Head to head, overall, is Ike Williams right up there with Duran/Whitaker?

watch some Leoanrd hes not vintage in any way

 

i have done

 

and you dont think he has a modern style

 

no,i think the first modernish fighter is joe louis

 

interesting

why do you think that

 

i liked the way joe fought,his jab,economical head movement,devestating short punches and he never lost composure.

 

yeh but was schmeling or dempsey or tunney not modern before Joe in the HWs

 

Benny Leonard beat
Tendler
Kansas
Mitchell
Ritchie
White
Dundee
Kilbane
Welsh
and drew with Ted KId Lewis.
He retired as unbreaten champ only to be forced back to the ring when the stock market crashed.
According to you because Leonard was 5 5in tall he wouldnt last long with Duran.Roberto Duran lost one fight as a lightweight,to Esteban Dejesus, they had three fights all were hard fought Duran was down in two of them, Dejesus was 5 4 1/2in tall. You kill me

 

In the heavyweight division this is true, although Tunney brought a lot up from the light heavyweights.

But this isn't true for the lighter divisions.

 

what do youthink of benny Leoanrds skills do you think he was modern how would he cope today

who do you think was the first modern fighter

 

I think Leonard is head and shoulders above the rest of the division, not only was he a superlative boxer he had real power in his right hand.The question should rather be how would they cope with him today?
What does" modern fighter "mean ? Some one who fights 15 rds?
Has there been a better swarming heavyweight than Dempsey?
Has there been a better boxer than Leonard at Light weight? If so was it his predecessor Gans?
Loughran won the LH title in 1927 what is he ? Crude?
The Ring Record Book says Modern greats must have had their last fight no later than 1943 , to be eligible for the HOF.
Are Canzoneri,Ross,Mclarnin,Mandell unskilled? Is this the General Forum?atsch

 

well by modern boxer i mean that they would be able to fight today under the current rules and still be effective. I belive Modern boxing starts around 1920 mid to late, so benny leonard and co are the guys who eveolved the sport there IMO.

i honestly think leoanard is the best ever lightweight boxer and he had that right hand you mention

all those guys you mention are great great boxers aswell

 

Well it's all about rules isn't it? Glove size, round length, number of rounds, knockdown rules, scoring system, all of these things count towards what methods are used in the actual fighting.

If you took a twelve round fighter from today's hazardless ring and threw him in with a fighter of the late 19th century, he'd struggle. Boxers of the bareknuckle period look like they should be steamrolled by the modern crop, and they probably would under our rules - but when you have no gloves and have to fight for onwards of an hour in the heat of the Sun, it's hard to fight with rhythmic balance and slip & duck punches.

Remember, man has been fighting with his fists since they first evolved on the ends of his arms - pugilism is a form of combat that was eventually turned into an art by ancient civil societies and had been practiced for thousands of years already before the bareknucklers came along.

Boxing rules were modified at the turn of the century as gloves were introduced and it became a more mainstream, professional sport. I believe modern boxers as we know them today first started appearing in the late '20s and '30s with fighters like Kid Chocolate, Barney Ross and Henry Armstrong. There seemed to be a transitional stage between 1890 and 1925 (approximately) where boxers were halfway between styles as the new rules and equipment needed some time to get to grips with. Think; Jack Johnson.

But because these fighters wore gloves and are classified by us lot as classic boxers rather than bareknucklers, we throw them all up into the same soup along with Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley. I don't think it's quite fair to compare and match them unless you're going to modify the rules to suit.

Because the best fighters in any era have always been top class and never amateurs - they just had to work with what they had.

 

Benny Leonard was one of them.

 

This is essentially correct. I would move the time a little earlier for lighter weight fighters, but by Ross, Canzoneri, Armstrong, Chocolate, you have modern fighters.