved at all?

Yes, with the caveat that it does not necessarily imply improvement.

Only improvement relative to the prevailing circumstances.

 

This.

 

Yes it doesn't necessarily mean improvement.

Going back to Ketchel. In an era full of durable technicians would he have flopped or would he have adjusted had the situation called for it?

Would Rocky have always weighed 180 pounds in an era of SHW fighters?

It's so hard to say. The difference between circumstances and ATG adaptability is entirely subjective. Requires a leap of faith either way.

"He's a great he'd have succeeded anyway"
Or
"Look at the footage, no way would he win"

Who's to say which argument has more merit?

 

for sure.
I think the poor footwear and ring surface in the early days had a much bigger effect on styles than is talked about.

 

modern peds are clearly more effective in lots of ways, but given we know other sports abused the hell out of drugs like that pretty much from their inception as pro sports I find it hard to believe boxers(one of the oldest pro sports) weren't too.(obviously not all, but I don't think all from any era were)

 

a large part of the reason I rarely pick ketchell in mw matchups is that he relied on physicality but was not a big guy at the weight, aside from that I have to think that whatever the opponents skill level(bar full on running) if they can't compete physically and keep him honest he will be a factor in the fight.

both arguments have merit imo(and both get misused on occasion), it depends on the specifics.

Rocky's an interesting one, maybe he's happy with cruiser money, maybe he bulks up and is still an effective hw(shorter fights help there), maybe he tries hw from the start and never makes it to the top level at all. or maybe something else.

 

A test recently found that 4oz MMA gloves have 4 to 5 times more kinetic force than modern boxing gloves. I suspect that older smaller gloves used in boxing during the Jack Johnson era had simular effect to MMA gloves.

With the growing popularity of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) as a competitive sport, questions regarding the dynamic response and properties of MMA gloves arise. High-energy impacts from punches are very similar to boxing yet MMA competition requires the use of 4 oz fingerless glove, compared to the larger full enclosure boxing glove. This work assessed the kinetic properties and strike dynamics of MMA gloves and compared findings with traditional boxing gloves. Gloves mounted on a molded fist were impacted repetitively on an instrumental anvil designed for impact, over a 5 hour period resulting in 10,000 continuous and consistent strikes. Kinetic data from impacts were sampled at the beginning of the data collection and subsequently every 30 minutes (every 1,000 strikes). MMA gloves produced 4-5 times greater peak force and 5 times faster load rate compared to the boxing glove. However, MMA gloves also showed signs of material fatigue, with peak force increasing by 35% and rate of loading increasing by 60% over the duration of the test. Boxing glove characteristics did deteriorate but to a lesser extent. In summary, the kinetic properties of MMA glove differed substantially from the boxing glove resulting in impacts characterized by higher peak forces and more rapid development of force. Material properties including stiffness and thickness play a role in the kinetic characteristics upon impact, and can be inferred to alter injury mechanisms of blunt force trauma.

 

True, but a Gus Lesnevich was a helluva light heavyweight warrior who would be a tough opponent for anyone other than a Billy Conn, Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore. No shame there...

 

No. Abe Attell:

"Certainly, boxers don’t train right. The way fighters train today is all wrong. They wear head gear in the gym. You never see one of them parry a left jab in training. They just duck their head and know it won't hurt them, but then they get into the ring with the same habit. That's why you see so many cut eyes these days. And you seldom see clever fighters anymore. I haven’t seen a fighter who knows how to feint a fighter out of position since Gene Tunney and Tommy Loughran retired. And nobody knows how to get away from punches these days. They don’t learn defense.

Look at what Jack Blackburn did with Joe Louis. Blackburn was a really great fighter himself. He fought Joe Gans three times at lightweight, drew with then welterweight Sam Langford twice, and broke even with middleweight Philadelphia Jack O’Brien in a no decision contest. There never was a shrewder ring general than Blackburn. No fighter was ever in a finer accord than Louis was with Blackburn. He always trusted Jack implicitly and there can be no doubt that much of Joe’s success was due to following out faithfully the campaign plans outlined by his sagacious mentor. Eminently serviceable and great in accomplishment was the Louis-Blackburn combination of slugger and strategist."

One target of Attell's criticism was actually Jack Dempsey, for the Mauler's use of head gear in sparring. His resulting tendency was to try to absorb or evade Tunney's jabs rather than parrying them actively, and he retired after Tunney II to spare his eyesight.

