At what point did modern boxers surpass old ones?

And one other thing- going from 8 original weight classes to 13. Like with going from 15 round championship fights to 12 and same day weigh ins, it’s impossible to quantify the impact this has had on making the sport easier for modern day boxers.

 

the point at which your nose started growing

 

You are probably right about some guys, but from 60 to 64 when he's a welter champ, half the time he's fighting HOFers and guys who had or would have titles at 147, 154, or 160. He's rematching all of his tough fights and making trilogies with the top guys near his weight. 18 of the 35 fights he has in that period are against these guys:

Jorge Fernandez x3 (75-3-1)
Denny Moyer x3 (HOF, lm champ)
Luis Manuel Rodriguez x4 (HOF, ww champ)
Benny Paret x3 (ww champ)
Gaspar Ortega x2 (HOF)
Ralph Dupas x2 (HOF, lm champ)
Don Fullmer (HOF, mw champ)

Later, when he's fighting at middleweight he's fighting
Fullmer (HOF, mw champ)
Tiger x2 (HOF, mw/lhw champ)
Archer
Monzon x2 (HOF, mw champ)
Benvenuti x3 (HOF, lm/mw champ)
Briscoe x2 (HOF)
Antuofermo (HOF, mw champ)
Minter (mw champ)

and he'd already fought the likes of Carter, Mims, and Napoles. Griffith has stacked resumes from welter to middleweight.

 

EG is certainly one of the P4P elites who are likely to remain in the top 5 conversation long after Ali is no longer a top 5 HW let alone in the P4P picture.

 

This is the main reason I usually favour modern champs over past greats in hypothetical h2h's. Changes to the weigh-in rules gives the modern fighter a substantial size advantage.

I respect the different views in this thread from some very knowledgable posters but I can't help feeling a little suspicious of bias. Not the bitter old barfly "back in my day" type of stuff, but that with the decline of american boxing some fans may misjudge the quality or effectiveness of certain fighters depending on how they compare in spectacle or entertainment to the style of boxing they were accustomed to watching growing up or were trained in themselves?

The greats of the past can rest easy in any case as their achievements will likely never be equalled given the differences in the sport today.

 

That's not how boxing is seen. Fighters from the new generation don't become better. Fighters are getting bigger and the sport goes through evolution.

 

This. Boxing isn't straight foward like a running competition. The right supplementation and the right physical attributes can easily allow modern runners to destroy old records. Boxing on the other hand is a fight, which has too many intangibles to say fighters have evolved.

Modern science and training methods can make a boxer bigger, stronger, faster, and even improve their stamina and the boxer could still lose to someone lacking all of those advantages. No amount of modern Science and training methods will make an average fighter an elite fighter.

Boxing can't really be compared to a lot of other sports. George Foreman even when he was old, fat, and way over the hill was able to compete with the top fighters and even the World champ and in his 40's recaptured the title. It would be impossible for a track and field athlete to do what Foreman did in their sport. If Carl Lewis tried to make a comeback in 2004 at over 40 year old in the 100 meters he would'nt have even qualified let alone recapture gold.

 

The rise of PEDS and very corrupt boxing commissions. The promoters decide the fights.............

 

whats your beef farmy?

 

I've seen this opinion before and it's a real head scratcher.

Fighters don't constantly improve over time.

Sprinting records have nothing to do with boxing.

Boxing doesn't keep progressing, it just ebbs and flows. And that's what's happened for many years.

The best fighters today are no better than the best fighters of the 80's and 90's.

Go through the divisions.

The MW, SMW and HW divisions were stronger in the 90's.

The CW and LHW divisions have seen a resurgence.

I doubt it will ever change.

If you want to ponder who'd have won a fantasy fight between Deontay Wilder and Ali, you'd analyse their skill sets, not the sprinting records of the last 50 years.

 

The word evolution has garnered the incorrect connotation of improvement. The reality is a constant change as the rule types have prioritised certain skillsets. The modern clan for example are inferior to the golden oldies when it comes to feints and parrying.

 

I basically agree, but advancement in S&C as well as nutrition, although not making you a better fighter technically or psychologically has defiantly made a large group of fighters more durable than they would have been before.

 

Those advancements in strength and conditioning would be what?

 

the advances in refereeing protecting fighters, shorter fights, less cardio emphasis, definitely reduce the need to be as durable as before.

 

You gotta be pretty special to believe the boxers from the 80's through early 2000s wouldn't completely embarrass the ones today. There is only a handful of today's fighters that would contend back then. Esp the HW division, my goodness it's been HORRIBLE. I thought it was bad when Klit's were ruling lol All you have to do is watch a champ from the 90s and then compare their technique to today's. They were so much crisper, co-ordinated etc. back then. I don't count Anthony Joshua just because I haven't seen much of him but what I did see, he looked decent.