Harry Greb vs Roy Jones Jr.

Point being, guys from very tough circumstances don't necessarily become great fighters. You need to prove how this is relevant. Most boxers hail from disadvantaged backgrounds, so a pissing match as to exactly how poor they are doesn't seem to make much sense.

Another example is Kassim Ouma, who by any reasonable estimation had about the worst possible childhood imaginable. And yet, this did not enable him to make the top level.

 

Have you ever seen gans-nelson? If you think these guys were just waltzing around in a clinch we can end the discussion right here because you dont understand the art of infighting which basically doesnt even exist today.

 

Yeah and that might have something to do with the fact that the instant Kassim Ouma started fighting top ten fighters he was earning paychecks that were higher than you and I would make in several years. Compare that to 1922 when as middleweight champion Johnny Wilson earned about $500 for a fight, one of the few he had that year. Now in 1922 $500 was a lot of money but it wasnt going to allow Wilson to retire or even to take it easy for a year or two as Avoid Mayweather enjoys doing. The point is that Roy Jones was the definition of a spoiled boxer. He never had to take a challenge after Toney because HBO was basically underwriting his bloated lifestyle. If you are getting paid millions for fighting full time UPS men/part time fighters (which Jones literally was) where is the motivation to fight challenging fights? Yet you wanna argue that somehow fighters today have it just as tough and fight in an era that is just as competetive? That simply shows a complete lack of understanding at just how the sport as devolved in the last 50 years.

 

Thankyou!

 

And again, thankyou.

 

Part time policemen and retire postmen would have suited Jones more than the human buzzsaw Greb. A 15 round decision for Greb, who would have made Jones look like he did after the Calzaghe fight.

 

To say that the oldtimers could not go long distance fights without
clinching, except for a few such as Owen Moran, Terry Mcgovern etc'
doesn't make sense at all...If only these few could fight these longer distance fights, they would have gone undefeated, as their opponents
did not have the stamina to endure all those rounds...But this is not true
as the top notch fighters of the day, were just as durable as the few you mentioned..The fact of the matter is this...Out of thousands of fights in
those early days, a very small percentage filmed are still in existence.
A small percentage of these fims show every round of these marathon bouts, thus we see today so little of the truly great boxers at their best.
If 100 years from now boxing fans see snippets of fights with Robinson vs
Turpin in London, or with Tiger Jones, Ali with Young or Spinks,Frazier
against Foreman etc, what would they conclude ? They would say to themselves, that those oldtimers were overated,as these films that
survived the 100 years put these oldtimers in a bad light..As we today
know ,their opinions would be wrong...
If a Gans and Nelson could go full tilt as required in a 40 round bout, so could their contemporaries..It was their training and constant fighting
that allowed them to fight long distance bouts those days.In those tough days it was sink or swim for the oldtimers, or get another vocation...
One other point in a 100 yard dash ,runners go all out, but put them in a
long distance marathon race, they would lose every time..Fighters as Gans, Nelson, Wolgast, Attell, Britt,knew how to pace themselves when needed, but could turn it on, as their great records reveal...
We are all products of our times, and so were our hardy boxing ancestors.

 

It's not that obvious. One has to actually read the reports of such long fights. Gans-Nelson was more or less an exception. Especially the ones that went 50+ rounds, where ten rounds could go without a single meaningful punch thrown by either fighter.

 

You don't think there were more semi-professional fighters in Grebs day given the lower pay?

 

Ofcourse they could, the reason they don't go 20-40rounds is because they don't need to, simple, fighting more rounds is like running 10k instead of 2k, you reduce the pace of the action

 

All measurable sports have evolved and improved drastically. Its not about human evolution but a sports evolution, people taking their bodies to new levels, better training science, better technique, etc

 

Yeah, but they were probably just cannon fodder and not actually getting title shots against Greb and his contemporaries, like the postmen and policeman that Jones fought in title bouts..you know of course, that Jones opposition paled significantly overall to that of Greb's.

 

Great post.

 

Any improvements are to do with technological advances. Evolution is the wrong word and is used to try and suggest soemthing that isn't true.

In a comparison between fighters from different eras claiming technological advances as the rationale is hollow.

 

I doubt it, Walcott and Braddock who were HW contenders were semi-pro and you don't think Greb's less well off MW-LHW opposition would be?

Toney and Hopkins are right up there with the best Greb faced