We do see Louis actively parry the jabs of Max Baer, swiping them down with his right. Blackburn came from an era before mouth-guards and headgear, when you darned well better defend yourself against even a light jab which would otherwise shred your teeth while sparring. Charley Goldman was another highly seasoned bantamweight from Blackburn's era of competition who understood that defense meant not getting your lips shredded or head butted (the way Leon Spinks wound up getting his front teeth butted out in an introductory sparring session).

 

It would be really difficult to proffer the argument that the athletes in boxing have not improved when they have so markedly improved in other sports. That is just from the athletic standpoint, not one of skills or gained experience in a career.

 

Perhaps in the past only the most naturally gifted athletes made the grade?

Athletes markedly improving in other sports may have raised the over all level of athletic ability in boxing of average athletes. But would that level surpass those who would always have been the most naturally gifted anyway?

If the level of mediocrity has supposedly been raised in strength and fitness would that compensate for the loss of over all competition within the small clubs?

Jake Lamotta once argued that in the old days a boxer found out he could fight or not a whole lot quicker than today because the competition was stiffer and more competitive at a lower level. On the whole, There wasnt so many manufactured 20-0 records for kids who had never been tested. You couldn't have that many fights without being tested. To him they found out they could fight BEFORE they got hurt. Now it's much more dangerous because a fighter can already be by the standard of other sports a great athlete, yet they can also be protected to the extent that nobody knows if they can actually fight or not after 20 fights.

 

Burt, once again you see boxing solely from an American perspective!

You have of course been lucky enough to grow up in New York, at a time when it was the center of the boxing world. You have seen all those amazing boxers from yesteryear, that the rest of us can only dream about. I fully understand, that you miss those times.

Today the New York scene is of course much different. Gone are most of the small fight clubs, and overall activity has dwindled to a small fraction of what it once was. The good times are over! However, just because boxing has experienced a huge slump around your parts - that may not necessarily hold true for the rest of the World.

In your post you mention 22 great boxers from the '40s. One is from France, one is Cuban... and 20 are Americans! Now, if you were to name a Top-22 from today, how many would be from the US? Not many, I would suspect! Yes, we have Ward... but other than him, it's names names like Gonzalez, Inoue, Rigondeaux, Lomachenko, Golovkin, Kovalev, etc. that come to mind. Excellent fighters, that surely would have held their own in any era.

It's not like we don't have any great boxers today - they are just not predominantly Americans any more!

 

B, I am not shooting blanks when I state that in the USA alone there were at least 5 times the amount of pro licensed fighters in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s than there is today... I have read these statistics time and again and common sense dictates that in NY, NJ, Philly, California etc there were hundreds of fight clubs operating
all the time keeping thousands of fighters busy, learning their trade and making a living in the USA, Canada and Britain...How on earth were there tons and tons of top fighters those days who had over 100 bouts and more if there were not so many small boxing clubs operating all over the nation?. As posted before for an example I and my dad would go to the old MSG to watch the Golden Gloves Finals and there were THREE rings operating at the same time , so many youngsters were in the tournament those days...As I posted before the advent of television, ruined the thousands of small fight clubs and
eventually closed them...B. this is fact not fiction and nostalgia I cite...
Just get a hold of some OLD Ring Mags of the 1930s and 1940s and see how many fighters and fights clubs operated in the USA states those days. I have a precious few old Ring Mags I saved from Hurricane Sandy, and my eyes tell me what I now post..the simple reason why the 1940s spawned so many great fighters in each division
I posted before was simply when you have a vastly more amount of fighters plying their trade, logic dictates that the top fighters had to plow through a deep and rich pool of talent to get to the top..I have said this before, a GGG, a Kovalev, an Alex Arguello, A Duran,
Marvin Hagler and many others who came after the 1950s would have done very well in ANY era, as their talent would have come to the surface for sure in previous era's as well...One other thing B, in the 1930s,1940s etc, we had so many top fighters from other countries other than the USA, such as Marcel Thil, Marcel Cerdan, kid gavilan, Kid Chocalate, Tommy Farr [non tougher] Gunnar Barlund,
Jock MacAvoy, Len Harvey, Eric Boone, Ernie Roderick, Jack Kid Berg
etc as we have now. The difference was all these guys above fought much more often and from a deeper pool of opponents...

 

the shame is that he or his management wouldn't defend his title against Charles Moore !Marshall etc etc.
It was a golden era for talent across all or most of the divisions but the way those fighters were treated by managers (loose term) and promoters was disgusting

 

Burt, what is your perspective on the evolution of the sport during the first half of the twentieth century? In your opinion, when in terms of skills and technique, did the sport reach its apex?