What Advantages Did The Old Time Fighters Have, Over Todays Guys?

As many have said fighting more often, which can be both a disadvantage and an advantage.

They were arguably more naturally athletically talented, relative to the available talent pool of competitive athletes in their era. At least in the USA. Boxing was a more mainstream sport many decades ago. I suspect that a higher proportion of naturally talented athletetic young men would have been attracted to giving boxing a try at some point in their youth in the 1920's, for example, than is the case today.

 

for most of it's history boxing was one of the only pro sports that offered a decent living. in the usa and europe. robinson today may well end up as a wr or soccer player or pro surfer? or...........................etc.

 

COVID has messed up a lot of fighters (Povetkin, Berchelt, Teo, Virgil Ortiz) and messed up scheduling for others. Also killed Tony Harrison’s dad/trainer.

 

a lot of them probably grew up doing things like farm work and brick laying

 

One indispensable advantage.

Hunger.

Jack Dempsey knew that he had a chance to be socially secure, at the end of his career, if he played his cards right.

Anthony Joshua was on every billboard in the UK, before he had even settle4d the lineage.

One of my manifold ridiculous hobbies, is running 100 mile races.

Most 100 mile races require you to complete a qualifying race (say 40 or 50 miles), and then the dropout rate is still around 40%.

In your first one you get everything wrong, but at least you are hungry.

That first 100 mile belt buckle is everything.

 

Better infighting

 

They were FIGHTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! not fancy dancing prima donnas like today

 

More opportunity to fight. Not only does that make the fighter better, it makes the trainers/cornermen better; they were multiple times every week, too.
There was more money in the game then. Not in the sense that guys were making millions upon millions. But there were a lot of fighters, trainers, and managers making a living, and living well, from boxing.

 

There was a larger boxing "middle class," so to speak?

 

I guess conditioning and fighting form maintained on the job,

Also, more consistent reaffirming of the skills already in place and attainment of new skills and better developed (ongoing) boxing IQ - all due to more fights against a greater variance of opposition/styles over time.

<sneeze> Archie Moore (for one example of a highly positive outcome).

 

3 or 4 fights ... isn't that (or thereabouts) what the average oldtimer had in a year, back during the depression years?

 

I maybe totally wrong but do top fighters earn significantly more than in the past earlier in their careers? Not sure how it works with the inflation but it feels like the top 10 fighters P4P can be millionaires several times over after relatively few fights and probably earn more than many old timers would have made over an entire career, even taking into account inflation?

With a focus on the UK there are many UK talents like Ricky Hatton and Naz who seemed to get lazy very early in their careers mainly due to the speed with which they made significant money. Not sure if this is a factor in older fighters staying hungry for longer?