Just how "GREAT" were the former American "WORLD CHAMPIONS" of the past??

:roflatsch
Of course guys like SRR and Ali were some of the biggest hypejobs in boxing history.

 

I always say its impossible to compare eras. boxing is now more global than ever before and that inturn leads to more competition

however countries such as Azerbaijan,kazakhstan and Uzbekistan still have barely any of their top boxers turning over and these are some of the strongest boxing nations in the world and id add cuba to that. boxing is more global but not completely yet

 

I don't know why people have this picture of boxing being an all-American sport until 1990 or something. Boxing was an international sport for a very, very long time. One could even argue that there were certain areas on the planet where boxing was bigger 50 years ago, than know. Western Europe or South America, for example.

 

One of the gayest threads I've ever read in my life

 

And your way of evaluating the skill of a boxer is way off base.

Most great fighters look great, even against poor opposition. Your opponent being bad does not somehow elevate your own boxing skill. Take Wilder for example. Pretty much blew away his first 30 opponents but he sure as hell did not look like an ATG doing it.

 

Where to even begin with this drivel?

 

So what makes past boxers hype jobs and not current champs?

 

Kostya Tszyu, Andrew Golota, and the Klitschko's had a good/great run. If you really want to compare, you can see how the Klitschko's in their prime took on 90's 2nd-3rd tier fighters and lost. Vitali was lucky to take on a faded legend like Lewis. Now it's Wlad who is faded and lost to Fury. Is Fury great? We don't know yet, but he's not a big puncher and did his best Ali impression and beat Wlad. Just goes to show what the real Ali in his prime would of done. Ggg, Kov, Loma, Prov, and "Chingonsky" Shabransky are quickly becoming fan favorites, but they have a long way to go to become great. Ggg would need to beat Ward in the future in order to be great, but he's not in a hurry to do that atm.

 

Paraphrasing a lyric : "They set records before eastern euros could compete, are you kidding me? It's like having a pasta contest without Italy! "

 

This is why I had to laugh to myself when yesterday I read what John David Jackson had to say about Jones Jr and Toney in their prime doing a job on GGG! Who is to say that these guys would have even been long term champions, if pro boxing was truly open to the eastern european countries back then and before. For him to say Hagler would have handled GGG easily is a very silly thing to say. Hagler was not a huge puncher, he would not have been able to keep GGG off. I' m not picking winners in these hypothetical fights but it's just dumb and biases to disregard GGG like that.

 

They are all overrated by the simple fact that is always overlooked: no Eastern Europeans in pro boxing back then.

Take away all the hype and nostalgia and those old mythical boxers of the past are extremely limited compared to modern boxers who have much better training and nutrition. Add to that that we have a much bigger and much more global talent pool now and it isn't hard to accept the fact that boxing is better now than it has ever been.

Ali would get wrecked by modern cruiserweights like Marco Huck, he wouldn't be able to handle a modern athlete who is an elite boxer. That's a fact and I don't give a **** how much delusional nostalgics cry about it.

America still being a big market in boxing and the creator of all hype trains is a big factor why Eastern Euro-dominated divisions are declared "boring" while they're actually the most interesting and most talented (for example the cruiserweight division).

 

Not nearly as good as claimed, there's plenty of video from the mid or last decade ish of srr's career to review.

They fought so much, most of their fights were really against the level of fighters that are career sparring partners. Whoever can't see that immediately, needs to stop following a sport they don't understand such basics.

The past was always greater, when the facts are the only thing of the past that was greater were the US presidential candidate's and the US economy .

 

Huck isn't an elite boxer. His punch technique, combination punching and foot work are awful. His defense is also as basic as it gets. Ali would dance rings around him. Boxing is about styles and Ali is as bad a style match up as you can get for Huck.

 

You mention Kostya Tszyu, he is a perfect example of what the op is trying to say. Tszyu had to defect and it was only good luck for him that the amateur titles were being held in Australia at the time. Tszyu needed a lot of luck just to ever be able to turn pro, needed to leave his homeland. He was one of the very few lucky fighters of the the soviet union to be able to get out and pursue a pro career and he became a legend. Now it stands to reason that if more eatern euro fighters can compete then more titles will go their way and its no coincidence that today there are far less african american champions and more eatern euro fighters coming through. The op's wording may be a bit over the top but what he is trying to say is absolutely correct and it is quite obvious that the lineal history of the sport would be far different if the political landscape had been different in the early days of pro boxing. I am not disrespecting the Ali's, Tyson's and Holyfield's of this world because they were great fighters and entertaining warriors and if heavyweight history was littered with Wlad Klitschko types then boxing would never have been as popular as it was. However if there were more Klitschko types before, let alone GGG types and Kovalev's, then it is shear common sense and logical to surmise that pro boxing history would have had far less african american champions. Anyone with a brain cannot argue that fact!