Why is there an anti-recency bias in boxing?

Your question would be better until you realize if you ask any younger person who watches boxing who is the greatest heavyweight of all time and they will probably say Tyson Fury and then say something stupid like Lennox Lewis, George Foreman, Ali, Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe were too smaller to compete. Hell I ever heard some of these people say no heavyweight from the 90's could compete with Fury, Wilder, or Joshua. Which is funny since Wladimir Klitschko actually turned pro in the 90's was beaten easily by guys who turned pro in the 90's and 80's. Yet was heavyweight champion until maybe 6 years ago? Also Wlad sparred Wilder. Fought Tyson Fury and chased him around the ring and barely lost to Joshua.

Also the heavyweight division is bad. The guys skill levels are lesser. Most of the guys are overweight, and most guys rarely get in the ring to try to get better. Yet these young little kids think it is better because they believe everything that is now must better than even stuff that happened 15 years ago. Then you have these other people (usually older people but some cases younger ones) who heard Bert Sugar or some clueless so called boxing historian tell them that every heavyweight from back in the day was better and they believe it. Which is why you still see these people bring up Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, and Gene Tunney. Too silly to realize boxing has evolved skilled wise since the late 1800 to early 1900's. That is why these same people love to bring up Joe Louis or Rocky Marciano. Too still to realize the last time there was a 5'10 180 pound heavyweight champion was back in the 1950's for a reason. Then you will see the people who bring up Ali because they heard other people say it and think it will make them cool and edgy if they say it.

But Wladimir Klitschko and Vitali did stink up the heavyweight division. They only became champion because the athletic black guys who would usually pick boxing started to pick football and even basketball more because the salaries started to increase. If Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe, George Foreman, Larry Holmes ect were in their primes Wlad or Vitali would of never won the title. Deontay Wilder is horrible. His best win so far came against overrated old Luis Ortiz. Tyson Fury is overrated. His best wins so far are against old Wladimir Klitschko and no talent, no skill Deontay WIlder.

 

The simple reality is that boxing has become a lot less brutal over the years.

While this does not mean that modern boxers are less effective as fighters, it does mean that the paper accomplishments of the old timers, are never likely to be surpassed.

I do not expect any fighter in my lifetime, to compile a paper record comparable to Sam Langford, Harry Greb, Henry Armstrong, Joe Louis or Sugar Ray Robinson.

In that sense boxing is the exception that proves the rule.

 

Do we have evidence (contradictory as this might seem) that fighting unrecorded smokers was common for fighters back in the day? Biographies mentioning it, that kind of thing?

 

I strongly disagree with this one. Black guys may be athletic in the sense that they possess great speed, however they don't necessarily possess greater strength. Boxing was dominated for a long time by blacks mostly because of the rough upbringing of black people. Sure, there were some that weren't the usually rough guys like Lennox Lewis but they were the exception. The myth of the dominant black guy got busted once the sport went global. Remember that until the end of the 20th century, boxing (or more precisely the upper weight classes) was dominated by Americans. Most heavyweight champions were Americans as were most light heavyweights. Professional boxing was non-existent or virtually non-existent in socialist countries. All this changed in the late 20th and 21st centuries when these countries embraced capitalism. The Klitschko brothers are from Ukraine a former Soviet state. As are Lomachenko and Usyk. Most of professional boxing revolves around the United States - most old promoters are American, sanctioning bodies are based in the US and the US has a lot of boxing clubs, schools and academies. And an American boxer is more likely to get a professional contract than a foreigner. With the passage of time however, things have changed. The world has caught up. Just look at the percentage of Americans who are world champions currently. I am not even sure if it is 25%. Many of the top American boxers are black, but they are not dominant anymore.

 

Jack Dempsey comes to mind. He fought a lot of this type of fight hoboing around before officially turning pro.

Thought I'd read that in Kahn's bio on him, and did a quick Wiki check to verify.

That's just the first one coming to mind, so can't for a moment believe there weren't others.

Hell, even a latter-day example like Greg Haugen qualifies.

 

Note also the sequential collapse of Irish American, Jewish American, and finally Italian American boxing prowess. I doubt that these groups each had some sort of genetic advantage that immediately disappeared as soon as they got richer.

Even as we speak, there's apparently the belief in Thailand that their athletes' Muay Thai abilities are eroding due to greater prosperity and economic opportunity.

Most gifted athletes, most of the time, do not want to get pummeled for a living.

 

This is a great analyses.
I think the talent pool is bigger than ever considering a so much larger population + more folks having access to sports & not starving to death-but a whole generation cannot have nearly as large a talent pool as ALL past athletes.
So the best combination of genetics & training could have existed at any past time.
Especially since technological advances can only go so far in a combat sport, & mentality, toughness, adaptability & adjacent psychologically related skills & disciplines could be better nurtured by past conditions.

Also there are other factors going into speed that are not just ways to improve training-but equipment that effects times regardless of skills.
The starting blocks. The footwear. Even tracks are a matter of degrees, dirt, compressed cinder, modern materials...
And PEDs.

