Do you think technique evolves?

I can’t see how Langford looks crude, Wilde either. Wilde employed a lot of movement to make up for how he often lunged, and Langford is one of the most complete fighters on film I’ve ever seen. This is especially apparent against Jeannette.
You can’t call Tunney and Gibbons exceptions because their eras were stacked with ridiculously talented fighters we have film of like Leonard, Loughran, Dundee, Wolgast, Mike’s brother Tommy, Walker. Probably many more in missing.

I've seen Gibbons spin himself around when throwing a left hook before. Gibbons had a tendency to square up and Tunney would get out of stance when getting on his bike. Tunney would often be off-balance after throwing and was front foot heavy at times. His feet came together a lot and he tripped himself up a couple times on film.

You can find singular instances where the fighters you list as example of technical modernity are off balance and squaring up multiple times, that doesn’t imply that it was integral to their style or a way they normally fought. Fighters in any era can be caught making these mistakes. Overwhemlingly on average, Gibbons’ hooks were short sharp and well timed. Tunney’s short punches are well timed and placed and I don’t see the instances where he is off balance. When he is, he recovers in seconds like any modern fighter would. Tunney’s footwork is beautiful spare a few seconds of balance issues. I don’t really see how he crosses his feet when he moves, in fact he’s always in a good position to throw while he moves which he does frequently. All criticisms you’ve said can easily apply to the fighters you’re defending as well, and I don’t think it’s relevant in either case. And these aren’t mistakes repeated consistently. Tunney’s performance against Tommy Gibbons is a timeless display of masterful, patient boxing.

. By the standards of their era, all the men listed above were exceptional talents, but you would never find a single gym anywhere using film of any of these guys to teach technique because the techniques just don't hold up anymore in a modern environment because they were found to have weaknesses and ineffective aspects which were ironed out and improved on. The practices were sufficient for the standards and environment of the time, but the techniques they employed simply wouldn't work at the top level of the sport anymore.

You will find plenty of gyms teach the techniques that Tunney and Gibbons employed, even if they aren’t directly mentioned by name (though that can also be attributed to people just not knowing them). The St. Paul style they utilized is one of the most skilled and revolutionary boxing styles to ever exist, that requires an insane amount of skill to utilize it consistently. By the standards of any era they would thrive.

Ali said so himself when asked who would have beaten him "...Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey were good in their day; I would say a full motor jet - prop plane - that we flew a few monthsago was good then but now you like thejets, so you couldn't compare a jet with a prop but still the prop was still good for its time."
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Ali disagrees on you about Tunney, who felt his technical abilities lived up to his own era’s standards:

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He also thought Marciano was better than Frazier, and that Rocky would give him his hardest fight. Also, Tunney and Louis are vastly superior technicians than Ali.

I think the boxers of today (at the top level anyway) are more skilled than the cream of the crop from more than a century ago. I enjoy reading about that era immensely, but I just can't see how the way the great men of that era fought would lead to them being able to compete with the guys of today (except maybe Gans since I adore Gans)

What makes Gans the exception? I agree he’s excellent but not much more than the names I’ve listed.

 

Because boxing has existed for over a century longer than the other sports have, it’s not even comparable.

Also, the cream of the crop of athletes in every era appear to be timeless. A study was done comparing Jesse Owens to Olympians from the 80s and the results found he would be on their level.

Here's an excerpt from the study:

"One question posed had been to compare two of the best sprinters of that time, Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis, to the great Jessie Owens. Try to imagine how these three great sprinters would run around the track against each other. Of course, it could only happen in a dream or a vivid imagination. What we could accomplish biomechanicallywas to digitize Jessie Owens and compare his running technique against the two modern sprinters. Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals and broke the world record in the 100-meters dash in 10.20 seconds in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. His 100-meter dash record stood for 20 years and was broken by Willie Williams in 1956 in 10.1 seconds. The question was how Jessie Owens’ results compared to sprinters who ran the same distance in 9.90 seconds and faster. Since modern sprinters ran on artificial tracks, used starting blocks, and had access to special sprint shoes with spikes to gain better contact with the running surface, was it possible to eliminate those factors and compare the runners outside of their actual competitive environment?

