Modern Fighters Are Better

Lewis, Bowe and Klitchsko are the no1's of their time, that is true, but in between these 4 guys. You have Tyson (5'10), Holyfield - former Cruiserweight (less than 190), Moorer (former Light Heavy), Byrd (former light heavy). Lewis may have been arguably the best, but Tyson was easily the most dominant.

 

Being linear champ for 2 years before being ko'd makes you the most dominant, how?

And none of those figthers saw fit to fight as LHWs, they got bigger and stronger. If they are former LHWs then Charles/Patterson/Dempsey/Langford/Fitz are all former MWs. Whichever way you spin it HWs are getting bigger. Tyson was 5'11 1/2 and a freak of nature

 

Bigger and stronger, or bigger and fatter? Some did get bigger and stronger, some didnt. Dont forget that even Muhammed Ali is a former light heavyweight Gold medal winner. MOst of the big heavyweights today even the giants have come in at weights which would surprise you.
The difference is that because they take so much time off between fights, and they dont train as hard, at least not in endurance training, and becaue in modern times, fast food is so easily attainable. Even the 245 lb Vlad who is probably the best trained modern athlete i can think about has weighed as low as 220 and used to regurlarly fight below 230 or even 225. The 250lb vitali started of as a 230lb fighter. The 230 lb Juan Carlos Gomez used to fight below 190 (and looked a hell of a lot better). 245lb Kirk johnson looked a lot better when he fought below 220. Chris Byrd was a 169lber like Fitzimmons, but unfortunately he took nearly a year off and his weight ballooned so that he soon came back as first a cruiserweight, then as much as a 220lb heavyweight. When he finally started training to take off weight, he came back as a light heavy and despite being a top 5 heavy, an average light heavy proved to hit to fast and too often and he was stopped, even though of all the big heavys he faced, who were much bigger and stronger than his light heavy opponent. Why is that? Oh that is right weight drain. I am not sure why weight drain didnt happen to Eddie chambers in his last fight, but i am sure it would have if he had crossed the mythical weight limit lines.

Incidentally, you seem to forget that while Tyson was a freak of nature, so was Fitzsimmons, Dempsey, Louis, Sullivan, Jeffries etc. People seem to forget that freaks of Nature did not stop and end with Tyson and Ali sometimes.

And by the way, if you dont think that Tyson was a dominant champ, there is something wrong. He cleaned out the division by fighting everysingle credible opponent of his time and beating every single one very easily. By the time he came to Douglas, he had beaten everyone and was just looking to boost opponents so he could get a credible opponent. That is the definition of dominant.

 

True, many seem to overlook this.

New breed of fighter? Ever seen how much Ali or Johnson held their opponents?:huh

If anything, it's oldschool. And totally boring.

 

I find it interesting, that in modern times, we like to see spectacular knockouts and clean striking. IN oldern times, they preferred to see silky skills and fighters prolonging the fight for the crowd, so they could get their moneys worth. The crowd was happier to see a long fight where as today, we would prefer to see a fighter finish his opponent early.

Maybe this is one reason why today has bigger fighters. It is not enough with the public to simply win a fight without getting hit. Your stock raises best when you score the spectacular KO.

 

I think in the heavyweight division it is a matter of a good big man will beat a good not-as-big-man. But a great not-as-big man can whip a good big man. It is difficult, though, for a 6' 185 lbs heavyweight from the forties, however good he is, to do well against a good heavyweight standing 6'4" (or more) and weighing 220 lbs (or more). I think that is obvious. And I want to emphasize the "good" part. They have to be good. The heyday of heavyweights was between the late-1950s and the early-1990s, with a relative weakening of the heavyweight division in the 1980s. I don't think heavyweights today compare to the 1970s. But I do believe heavyweights today clean house with heavyweights before the late 1950s.

However for lighter weight fighters, it is hard to argue that a lightweight today is better than Carlos Ortiz or Henry Armstrong. Same is true for welterweights. Those fighters fought all the time and where their skills/techniques were different, some of those skills/techniques were better. For example, the right hand to the body. Everybody loves the left hook to the liver, but the right to lower ribs and hip, a punch used a lot by fighters back in the day - Robinson, Charles, etc. - is devastating. When Roy Jones landed that shot on Hill everybody was like, wtf? But that shot was typical among the masters in the 1940s-1960s. Another example has to do with keeping one's eyes open inside and dodging and blocking shots without clinching. A few of those types come along every once in awhile - Chavez, for instance, who was a real throwback - but we're missing something a lot these days. (At the same time, the fighters I am praising could hold a lot, too, particular in the middleweights of the late-1950s/early-1960s, so I don't want to ovesell the point.) Fighters of today could learn a lot from fighters during these earlier periods, but I don't think they get the experience in the ring to pick up on that ****. The top-of-the-line fighter today is one who has studied the science of boxing for sure. These dudes were masters.