That is an in between or transitional category: because the person not the tools become better, but it is cheating & the improvement they give is essentially NOT the person themselves.

It may still be that 9 out of the last 10 fastest times in human history were from runners that had tested + from PEDs.
The exception is Usain Bolt. Nobody else is even within a 10th of a second of him.
He is likely just a genetic anomaly, & likely is the fastest human in history even under the same conditions.
But it would be much closer if all used the same equipment.
And if he used PEDs, maybe an older generation was faster.

If so, I would nominate Bob Hayes & his incredible 4 X 100 meter anchor run in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics...
Which possibly was the fastest running start 100 *ever*, & likely was if you compensate for the track & equipment conditions.
Interestingly he set a world record on chewed-up by race walkers lane the Americans protested in the 100 meter individual run-with borrowed shoes because Joe Frazier was wrestling with him & one of his shoes was lost!

For the relay I believe he still did not have his own (already inferior to modern track shoes), but consider that at least since there are no starting blocks in the event, at least he did not have that handicap to overcome.

I have mucho informaton about the relay event since I researched it when obsessed A few years ago...

 

Most boxing honks are very mid-level IQ and think a fedora and cigar can substitute for intellect.

 

Great post. Also something to note about past track accomplishments is that today's athletes do that for a living. Take Roger Bannister, who broke the four minute barrier in the mile. He would train on the cinder track at his college (he was going to medical school) between classes during lunch break. Totally different level of commitment then too, not to mention opportunity.

For anyone who hasn't read it, The Perfect Mile is a magnificent book, you should have a look. One of the ten best books I've read on any subject.

 

Total horse****.

If your logic is correct, then the converse would be true, that guys like Ali, Holyfield, Tyson, Bowe and Holmes deprived the NFL or NBA of talent which is plainly not true. Plenty of anecdotal evidence exists to their lacking abilities in these trad sports. Foreman might be your only example and he was figured out by the more skillful boxers he faced.

 

What do you see as the talent pool or group that heavyweight boxing is recruiting from? (Assuming you think that there are any preferred traits at all that make better boxers, comparable to, say, giant guys going into basketball.)

 

Well, now, boxing is recruiting from a worldwide talent base, especially with the Iron Curtain gone, with Cuba open and with Western Africa dipping its toes into boxing.

The US has gone soft by in large. Wrong mentality for combat sports. If anything, the UFC has stolen potential boxing talent.

 

From a non-US perspective, I can say that cricket is a sport where the past performers tend to be more venerated than modern competitors. For example, the consensus choice as the greatest batsman of all time is the Australian legend Don Bradman and he retired in the 1940s. So I don’t think boxing is unique in its veneration of the past.

In US sports, there’s the current (bogus in my view) debate about the greatest basketball player - Jordan or LeBron. I think what that debate shows is the power of social media and how younger people are influenced by it but there’s always been an assumption amongst the young that their generation is the first generation and so what is happening now is unique… so therefore the best contemporary player in a sport is the best to ever do it.

Media outlets tend to have poor long-term memories too because they like to focus on what’s new because it’s assumed to be what’s interesting to people, particularly younger people. Social media is still relatively new as a medium as well and naturally has a focus on youth so it’s not surprising that who’s hot in a sport now is who is venerated. That same thinking is how a lot of younger people will take at face value Floyd’s claims as TBE.

But boxing’s popularity, in the US specifically, has gradually declined over the past four decades so if you’re young and into combat sports, MMA is likely to be where you’d gravitate. Whilst there are still young fans of boxing (and there are plenty on this site), they are probably outweighed by older fans. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, those fans tend to lean towards the past somewhat.

 

Granted, but what characteristics are boxing recruiters looking for worldwide?

For example, basketball is arguably robbing any other sport that needs really, really tall athletes, since it recruits intensively among such people. Who are boxing's (and MMA's) talent pool, and which other sports are they in direct competition with for appropriate athletes?

In other words, do you think that there are one or more athletic "types" for boxing, aside from reasonably fit guys with the right mentality?

Basically, before we start discussing which athletes are being "stolen" in either direction, we'd probably want a good idea of what type of athletes we're looking for.

 

If you have a line-up of 100 fit-looking teenagers, who are all extremely tall (say between 6'6" and 7'), there's a reasonable chance that several of these could, with proper training, be turned into good basketball players.

If, on the other hand, you have in front of you 100 fit-looking teens of average height - how many of these could be trained to be successful boxers? Obviously the answer is, that we have no idea! Hiding in the group may be the next SRL - or maybe not a single one of the 100 has what it takes, to make it as a pro boxer.

I think we all know, that so many things need to mesh together, to make a great boxer. Probably more intangibles, than for any other sport! Things you can't spot, by just looking at their physical appearance.

Great boxers come in all shapes and sizes... tall, short, muscular, skinny. So I don't think we can say, that a particular body type deserves more attention, than any other body type.