The James Toney Counter Right Off The Shoulder Roll

Well what happened to the art of inside fighting? what happened to the low guard parrying style that we see on guys like Jimmy Wilde?

 

Skills seem the have diminished in the HW division certainly. By default I'd say the CW division is also suffering.

But the other divisions are certainly more skilled.

I'd probably argue the FLW division and those below is as skilled as it's ever been in terms of depth of contenders.

 

Ask the fighters, it's not as though they can't physically do it.... nature has taken it's course, the game must have evolved so take off your rose tinted glasses....

 

The level of expertise has undoubtedly gone down as the old time trainers die off. Not every change is an evolution

 

What makes you think the old timers knew anymore than the top trainers of modern times???

 

Boxing has actually declined in areas. This 'boxing has evolved' nonsense mostly apply's in areas such as sports science not skills or genetics.
So you're saying a fighter today could go out and fight like Jimmy Wilde, or Henry Armstrong or Willie Pep, or Benny Leonard because boxing has evolved? That is absolute bull****. I'm sure Brandon Rios could fight like Kid Gavilan if he wanted to Lol.

 

I still say George Benton. Not many guys as underrated as him. A real master craftsman.
If u tell me the Mayweathers and Tony werent influenced by him i call bull****

 

Each fighter has their own style, I doubt Kid Gavilan could fight like Brandon Rios either...

 

The fact that a fighter like James Toney stands out to some people now simply for using a technique that thousands of fighters have used with expertise certainly suggests that those tehniques have become a rarer commodity.

 

That doesn't necessarily mean they have become rare because fighters skills have diminished though.

 

I doubt Gavilan would want to regress his style by fighting 'the evolved' way of Brandon Rios lol

 

I don't know what it means.
But people do tend to rate guys like Toney and Mayweather as unusually "skilled" based on their use of old-school techniques that have become rare.

 

Even old school moves like shifting (going from one lead position to the other as you strike) is dying out. Duran was a master at it. You only really see it from the elite eastern euro's. GGG does it well from what I've seen. Pirog was amazing at shifting if I remember right.

 

Nah. It's one thing for specific techniques to exist in the world; how fighters master them and strategically implement them in conjunction with other techniques makes for end results that are absolutely "new."

 

And there are modern fighters who probably would have been more regarded as "skilled" in earlier eras because of their effective use of techniques that weren't prevalent at the time.