Old Time Heavyweights Being More Skilled - Convince Me

Seamus, sentimental hogwash?
It's not about some secret art of "rolling fists". I'm only 35yr old and incidentally I'm a big guy at 6"4 and 260lbs but I understand that I hit no harder with this extra muscle than I did whenI weighed 238lbs. And I was laterally more mobile then too. anyone who thinks today's "Heavyweight boxing is at its most advanced state at this moment" loses all respect from me in a conversation. The only proof you seem to give is that today's guys are bigger?? So why don't they hit harder? Why aren't they faster than previous generations? Tday's coaches haven't stopped using skill such as feints,parries,slips,rolls etc because they're innefective. It's because they've lost them cause they haven't a clue about them. All top coaches including Teddy Atlas, Dundee and Freddy Roach all agree on this issue 100%.
A good starting point is the Mike SIlver book TheArc of Boxing. Many greats efficionados discuss this exact point late in the book.

 

Baker allways impressed me he looks a real beast ,fast hands ,good size and power,I would like to know the inside stuff on why he didnt go all the way.

 

Seamus, I have to disagree with you big time. Heavyweight boxing is at it's worse technical state right now. There is no comparison between the boxing skills of a prime Larry Holmes and the Klitschko Brothers. It's not even close in terms of overall skills.

Proof enough is the fact that Holyfield is still around making noise when he shouldn't be, and he beat a Holmes that was past it. Young Mike Tyson would whip combinations to the body and head of both Klitschko Brothers.

I will say that both Wlad and Vitali have good boxing skills and they are both technically decent fighters, but comparing them to the skills of the fighters of previous years doesn't make sense because a lot of the modern fighters don't even know how to maximize their own skills.

Do you honestly believe guys like Samuel Peter, Valuev, Chagaev, John Ruiz, Arreola, Haye, Klitschko Bros etc have the skills to beat a prime Holmes, Ali, Frazier or Foreman? I don't think so, in a sentamental, silent way.

 

John Garfield will hopefully chime in here as his opinion means alot more than mines....But i will give you the info what John told me. Bob Baker had some severe brittle hand injuries that ultimatley caught up with him later in his career...hand injuries that really affected him by the mid 1950s

 

:admin Mary mother of god!!!

 

Only the elite p4p use the old time boxing techniques and have the skill to use the technique properly. Marquez throws feints with his feet, hands and head, he parries, picks off shots with his gloves. Mayweather does the same, hell watch smitty with mayweather interviewing him on the demarcus corley fight. He explains to smitty how to parry and shoot a straight right hand.

Even pacquiao throws feints, roach even tells him as much if you listen to him in the corner. The point is only the best have true technical skill, hence the reason why they are the best.

 

Thanks for that Suzie :good

 

Take power, conditioning and modern nutrition out of the equation, skills-wise it's no contest. I'm not saying that an average old-timer would beat one of today's dreadnoughts but if you're looking at this purely from a skills perspective you have to come down on the side of the old time heavys.

They employed a much greater array of tactics and ring craft, different offensive shots and defensive manoeuvres, honed by fighting with much greater regularity and against much stiffer opposition (relatively speaking), unlike today's pampered and protected prospects who've made enough for an average man to retire on without ever having to face a serious examination.

I think it also has a lot to do with the types of young men entering the sport today as opposed to yesteryear. In days gone by Boxing was one of the most popular sports in the world, with a much deeper pool of talent, whereas today in the States, the majority of the best 'big men' are making their living in the NBA or NFL, and in Europe or the Southern Hemisphere on the rugby field. Those that fail to make the grade at one of these sports can then lace on a pair of gloves and amass an impressive record by fighting bums without ever having a solid grounding in the finer aspects of the sweet science.

 

Man, what the hell is goin on with you?

How is it as it's most advanced state.

Please break it down...

Cuz I don't understand...at all...

 

:good

 

While I am a big advocate of modern nutrition and advanced training techniques, I do not feel that some of them are used to the best of modern day fighter's advantage. As a former personal trainer, I can say that there are a lot of good physical training techiniques that could be integrated into boxing, but the trend seems to favor size, and brute strength over functional athleticism.

Boxers today ( particularly heavyweights ) seem to place all emphasis on being bigger and stronger than his opponent. Truthfully, the aerobic training of yesterday which was intended to place emphasis on speed and endurance, combined with focus on the basics like left jabs, uppercuts, and old fashioned defense seemed to serve men better than just beefing men up.. Wladimir klitschko is the only heavyweight that i have seen who has gone back to training tactics such as swimming, sparring endlessly, and good old fashioned bag work. He has also employed the jab and is far more careful than he used to be.. As a result he has risen above his peers who still rely on pure steroids to outgun their opponents...

I would like to go on, but am being summoned for dinner... Good topic though...

 

I think that functional athleticism is a great term that really should be focused on by more modern fighters, the heavyweights being no exception. It seems like the extinction of the 15 round fight is what really prompted the "arms race" of bulk for the sake of bulk and the pure lack of conditioning present in too many fighters who are otherwise championship/contender-level talents.

It's mind-numbing to see because if a guy's putting in the time to look like a bodybuilder, it wouldn't take anything more than a simple redirection of effort to get much more useful gains out of the training time. It drives me crazy to see everyone doing bicep curls and bench and they don't even know what a power clean is and how strengthening their back and shoulders from it leads to a much more effective fighter.

When the fighters simply aren't putting in the legwork to get in the best shape possible in the first place, there's nothing to be done except maybe putting a Happy Meal on a stick and letting them run towards it. Maybe a cattle prod would work.

 

Skills are not taught in heavyweights as much as they used to be because they require practice, patience and lots of sparring and you also have to think about what your doing in the ring. The mental side of the game is far more difficult to master than the purely physical side. Only boxers today to that posses those old school skills are the current p4p elite, not surprising that they are at the top of the sport.