Good post My take is simply, back then top fighters fought one another. The posturing in today's HW division is an example of the other extreme. You can only have a great era if the top guys fight one another whilst at their beat. It's the reason the 70's were very good , as there were some prime ( ish) matchups. The 90's were a near miss as primes didnt collide . This era now , well they just waste so much time. I appreciate I'm only talking HW's but just making the example. Plus back then , fights were on mainstream tv , it makes it a bigger deal or seems that way.
Just looking back at the light heavyweights of the 1970s and early 80s at the moment, I'm struck by how few missed opportunities there were to match the best against the best. When Galindez and Conteh were champions of the WBA and WBC respectively, you had Franklin, Gregory, Marvin Johnson and Mate Parlov battling it out along with other top contenders like Yaqui Lopez and Marvin Camel. Once Franklin and Gregory ascended to the top, you still had Michael Spinks and Dwight Braxton waiting in the wings and James Scott among others as top contenders. They pretty much all fought each other when they could. The only obvious matchup that didn't happen was Saad Muhammad v Mustafa Muhammad to unify the titles, but they'd already met 3 years earlier before the name changes. Obviously it was an exceptional era, but even so I just can't imagine that happening now.
I've read my share of Mike Silver, Charles Farrell, Bert Sugar, Carlos Acevedo etc. I don't need some boomer on a forum writing a book just for me!
https://streamable.com/nmvwj MOST Old Footage is Crap - NOT the fighters and when you get old gems like this footage (there is loads more good footage too, but it is in the minority), then you know these Old fighters were the Real Deal... and where they differ, is they didn't just do it 25 - 40 times, they did it 100, 150, and 200 times!!! that's why they are favoured, because they fought at top levels Times DOZENS of fights, not just a few. see footage, and again, rare as it is, there is 'enough' old footage to quantify it just like this clip.
Wow! Why even bother to start a thread, if you don’t really want to discuss the topic or gain the information you asked about. JT has been a quality poster on here for years, not sure I get your angle?
Your kids are just wrong. I wasn’t even born in the seventies, but the popular music from roughly 1965-75 was much better than it’s ever been before or since, unless you count big band jazz of the 30’s and 40’s as popular music. There’s no one anywhere near the mainstream today who’s remotely comparable in talent to any of the following: This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected https://youtu.be/vdvnOH060Qg https://youtu.be/G8yU8wk67gY It’s a bit of a stretch to say this guy was mainstream but he’s just too ****ing awesome not to include: https://youtu.be/8ClvqM6dj7M
Also the link to the past is what gives a title weight. Otherwise anyone can produce a boxing federation, start promoting championship bouts with there own contenders and these champions have just the same value as say Greb as the true middleweight champion? Of course not but yet this is what has been going on in EVERY division for 30 plus years and boxing fans buy it hook line and sinker. Again this is the main reason boxing is a diluted mess. Fans knowledge has been “diluted” to a point where they can’t tell good boxing skill from bad. Yes it’s that bad.
But they didn't sacrifice themselves as much; money talks now. You're lucky to see a modern TOP CONTENDER or WORLD CHAMPION (aren't there now 5-6 'champions' in each division and 40-50 'top 10 contenders' in total?) fight more than 2x a year! The 'old fighters' went to war FAR MORE OFTEN; bottom line: you can't compare eras but...IMO...if the great fighters of the late 20th century and 21st century were fighting 8-12 times a year just to put food on their table you would see a LOT more losses in the Modern fighter's records...My $0.02
I don't make threads about "who are the top 100" boxers. So, no, that reply was not relevant to my topic.
Just a point of clarification: Did you start this thread because you actually cared about what people might say in response, or was it more of a venting exercise?
