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

Styles make fights.

With less weight Holmes would have reduced his punching power, punch resistance, and clinching stamina, against Mercer.

With lighter feet, he could have ran around the the ring but would his stamina hold up to that?

This is how the fight could have looked like if came in too light against Mercer: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVSr_Nc-ys0[/url]

Hughie Fury weighted in here at only 217 pounds, just look at how it affected his performance.

 

Well cheers to you if you think that Ray Mercer would have looked better against a prime atg heavyweight Larry Holmes instead of the fat, middle aged, past it version that actually decisioned him in the 1st placeatsch. Styles make fights indeed. Prime Holmes would have shut Mercer out. Remember that remark about your credibility being gone? I'm afraid it's lost and nowhere to be found. Comparing Arias and Fury to prime Holmes and Merceratsch

 

There's no question that the earlier era's were great and the champs etc deserve recognition as the best in their sport of their era, and in some ways, their accomplishments can never be matched.

That said, there's also no question the talent pool is much larger now. There are many more pro fighters now, and even before going into boxing more have the opportunity to evaluate it to see if their skill set is a match, as boxing has opened up to more markets and the world population is much larger. Also, earlier era's had wars and other events to take away some of the talent pool. Schools are classified by size so that the larger schools cant beat up on the smaller schools due to the talent pool advantage. Understanding all that, it shouldn't be that hard for people (although it is) to realize, that from a sheer h2h perspective, the top performers of today are likely on a much higher level than the performers of yesteryear.

 

Good comment. It defies conventional wisdom but is simply logical, and also in line with why George Foreman was able to maintain success at an advanced age. The traits boxers need age better than in most other sports. Chin and power don't usually lessen much or at all with age (in fact, chin often gets better). Meanwhile, experience only grows with age. That advantage and fighting within yourself and your strengths, can give to long lasting success especially based on matchups.

 

The talent pool isn't bigger because boxing is less popular now and other sports like football, basketball, baseball, soccer, mma, and hockey have grown in popularity diminishing the talent pool boxing has to draw from. While it's true that a larger portion of the world now turns pro than just the west, that has only managed to stabilize the size of the talent pool and keep it from actually shrinking.

Boxrec records 20,264 fights in 2007. It records 26,088 fights in 1947, 21,114 in 1927. For much of the last century it was between 11,000 and 15,000. Right now, we are experiencing a boom in boxing comparable to the heights it achieved in the twenties and forties. Is it a good time for the sport globally? Yes. Is there more talent and a level of competition above what there was in the twenties, thirties, and forties? No.

Here's the decade breakdown:
1920s: 173,295
1930s: 178,721
1940s: 168,335
1950s: 136,543
1960s: 89,937
1970s: 96,133
1980s: 126,501
1990s: 137,541
2000s: 167,753
[url]http://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=101907[/url]

So things are good, but is this the best time ever? Probably not.

I refer you to the thread comparing eras that I started last week.
[url]http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=557826[/url]

The champions skill level and their work schedules are similar in quality to what they were in 1965.

 

furthermore more, records on boxrec will be more incomplete the further back you go.

 

Sorry, this comment just failed. Talent pool vastly bigger. Boxrec proves it, including the stats you provided. Fighters fought much more back in the day. Seriously, check out their frequency, it was about 3 to 1. So, we've got maybe 3 times more active pros nowadays than in the periods you point to.

But that isn't the end of the story. That's like saying NFL hasn't progressed much because there's only a few more players now. To even get to that level there's a lot of self selection. You participate in the gym etc, and if you don't have sufficient natural skill, you don't progress.

Even if boxing was less popular today (its not, its broken into many more markets than ever before) the competition is much more fierce. There are a lot of sports with tangible records that are less popular now (polevaulting, anyone?), but the records continue to be broken. There are more athletic people now because there are more people and more opportunities to participate in sports.

 

very good points Ovidexile, all true.

 

so ..the traits of ONE individual are the general marker for whole history of boxing, in your eyes?

should it not be the other way round... general markers from the whole history of boxing can help you guess attributes in an individual boxer?


This is the kind of reverse logic you deal with wholesale mate.

 

Hturd, as soon as you can get any kind of grip on logic, come back. Until then, don't bother talking about it as if you know it, because you just keep failing.

Anyway, no hturd, the traits of one individual are simply indicative of a larger truth in boxing. There is no tension between the logic as you pathetically argue.

 

so why are you claiming them that way? you've extrapolated georges longevity onto whole generations.

don't be upset just because your arguments are shown to fail, dude, its just discussion. if you know they are going to fail and that hurts you, I suggest you don't write them next time.

 

The excitement of Khan-Canelo completely sidetracked my participation in this thread. Now there's friggin 11 pages.

 

Stylisticly i don't see why I couldn't. Hughie is a good mover with a great jab just like Holmes, Mercer is of course better than Arias, and would have been more aggressively - and the runner would have to run even more... The point was that Hughie came in too light for the fight. Think about how the same applies for Holmes against Mercer...

 

True, his stats, also shows that it was an all time low during prime Ali's era...