1949 heavyweights v. 1999 heavyweights

Impelletiere had fought just ten fights and lost 3 of them if you can't look good against him, you might as well pack up!

 

you were implying that boxers have improved their punching from yesteryear (in even bigger gloves) simply because faster running Times are recorded 100 metre running races in the Olympics. I said big men look lousy trying to nail a smaller faster guy. So it is hard to look so "athletic" in those circumstances.

but that is obvious. You still used it as an example of an over all improvement in man kind.

The post war years featured a lot of arrested development within the ranks because so many careers were put on hold for the war. This does not mean everyone was washed up. It meant there were guys who did not burn out when they should have who had matured into crafty operators still wanting to take a bite of the Apple. These guys could do more with a lot less. The young fighters of this time benefited from all these old soldiers. This era produced Sugar Ray Robinson, Willie Pep for goodness sake. Harold Johnson, Archie Moore. What makes you think the heavyweights were really so awful?

all fighters are tough. They all sacrifice. The guys in the 1990s were a very good bunch. Pleasing to the eye on film. A lot of actual boxing talent.

They had bigger muscles, they looked "buff" or whatever but most importantly yes, in the 1990s they were also good boxers. This is key not the muscles.

I dont know how you equate speed. The trend by the 1990s was for "spurt fighting" because that was required once guys got so heavy.

The 1990s training evolved more around short explosive bursts of activity in the ring BECAUSE fighters began to carry artificial weight. That was the trend. Rest then strike. That kind if fighting peaked around 1990 there was still a lot of technique. It's went back since.

Before this, a more consistent measured, approach was desired. It was just as effective. It did the job and this is what was required for those times. Those guys weighed less because there was no need to weigh more. They hit hard and clean, concentrated on accuracy and technique. Big guys got crucified then because that format did not suit them.

 

Again my initial post was in response to what I thought was an athletics discussion about big heavyweights. I had also missed page 3 where they went into more discussion on the physical changes in football, so I had missed the boat a little. I wasn't piling on against past eras.

I tend to think there is a physical evolution that occurs that is not always related to PEDs.



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Should we call this era the Carnera era?

 

I don't see how I implied some of the things you pulled out of my initial 100m post. It wasn't intended as my point was more towards what I felt were overall physical changes, though some will chalk that up to PEDs.

I think your last few points are worth exploring in these threads. Fight styles change from era to era, so it is inherently difficult to make an apples to apples comparison, whether it is the glove size difference, bout length, 90s style spurt fighting, weight limits/divisions, etc. It is hard to put it in a vacuum and evaluate objectively

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I think a lot of the pre-fight opinions reckoned he was a better skilled boxer than Max Baer and was even slightly favoured to win.
Of course many did pick Baer to win because he had the power and was a natural fighter, and they were right.

Even after the defeat to Baer, Carnera was still respected as one of the better heavyweights and considered a serious test for Joe Louis.
Max Schmeling, who never fought Carnera, remarked that he didn't agree with those who belittled Carnera's skills.
I think a lot of that came after the fact, and that Carnera was used as a scapegoat a bit.

And yet all the critcisms of Carnera here might be true. I'm not saying anything radical or revisionist.
My point is simply that MOST the guys his size in modern eras looked just as sh!t.
Not all, but most.

 

A good big guy still looks more like an oaf beating a smaller guy. They still do.

Giants look ok against each other. They still do.

 

I don't know how Carnera found his way into this thread.

 

At heavyweight, in the filmed era, yes.

sugar Ray Robinson. His existence is the product of the system back then. Joe Louis too.

 

There is, you are right. In fact, one could make a good argument that the Olympic, quantitative result style evolution is less than we've seen in combat sports. After all, they don't have weight classes in sprinting, but it is so important in combat sports that they do make weight classes in boxing. In fact, they essentially made the old hw division the cruiserweight division in response to the increasing size of hw's. The physical evolution hw boxing has seen has comparatively little to do with peds. It is centered over a simply much larger talent pool. The pool from which the pro ranks drew in the late 40's was not only war decimated, but was from a smaller geographic region than today and a MUCH smaller population from the US and other regions that consistently competed. Hence, much taller, larger, and more proportionately athletic hw's than ever before. Thus, while Louis and Ali have the best boxing legacies of all hw's all time, its a bit absurd to say they could really compete H2H with the best of today. This isn't a tough concept, the same rules apply to small schools competing in their own divisions, because its not fair for them to compete against a much larger pool of athletes, but it is tough for many nostalgiast boxing fans to accept.

You've given good posts, but generally, Classics isn't the best place for someone like you. It's populated mostly with people who refuse to accept logical arguments when it can impugn the H2H dominance of their favorite boxers.

 

I don't about this larger talent pool stuff. There have been plenty of high level athletes that came from small schools or towns with a low talent pool. Who did just fine when they go to a larger talent pool. A tough dedicated athlete will rise to the top regardless.

 

larger talent pool don't mean shyte if you are attracting talent that needs lower standards to get in - shorter fights, less focus on skill.