Are fighters softer today than the fighters from yesteryears?

The best of any era will inherantly be the best under that ruleset.

I do wonder if in cross era match ups, we tend to underestimate how much it'd be a case of whoever's rules it's under wins.

The amount someone like Loma would have to adapt to fighting with more grappling, smaller gloves, and longer fights. I tend to try to imagine them under a neutral rule set (unless otherwise stated), but I think that's likely as fantasy as the match ups.

 

The world was a tougher, a much tougher place in years past. Remember WW1/WW2 where a generation of young men volunteered in large part to potentially be killed. The toughest generation. Today we would need a draft to forcibly remove enough to fight another world war. Social programs and technology have produced good and bad. One of the bad are that most have a softer life.

 

Perhaps in the US but not in many places in the world. Guys like Paq, Miranda (the first two who came to mind) and many of the former Eastern Bloc/Soviet athletes had anything but soft upbringings. Just look at the crap Khabib Numragomedov or Vasily Jirov endured as youth and was called training, wrestling bears and German shepherds. Even the K Bros lived a pretty spartan military life and they were better off than most of their compatriots. Also, having traveled a lot thru what some call Latin America, I am damn sure those folks in Mexico, Panama, Columbia and Venezuela are not soft.

But if you are only going to view this from a US obese couch potato perspective, sure, there aren't bunch of Johnsons and Dempseys sprouting up in your backyard. A few, I am sure, but not a lot.

 

Also, what do you mean by 'hard' lives? Plenty of old school legends weren't the richest as children, but had very happy and traditional family upbringings.

Plenty of these Japanese warriors choose boxing initially as a hobby etc etc. As others have said, it's an individual basis.

 

Yr GREATEST POST YET!!!!!!!!

 

I’d put it like this. With greater technologies we have created more safety nets and safe spaces. As a result of this it seems that humanity have traded much of their pain and tragedy for anxiety.

However the safety nets these greater technology’s have produced, have also provided an environment for athletes across virtually every sport to reach levels unattainable from previous generations.

It’s a bit of a double edged sword

 

I traveled extensively on business in the Latin American countries from Mexico down to Argentina for two years. Every city/town just filled with poverty stricken people. Every hillside covered with shacks. Horrible living conditions. It’s the type environment that could breed great fighters and it does. However you also find a real lack of gyms and trainers. Thus the major stumbling block.

I also have traveled on business to India extensively. The poverty here is the worst of the worst. Words can’t describe it. Here millions live in abstract poverty defined as less than one US dollar per day. No boxing gyms to be seen. Here it’s probably a cultural issue.

 

"In the late 19th and early 20th centuries times were much tougher than they are today. There were few automobiles so people walked instead of drove. There was no air conditioning, people suffered and sweat. The food was not hybrid, doctored, and sprayed with chemicals. The soil was richer with natural plant based minerals, not having been depleted through erosion from the constant tillage of farming land. There were no antibiotics to take every time one was sick. People had to sweat out toxins through a natural process and if they survived were stronger and resistant to the strains of virus and disease that afflicted them. There was no Novocain when teeth were pulled. The men who lived and fought in those times were simply tougher people who were conditioned through circumstances to endure more physical discomfort, pain and suffering than we are today."

http://coxscorner.tripod.com/ironmen.html

No question the general American population is more pussified today, hell average testosterone has been on the drop since the 50s. For some countries things are still difficult like Pac's life. Certain Americans still have their struggles but it's nothing like Ketchel being a hobo and running with gangs as a teenager

 

The boxing conditions were tougher.....so many more bouts, fighters, competition....for the most part only the toughest mentally and physically, along with skills, survived...you will never again see men with hundreds of bouts whom also barely got knocked down....not too mention no mouthpieces to fight and sparr with, before the thirties, no headgear until the twenties

 

Hmm... I wonder, what the reason was for this? Did the old-timers lack hitting power - or did they have better chins than today's boxers?

 

I don't think it's that they had better chins, it's more that the ones without great chins didn't make it to the top

 

Mankind in general was tougher I'd say. Much more brutal living conditions, especially among the poor...
I'm sure there are still plenty of tough guys around though, be it by disposition or upbringing. As Seamus said, things look different in developing countries.

And although those conditions may have made for tougher fighters in some cases, I wouldn't wish them upon anyone! I for one am glad I don't have to step into a ring half blind for 20 rounds to make a living.

 

Another example of time confusing the actions of earlier generations is fighters from those days drinking lots of beer. Beer was sterile while tap water full of bacteria. Thus beer was the healthy beverage choice.