Harry Greb vs Roy Jones Jr.

You're mistakenly assuming that evolution necessarily is a benefit. For example, the music of Waylon Jennings era evolved toward the music of the 1990s-era country music, and nearly everyone agrees that was an unfortunate evolution (i.e., incorporating too many pop elements into the genre).

 

Yes she was. Glad those Manson sickos keep getting denied parole.

Well, at least she does have one connection to boxing. Terry Downes

 

Well, yeah, they pretty much are. Added boosts due to nutrition/supplements, etc. lead to one thing: an increase in athleticism.

Outside of sports such as track and field, high jump, long jump, etc. (or any measured sport) the best in any particular field remain the best thinkers, usually. Think about it: guys like Larry Bird in the 80's and Steve Nash now don't have half the athleticism of their counterparts, but are still among the best in the game due to their intelligence. The increase in athletic quality in sports such as basketball and football has to do a lot more with the increase in participation among the top athletes, whereas boxing has only waned in that regard. Add to that the fact that the best trainers have been dying out, the top fighters fight less and less against the best, and the much stricter sanctioning bodies, and you have what equates to a waning sport.

Boxing is not at all comparable to any other sport, because while they are consistently on the rise in terms of participation, boxing is consistently on the decline.

 

Well in that case we're on the same page, as that certainly applies to boxing over the past 20 years or so.

 

The sad, sad truth.

 

"It would be absurd to claim that one animal is higher than another"

Charles Darwin

 

This overlooks improvements in training techniques as well as the simple matter of a larger global population.

I very strongly disagree with this point. Guys like Bird and Nash were tremendously skilled, and others such as Terrell Owens obviously are not great minds.

Raw speed always looms large in explosive sports, but certainly we agree on the importance mental faculties (not necessarily overall intelligence) have on performance. The very sudden diminishing returns of NFL running backs speak to physical prowess over mental prowess, however.

LT hasn't become a dumb back, he just got older and less fast.

I sadly agree with you largely on this point and think it's most applicable to the small (say, 135 and lower) classes, because as people have become bigger by definition fewer of them are smaller.

The MMA weight divisions are more current, with middleweight athletes checking in at 185 pounds and heavyweights going up to 265. If you observe other American sports (except football), that sounds about right.

The migration toward the higher boxing weights has mitigated boxing's participation decline in those divisions, and again, the overall expansion of the global population does as well.

More to the point, though, today's fighters still do benefit from advanced training techniques — not just boxing-specific but also nutrition and in other areas — even as some of the sport's great teachers have passed on.

 

Not true..Fighters back then who did not display guts or stamina,would
have been weeded out of the competition,and therefore would not be considered great fighters of that cruel and competitive era...They
would have never advanced from the prelims...Water seeks it's own level...
Remember they had to fight to eat those days...No home relief, no welfare checks, no handouts...Tough times, make tough men...

 

This is an entirely USA-centric point of view. Edison Miranda was forced to eat roadkill to survive, yet he gets his ass kicked anytime he steps up in competition even against more middle class fighters.

Jermain Taylor and plenty of other Americans also suffered excruciating poverty.

 

First of all I'm proud to be'USA-centric'...Greatest country in the world...In the 1920s-40s the amount of American fighters in the pros
were 10 times as today leading to fighting more often, and if as I posted
before,you did not have guts and stamina,you were left by the wayside..
Of course povert in itself doesnt make a great fighter[Miranda], but the amount of fighters trying to feed their family,without a safety net,makes
for more motivated and tougher boxers,able to train and struggle to
fight 20-40 round fights as required...Could todays fighters do that now ?
The answer is NO...

 

more motivated and tougher yes but not necessarily better. for instance, most people feel james braddock would have been a far better fighter if not for the impoverished conditions in which he fought. many fighters from that era to today would be more successful and simply better had they the funds and time to dedicate entirely to boxing, with the equipment and facilities needed to do so

 

Oh horse****, anyone who thinks poverty today is on anything even close to resembling the poverty seen prior to WW2 has no understanding or concept of the drastic changes this country has undertaken. When was the last time you heard about someone starving to death in the United States because they are out of work. Which is besides the point anyway. Times a half century to a century ago were inarguably tougher all the way around than they are today. Todays fighters fight and train in air conditioned arenas, have 32 hours to make weight, hit a million dollar paycheck on their first title fight win or lose, etc etc. You wanna argue that todays fighters are some how better or tougher than a guy with three hundred fights against a group of people who could have their friggin wing the HOF and was doing it without AC having to make weight RINGSIDE and having just fought the week before because if he didnt fight every week or two he couldnt pay the bills. Someone like that would eat Roy Jones pampered, HBO contract hiding behind ass up and spit him out. Like I said, its not even worth talking about because even as far as conjecture goes Jones would NEVER have fought a prime Greb. He would have taken a fat HBO paycheck and walked away to fight someone delivered mail for a living. He wouldnt even entertain the thought of a fight with Greb. Im sure of that. If Jones were fighting in Greb's era you would never hear of him. Period. Here is a guy who everytime he failed to dazzle against one of his hobos blamed his bad hands. Sorry but in Greb's era you either fought with bad hands or you left the sport. Could Jones fight with bad hands every couple of weaks? Could he face the competition Greb did as regularly as Greb did without his weak chin getting tapped by someone? He avoided rematches with Toney and Hopkins for years and refused to face anyone with a pulse because he knew what he was hiding. You think if he had to fight 100 fights BEFORE ever challenging for a championship we wouldnt have found out about his glass jaw? his lack of heart? Greb's era was a proving ground. Jones era was a prove nothing ground. It was all about style without ever having to show any real substance, without having to show what you were made of.

 

I disagree with this statement entirely for the simple fact that we saw what james braddock was made of BEFORE he ever suffered from poverty. He was already a pretty unreliable fighter when he fought Tommy Loughran in 1929 several months before the crash even happened and he looked like absolute **** in that fight. I mean he didnt look like he had ever boxed in his life. You cant blame that on poverty because he wasnt broke at that point. He just sucked LOL! Then he suffered another 2 losses making three back to back losses and the third of which was still less than a month after the crash and probably before it had a chance to trickle down and effect him. So i completely disagree that Braddock was not good because he was poor. He was not good because he was not good.

 

I do not respectfully agree...The best "equiptment" in the world is two-fold.
1-the calibre of great FULL time boxing trainers,teaching full time fighters.
2-The amount of fights you have, with the very best opposition,honing
a fighters skills,against all boxing styles ,fighting OFTEN...
-Question- if as you imply if impoverished conditions weakened the old time boxers, how were they able to fight 15 to 45 round bouts,and
box twenty or so fights a year.?..They had no "modern diets or equiptment, but they had the greatest boxing teachers,and the most
rigorous running and training sessions that allowed them to fight so
often,long distance fights that todays 60 career fighters can never duplicate IMO... WHY...

 

I have read more than enough examples of the opposite (from bareknuckles to around 1920, which is my main area of research). You are wrong.