Why is The Boxing Community so Nostalgic Compared to Other Sports Communities?

Then how highly rated would Crawford and Spence be?

They both have weak resumes.

 

I dont think it necessarily IS accepted in other sports that the athletes of today are better or whatever. Theres still plenty of debate regarding how guys like Jordan or Maradona or whatever would do in their respective sports today. And when it comes to boxing, do you really see a change in the level of athleticism now? like are the current boxers faster? do they throw with more volume? are there actually more active pro boxers now than there was 30 years ago (genuine question btw)? obviously theres the 15 rounds vs 12 rounds aspect too. The only real noticeable change imo is the size of HWs but it felt like HWs were already getting bigger and more jacked starting in the 80s anyway. Most of the 80s/90s crop seem comparable enough to the current HWs in size and strength but on average better technically and athletically.

As for the overall nostalgia thing though, a lot of it is because boxings popularity in America has declined significantly. It used to be a legitimate mainstream sport full of American stars. There is absolutely nothing on the level of Ali, or Mike, or Floyd, in boxing now in terms of mainstream star power. Its pretty obvious that the golden age of the sport in terms of American cultural relevance is long gone, so yes of course theres a lot of nostalgia.

 

Are UK fans even nostalgic like that though? most of the biggest crowds and PPV numbers in British boxing history have happened since 2017. AJ is probably the biggest British boxing star/draw ever and Fury isnt far behind.

 

Very debatable. NBA today is basically zero contact.

 

You yourself compared Spence to a top 3 ATG Middleweight in Hagler, when Spence wouldn't even be in top 30 Welterweights of all time.

What makes me laugh is Spence's best win is Shawn Porter, and Mikey Garcia a guy who moved up two weightclasses to fight him. Yet your bringing up Hagler's resume laughable in all honesty.

Are Hearns and Duran not ATG's ? And did they not achieve things at higher weightclasses ? Duran destroyed Davey Moore and beat Iran Barkley. Hearns won the Light Heavyweight title from a Hall Of Famer in Virgil Hill, and should've got the decision against Sugar Ray Leonard the 2nd time.

Remind me again what Mikey Garcia did at Welterweight ?

And finally name me one ATG Golovkin, Spence, Crawford, Charlo, have beaten ?

 

