The Theory of "Modern Training Methods" Being Superior

1) With tiny gloves. With fighters who fought once a week to make a living under conditions you find today in third world countrys. Where things were common that would get you disqualified immediatly.

2) That´s why Mike wanted to be like Jack. Because he didn´t think much of him.

3) Only if you shut down your brain.

 

Money has killed football in England. It will take a while but until its finished though. The same has happened with tennis over here. Exactly the same.

 

That's taking it a bit too far, I think. But a similar thread is on in the lounge.

What do you mean?

 

That doesn't change the fact that Dempsey had poor footwork and defense. Even if he was considered fast then, he's much slower than Tyson. Watch Gene Tunney and Ali back to back and you'll see a serious gap in skill, speed, footwork in Ali's favor.

 

Gene Tunney is a more skilled/complete fighter than Muhammad Ali, and I can say that with confidence. He had better inside game, superb and educated counterpunching, and was a stellar bodypuncher to boot. Compare their KO PCT as well, and consider that Tunney fought in an era where you had to seriously beat the **** out of someone for a KO. He was the real deal. I'd say Ali had great footwork and better athleticism. Almost everything else I would give to Gene minus the jab.

Tunney was down only once in his career, beat a p4p top fighter in Greb multiple times, and despite peaking at LHW became one of the greatest heavies ever, dominating an american legend in Dempsey. He's arguably the most underrated fighter in the sport. Tunney and Ali are interesting fighters to compare actually, because I think they had very very similar styles

 

No, it's a progressive thing. I can't really put a date on it, but i suppose technique begun to improve around the time the colour bar disintegrated. I believe Joe Louis was more of a physical wonder than a technical master. The mid-late 40's i think were a relatively rapid boost with the likes of Robinson, Pep, Charles etc.

The Heavyweights got bigger right upto the mid 90's, which whether you like to admit it or not, is a huge advantage.

All divisions got progressively better and peaked at the height of its popularity(thanks to Ali), with perhaps the best technical/physical fighters we've ever seen the fab four in the early-mid 80's, it remained at this peak up until the early-mid 90's although from the early 80's, money was slowly but surely killing the sport and the talent and now we are left with the shriveled up limp dick that we have today.

That is my overview on the progression of talent and skill from what i have seen on film.

Having seen film on all i have no doubt that Dempsey would murder Jeffries and Fitz as progression is so. But the modern era began when as it became less racial and world title meant world title as opposed to more less, white north american title.

 

you are a gay

 

When Becker and Graf started to beeing successful, tennis became big over here. Kids started to play it and their parents watched. With that money came. Tennis was everywhere. You could watch tennis like everdy on the major TV stations. The big players had huge commercial deals and so on. Big money. Then the people who run the business thought there could be made more money. Ticket prices went up, prices for membership in tennis clubs went up, prices for trainers went up. Basically every prive related to tennis went up. This lead to a replacement of audience/students. Not the people who really cared about the sport anymore, the average Joe on the street was going to tennis matches and was sending his kids to learn tennis but only people with money who did this because it was a trend. Because their kid playing tennis was a status symbol, because showing off at a tennis game was something similar. But they had no real interest in tennis and when the average Joe wasn´t as interested in tennis anymore because he wasn´t able to pay for it (and because it was too much on TV, only rare things are really worth something, when you can watch something everyday on TV most people will lose interest) and the trend waned they didn´t go anymore too. When less people showed up, the prices went up to compensate for it. A vicious cirlce. Today, tennis is one of the sports with the lowest numbers of young people participating. Even the big Wimbledon, the US Open and so on are not on the major TV stations anymore. Instead you are lucky to catch them on Eurosport or a minot TV station who shows sports which only very few Germans have an interest in like Dart and Snooker. Tennis more or less is dead over here and money killed it.

The same developement is taking place in football right now. Not only in England but in every major league in Europe. The English are just a few steps ahead. Of course it won´t be as bad with football as it will be with tennis. Football it too big and is culturally too important for that. But when your average Joe won´t be able to going to matches anymore (right now a one game ticket for your average PL side is as expensive as a season ticket for Bayern Munich, just an example) when there is football on TV everyday ... see where I am going? Same thing.

 

i agree with powerpuncher.mcgrain said that the most explosive fighters didn't train with weights,but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be even more explosive if they knew how to properly work with weights.also ali,jones,patterson etc had atg athleticism

 

Not a terrible take, Pachilles. I'd say the sport began to come into its own during the 30's transitional period, and peaked during the 40's. From about this point until the early 80's boxing was in its modern prime, and has been declining at a steadily increasing pace ever since. The 90's were a lesser era for the most part than its predecessors, although by contrast with today's game it looks like a golden age. It's gotten to the point where I now have little interest in the current scene.

 

Perhaps more complete, but I wouldn't say more skilled. Hard to say for sure with so little film of Tunney, though.

I don't say you're wrong (you're probably right), but is there any film that shows this? Or are your going by contemprorary opinion? Against Dempsey he works almost exclusively at range and mostly to the head (and does it very well).

Their KO percentages are quite similar. At the age Tunney retired (31) I'd say that Ali's percentage was better. EDIT: It was only very marginally better (74% to Tunney's 73%).

I think such things are very, very hard to say with so little footage of Tunney. But even if it's true it wouldn't make Tunney that unique.

 

Tunney was a more complete and skilled boxer than Ali. Tunney´s footwork was very close to Ali´s. The difference beteen them is speed, will (I´m not saying Tunney had none but there are very few fighters who come close to Ali in this regard) and the ability to get into his opponents heads (a very underestimated quality IMO).

Dempsey did not have poor footwork and he had one of the best headmovement ever. I would argue it was better than Tyson´s. Tyson moved his head in some pattern and thus could be timed. Dempsey´s headmovement had no pattern at all. There is no difference in speed between Tyson and Dempsey. Not handspeedwise. Tyson had better footwork but Dempsey actually could box and had slightly faster feet.

Sorry, but I don´t know what you are seeing.

 

I think you're a bit pessimistic and really too young for your "everything was better in the past"-philosophy. But that's for another forum.

 

i don't have the energy to read all the posts, so i apologize if this has been said to death, but I believe that there are much much less good boxing teachers these days. Sure there have been many evolutions in sports science so athletes are more aware of ways to get stronger and faster but speed means nothing without knowing how to fight.

look at Andre Berto and Paul Williams. these r 2 very special physical specimens yet Williams boxes like an amatuer robot, and Berto gets by on youthful exuberance and his strength. these guys don't know how to fight though. they're just young and have a lot of energy. im sure their woprkouts are grueling, so they are in good shape, but they haven't been taught how to really box in my opinion.

 

For those fond of comparing other sports with boxing to show progression.
Sebastian coe,ovett,aouita and cram would probably still dominate the vast majority of distances from 800m to 5000m. (in other words those races where tactics and strategy matter as much as physical skill.)

Ed moses,colin jackson,lewis,powell and roger kingdom would still dominate the 110m/400m/long jump. (again hurdles and jumping demand technique and strategy more than pure athleticism.)

Maradona,best,cruyf,zico et al would still dominate modern soccer,because it doesnt just involve measuring how far you can kick.

Its with the onset of new technology,drugs and such like that sprint times have become better. Really only usain bolt and micky johnson have taken sprint times to new levels.(who are once in a lifetime kind of sprinters.)

with cricket,are lillee,marshall ambrose inferior to steyn,ntini and mitchell johnson? HELL no! Im ashamed to even mention those three in the same sentence.
(sorry to americans who wont have a clue what im talking about.)

Finally,as someone pointed out,147 is still 147...