Bud Greenspan, the famous producer of the series on the “Olympics Games”, was a friend of mine. One of Mr. Greenspan’s most beautiful and moving productions was “Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin” (1968). Mr. Greenspan gave me access to the original film of Jessie Owens’ Berlin Olympic performance. In my data collection, I had various Olympics and International competitions, including sprinting performances of Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis. When a sprinter runs, the movement results from the displacement of his/her rotational leg and hips segments. In addition to the hip displacements, the movement of the ankle joint is added to that of the displacement at the knee and the hip joints. When these angular displacements are calculated in their coordinated actions, the total stride length is created. Of course, the net distance is always slightly less since some motion is wasted at the surface contact, while another motion is absorbed due to the flexibility of the shock absorbing joints. Another factor is air which will resist the movement forward.

The amount of time that the runner is out of contact with the ground and the height that the center of gravity is displaced will, also, affect the result. However, the most important joints about which forces are generated to propel the body forward are those at the ankle, knee and hip. By calculating the angular velocities at these joints, it is possible to calculate the absolute velocity and compare athletes that ran at different times and under different conditions. For example, one athlete might run a hundred meters in 10.0 seconds, but another athlete running into the wind might run the same distance in 10.20 seconds. In other words, the distance covered would be the same, but external circumstances might be the factor producing the time differences. If the calculation of their speed was measured by determining the angular velocities at the joints, a comparison of the absolute speed of two people running at times, places, and under dissimilar conditions could be made.

Using the films provided by Mr. Greenspan, we applied biomechanical analysis to several of the sprints Jesse Owens ran in the Berlin Olympic competitions. Based on our calculations of his joint center kinematics (which yielded positions, velocities, and accelerations), Jessie Owens was as fast as Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis. However, these modern-day sprinters won the same 100-meter race, at faster speeds, most likely due to the environmental conditions under which they competed. Carl Lewis won the Gold medal in the 1984 Olympics in 9.99 seconds. However, Carl Lewis performed on an artificial surface with special sprint shoes. Comparing the kinematic parameters for these athletes suggests that they would have been competitively equal."

https://www.arielnet.com/chapters/show/dtdf-ch15/the-horse-connection

I think the same applies for other sports, just because Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell can compete today doesn’t mean anyone from the 60s could, the same thing applies for Owens’ contemporaries.

 

Hard not to fanboy over Gans, the most impressive part about him is that the sum of his learning of boxing technique is following Bob Fitzsimmons around as a rookie. That’s all it took for him to dominate lightweight for a decade.

 

Sometimes I think so, and sometimes I don't. I was watching Freddie Steele vs. Vince Dundee and it looked like two drunkards engaging in a bar room brawl. They were wild sluggers with no defense at all.

Then I watch Kid Chocolate and I'm impressed and think how "modern" he fights. Has excellent movement and footwork, has a jab, feints, etc... I can see why Ray Robinson was influenced by him and see a similarity in their styles.

 

It will always depend on the fighter themselves, but technique will progress if given the proper technician. There will always be standouts in each era that look either ahead of their or behind their own respective times.

 

Are drivers in motor sports more skilled today ? How are we supposed the know if the sport changed so much ?

Did the way you shoot a basketball change ? I don’t know.
The only other sport I can talk about is futebol (soccer) and I gotta tell you, it did change in pace and tactics, but listen, the fundamentals are actually the same.
The ball and pitch changed, sure, so certain things worked better then, others work better now!

The high pace of today made the game different. The individual fundamentals are the same ! Think about that !
A Boxing fight, the punches, they happen in a faster pace no doubt.
I believe you could say that fighters today are more flexible too, their muscle twitches are “faster” and they look sharper, as a whole, when punching, but that is a physical issue, not a tehcnical one !

Did pilots in motor Sports evolve in how they drive a car ? No. It is just different and the ****ing cars are what evolve, tremendously.

 

I've heard this argument, and it's an interesting one. As far as where Lewis/Owens/Johnson might finish against Usain Bolt, well, check out the video below.

