When did safety-first boxing become acceptable?

It seems pretty obvious that judges, boxers, and trainers all place a lot less emphasis on aggression today than 100 years ago, when it seems that Jack Johnson lost to Marvin Hart merely because Hart was the aggressor. So when did things change? What was the turning point? When did safety-first boxing, with boxers focusing on outpointing their opponents while making little real effort to hurt or stop them, become acceptable?

 

The Johnson v Hart fight came to my mind as soon as I saw the thread! I think it was acceptable for Jim Corbett to fight like that ,but definitely not Jack Johnson,no prizes for guessing why.
I think we all like aggressive fighters,Dempsey,Marciano,Tyson,I know I do.
It 's fine to make a fool of your opponent with defensive skill but you have to make him pay for his mistakes too.
They are worlds apart in ability but I would sooner watch a Gatti or Ward than a Mayweather.

Jack O Brien was a defensive genius, but I don't think he ever pulled in the crowds.

 

The underlined is a good point!

 

The problem is, as I mentioned in a different post earlier today, some seem to give more credit for defense alone than defense seems to deserve.

Regardless boxing is a gladiator sport, it is essentially a regulated fight. By and large the fans dont come to watch someone skitter around the ring, slip, duck, dodge, clown and survive. Some might say "I love watching a guy fight defensively" but the fact is most fans watch for action. Its become far too acceptable now to simply coast through fights and it has hurt the sport. When Mayweather can make the boring as hell Whittaker look like an action fighter and make Pep look like Marciano you know the sport has been dragged into the depths.

 

Sounds plausible but I guess what I'm asking is, when did it become acceptable for fighters to try to win by "scoring points" without really making any effort to hurt their opponents?

 

because people tended to count out anyone who was knocked out. so fights don't want to be knocked out. For that reason and being knocked out is not a nice experience. I don't blame them, but guys of the past did not care as much.

 

1905-03-28 : Jack Johnson lost to Marvin Hart by PTS in round 20 of 20

• Location: Woodward's Pavilion, San Francisco, California, USA
• Referee: Alec Greggains

• Pre-fight article: [1]

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"Marvin Hart was awarded the decision over Jack Johnson in a twenty-round contest last night that went the limit, but he came far from demonstrating that he is qualified to meet Jim Jeffries. Hart was game and kept boring into the big colored man all through the fight. Johnson's much-vaunted cleverness did not count for much. While he was able to hit Hart frequently, his blows did not seem to damage the white man from Kentucky. The sympathies of the large crowd were openly with Hart, who was at the short end in the betting, and every lead he made at Johnson, whether he landed or not, was greeted with cheers. Hart managed to deal the only effective blow in the eleventh round, when he landed a right swing on Johnson's jaw that staggered the black man and nearly knocked him over. Referee Greggains stated that he gave the decision to Hart, because all through the fight Hart did all the forcing and leading. According to Greggains, if Hart had not pursued his tactics there would have been no fight, as Johnson merely contented himself with countering. Hart's face was battered to a pulp, but Johnson's blows did not seem to have much sting to them. Johnson did a great deal of uppercutting, but Hart covered up and the blows did not seem to hurt him." (Washington Post)

 

Aggression was certainly more prized in the past.

In the Jack Johnson era you hear comments like:

"He threw nothing but jabs. No real damage scoring punches. How the hell did he get the decision?".

Up top the 50s you hear comments like:

"He didn't deserve to win the title. He didn't really take the the fight to the champion, and take his title from him".

It has always been acceptable to win a fight by decision, but the decision certainly tended to lean more towards the aggressor in the past!

 

My question would be acceptable to who? Boxing like any sport is essentially entertainment. Meaning yes you are a boxer, but you're also an entertainer, and fighting defensively for a significant amount of time isn't entertaining. And as such, it usually results in a boxer not being liked regardless of his achievements. This is why a guy like Gotti made more money and got more respect than fighters who were far more talented and accomplished than him.

 

Acceptable to judges, first and foremost, but also to fighters and trainers.

 

Floyd made it "acceptable" and fairly recently. He was successful so he is being copied and, almost exclusively, poorly. A lot of guys that train fighters grab at what is 'trending' and preach it...but don't understand the mechanics and the depth of knowledge that created what Mayweather did. And there are the kids, hungry to learn, that are teaching themselves via YouTube, and you watch the guy you hear the most about.

It happened when Tyson broke out and the videos of him and Cus training were shown. All of a sudden everybody was using a number system. Never heard that before but now the "experts" act like that is The Standard. And it was the same when Ali was the guy, and so on.

I forget the name, but in 1919 a fighter (Driscoll?) that had fought some years earlier wrote a book and addressed this. He talked about how fighters/trainers will copy a successful fighter without ever noting or understanding the subtleties of skill and mechanics that lead to that success.

 

Well if it's not acceptable to the fans then you have a sport in decline and you have fighters earning less and fans migrating to different sports. So l would suggest defensive and boring styles of fighting isn't sustainable.

 

Thank God for safety first boxers. A substantial number of my very favorite fighters could be described as such.

 

Thank God for safety first boxers. A substantial number of my very favorite fighters could be described as such.

Well, that's ok then, so be it...that separates the casuals from the devotees of the finer art of boxing.

 

Yeah, this often frustrated and annoyed me about late career Mayweather, Rigondeaux, and Lara, men who otherwise had the styles and skills to be among my favorites.