This is an interesting and VERY complex topic. It always bugs me when I see a cool-kids-club type rate some 80-15-15 1930s welterweight over Floyd(PBUH), but at the same time I DO think there are legitimate and historically accurate reasons for guys like Robinson and Ali to be held in the extremely high esteem that they are. Personally, I boil it down to the following points, but each of these is a massive topic in and of itself:
1. Boxing isn't really a 'sport', in the same way many sports are essentially GAMES, held together by rigorous sets of rules, managed by various critical bodies and played at a clearly defined professional level. Boxing is more akin to a fairground 'test of strength' challenge, coupled with the dirty underworld of prizefighting. Even though professional boxing experienced tremendous growth throughout the 20th century, these fundamentals have never really changed. Every time someone complains about Al Haymon(PBUH) or Mauricio Suleiman(PBUH) I roll my eyes. These are essential characters in the sport, guys. You think there aren't suspect decisions and vested interests in the amateur boxing hegemons of Easter Europe? Go watch a soy sport like football/soccer instead. Anyway, there ARE rules in boxing, but these are basic, loose and very malleable; and there ARE various critical bodies... who are all borderline extortionist groups. Preamble aside... a result... even though psychology is important in all sports, it's significantly more important in boxing. SRR, sweating his tits off in the Maxim fight, and trying to push through to become the GOAT... Duran getting peppered at range by Leonard in their rematch after his months-long coke binge... Holmes getting up after Shavers' bomb... these are things not particularly seen in other, more mainstream sports. It's not just vague bullsh1t like 'effort' or 'the will to win', it's overcoming being literally wounded, whether that's being punched in the face, extreme heat exhaustion or weight-cutting difficulties. Boxing in a high-level firefight is more like the Bataan Death March than kicking balls around, and that's not cap. So, where does that leave us... oh, people were tougher in the past. More motivated? I'm not sure. More skilled? Perhaps, I'll get onto that later. But life in general then was harder, and not only that, but the sport itself was. 15 rounds (or even more), no neutral corner after a KD, no British stoppages. In a 'sport' where toughness is a winning attribute, it's no surprise men from tougher eras are naturally seen as better - at least in that regard. You see those blokes eating sandwiches on girders in the 20s and 30s? That's the era I'm talking about. I'm not saying the past was better, as a lot of it seems sh1t to me, to be perfectly honest, but intrinsic human toughness, both male and female, was far higher. It's difficult to prove this, but I don't think anyone who regularly ventures outside would refute it
2. People fought more, more regularly and more regularly at the highest level. There's an argument to be made that a lot of the wins on Greb's record were essentially hard sparring, but at the end of the day, fighters getting in the ring with live bodies, on a regular basis, is clearly going to sharpen their skills better than a 10-week camp in the modern era. I also wonder if there's a lot of 'overtraining' in modern boxing, which leads to more injuries (though, going with point #1, I suspect toughing out injuries was pretty common Back Then). It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if a prime 147 SRR was faster than Spence or Crawford, despite no protein shakes or creatine or massage therapy or whatever. B-BUT A LOT OF FIGHTERS WERE TAXI DRIVERS! I'm sure there are dozens of bricklayers and taxi drivers and binmen on the records of Greb, Armstrong and Robinson... but don't we have that in modern boxing still? This weirdly antiquated practice of building up records against nobodies - something MMA, thankfully, is helping stop. But you know what older fighters didn't do? Fight once or twice a year, with one or even both of these fights being against no-hopers. Yes, Ali fought his fair share of Derek Chisoras and Dillian Whytes, but these were sandwiched between regular fights against the best of the division. This is a bit of a tangent, but boxing equipment in gyms has barely changed over the last century. I mean BOXING equipment here, not S&C or cardio stuff. And honestly, I think you can read into that quite a lot. This point is all over the place, I admit, and I don't care, but what I'm basically saying is that there were significantly less barriers to competitive fights and competitive fights sharpen boxers to such a degree that I'm not sure if improvements to diet and our understanding of biomechanics really matters
3. Ali is greater than Fury. But is Ali better than Fury? Even though I do believe the top old school fighters would beat the top new school fighters, I feel like a lot of people debating this topic get greatness and head2head confused - or at the very least let one influence the other. Do I believe Robinson and Hearns beat Floyd? Yeah I do, but if I had to explain why, I inevitably dip into weak arguments about records and resume, which are highly variable due to ironclad factors like differences in era, the sport etc. Is Duran a better 135er than more modern guys like Pac and Loma? I think so, but it's tough to argue due to Duran's iconic performances over 135 being an influence, and the other two having far less fights at strictly 135lbs

There's also generic answers like nostalgia, boxing having an ageing demographic in particular and the declined health of the sport all changing people's perception, but when it comes to legitimate boxing fans, I do think there are serious grounds to believe SRR is the king of kings despite never once whiffing a protein shake or drinking gallons of water to flush sodium out of his body the day before weigh-in

 

I respect the effort that you’ve gone to.

I agree with most of what you’ve said.

Regarding Floyd vs Robinson and Hearns, all you have to look at is how they’d realistically have matched up on the night stylistically.

They would have been horrible stylistic match ups for him, and especially Hearns.

 

Active boxers by year (as of 19 May, 2019) in BoxRec's database:
Total Bouts in the BoxRec Database: By Decade - Page 4 - BoxRec

 

Well he definitely should be rated higher than Crawford and Spence. If that's what you're wondering.

 

Nba is become soft no hand checks, hard fouls are called flagrant.Player milk penalties and flopping every game.I can name a few all time flopperz today.James Harden, Marcus Smart and Lebron James.

 

Yes exactly of the same reason, lower weight classes rely much more on technique then the higher ones

 

They are definitely much less nostalgic then the americans, they also hold their own very well in the current era, thus less nostalgia

 

The issue you have, is that you falsely identify nostalgic fans.

Nostalgic fans are people who rubbish everything modern, where they don’t give guys due credit.

Yet there’s nothing nostalgic about saying that there’s plenty of guys from past generations who were better fighters than some of today’s guys, and that some of the older guys would have been able to have beaten some of today’s guys.

That’s not being nostalgic.

Yet you’re convinced that it is, as you believe that no older guy was better where they could have beaten anyone of today.

 

Baseball and Cricket have been around for over 160 years and are certainly sports for which people have nostalgic thoughts.