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Not sure how much has changed when it comes to strictly shooting the ball, but ball handling skills and athleticism seems to have gone through the roof.

Can't speak to soccer, but do you think Pele or Maradona would be eilte in today's game?

I only bring up other sports because of the obvious evolution that's taken place there. I bring this subject up at work, and with friends of mine from time to time, and the general thinking seems to be that skill and speed has improved over the decades throughout sports. For the Americans reading this, Lombardi's Packers probably get thrashed by the '85 Bears. The '85 Bears probably get spanked by the recent Chiefs title teams. Same probably goes for the 80s Showtime Lakers/80s Celtics teams vs. this years Celtics team. I can't think of any team sport that hasn't noticeably improved over time.

Individual sports? How about the Decathalon? Here's what the progression looks like over the years...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decathlon_world_record_progression

Not saying Boxing has evolved as much as other sports, but it would seem odd if it didn't, being that all other sports seem to have evolved quite a bit.

 

Bolt is a freak of nature, with better roids and equipment which imo amounts for a big amount of the small percentile differences that he has over people from previous eras. Also worth mentioning that Lewis would’ve been third place in the 100m where Bolt set his 9.58s record with the results he got from an era with inferior equipment, and only behind Bolt and Tyson Gay who is tied for second fastest ever.

 

The term Evolution often carries a positive connotation but, strictly speaking, it doesn’t necessarily suggest positive improvements.

Evolution merely suggests changes by way of gradual adaption to a changing environment.

The style that Ali brought to the table wasn’t really built upon any evolution that came before him - sure, there was some modelling on SRR but, ultimately, Ali was a random mutation, if you will, but an ATG nonetheless with skills that would very much still apply today.

And Ali’s style did spawn several Ali wannabes during the 80s who were clearly not up to scratch since they did not possess Ali’s innate athletic abilities to pull it off.

The most basic of punches but often also the most important is the jab. Whenever that punch was adopted and became more prevalent it was definitely a huge innovation.

It might be argued that the jab is the least purely instinctive, naturally occurring punch - and even to this day, a good number of fighters could do a lot better to accent more on their jabs - in terms of development and application.

 

Technique does evolve but not in perpetuity.

Boxing has been around since the late 1890's. By the late 1930's and 40's, technique had evolved almost to the point of today.

In other sports, technique also evolved for 3-5 decades, then remained relatively stable with some exceptions. For example, basketball has been around a long time but the modern version started with the NBA in 1947. Michael Jordan is widely regarded as the best player ever and he debuted in 1984 - 37 years after the sport began. I don't think anyone believes that Jordan's technique was inferior to today's players except when it came to 3 point shooting.

Are today's boxers technically better? I think you can make a case that today's southpaws like Usyk and Lomachenko are technically better than the southpaws 60 years ago. This is because southpaws were much more rare 60 years ago as southpaws back then were often converted to orthodox.

You can also make a case that the really giant men like Joshua and Fury are more skilled than the giants 60-70 years ago as back then, there were very few giants and i don't think trainers quite knew how to equip big men with proper skills. As time went by and each generation accumulated more knowledge, i think trainers figured out how to train big men - hence the rise of the super heavyweights in the late 80's and early 90's.

Outside of those two cases (super heavyweights and southpaws), i don't see how the fighters are technically better.

Is Artur Beterbiev technically better than Archie Moore? I don't think so.

Is Dimitry Bivol technically better than Billy Conn? No.

Is there a single heavyweight today that has the combination punching + power + handspeed of a young Mike Tyson? No.

Is there a single heavyweight today that is as fast as prime Ali or prime Iron Mike? No.

 

Maybe. But can you name me a heavyweight boxer today more athletic than Muhammad Ali in his prime? Ali is a lot faster than Usyk. A lot.

 

by the mid - late 20s, Boxers were certainly more athletic & stylish movers, but very little change since, unless you count much less fights & activity as perhaps leaving fighters a bit more ring rusty or inactively less sharp...

 

Is this a joke? If anything, going to the body is a lost technique. To mention Jofre lacking fundamentals is laughable. How many KO's did he have going to the body.