Someone asked a stupid question on Quora asking would the average fighter today beat the best boxer from 50 years ago, and it got me thinking, would it be a shutout for the P4P top guy in 1969, what do fans think and who was the best fighter in 1969?
Which division, it needs to be more specific. The best in each one of them? The best in a few? Or the best overall? Which limits it to just guys in and around that particular division.
He would probably beat all the average ones and some of the very good ones. But of course we have to take into account that todays heavyweights fight in truth in the equivalent of a weight division above Ali. Guys like Jack Dempsey, Floyd Patterson or Joe Frazier were almost tiny compared to the likes of a Wlad, Fury or Joshua.
Here are your heavyweights in 1969: Muhammad Ali, Champion Joe Frazier Jimmy Ellis Jerry Quarry Leotis Martin Mac Foster Sonny Liston Oscar Bonavena Al Jones Henry Cooper Gregorio Manuel Peralta I’m not exactly sure how you’d define “average” but perhaps choose someone like Bryant Jennings. And then ask yourself how the Bryant Jennings of 2019 would do against the 1969 version of Frazier or Ali.
Smart dumb guy comment. Buster Mathis was a talented am who was nothing special as a pro and wouldn't be anything special after the 70s. The big guys at the top of division are the stand outs from a sea of mostly mediocre big guys. That trend mostly is from the 80s onward.
If there had been an internet in the 1960's fans would have posted after that fight, "Ali has a chin of glass! He's been exposed!"
I’ve been following boxing for decades, and I’ve never quite understood how those guys from the 60s and before were able to do what they did. I believe SRR fought Bull twice within a three week span. Regarding the subject, I’ve also never understood why so ppl think old fighters were better. People who say this can never explain exactly what was lost.
Depends on at which weight, if you did it at LHW for example, a guy like Anthony Yarde wouldn't make a round with Bob Foster let alone win one
Guys like Ali would embarrass guys like Joseph Parker or Dominic Breazeale No one in today's 140 division would come close to winning a round against Nicilono Locche Do people like Ray Robinson and Amir Khan pose threats to Jose Napoles? No. An interesting one is at Bantamweight, if we take the best from both we get Inoue vs Olivares and that makes me horny