Are modern boxers really fitter than in previous eras?

You know who didn't like to exercise? Roberto Duran and James Toney. I hear that Toney only liked to spar. I saw Duran fight once in his forties at middleweight. He had a gut, was half the other man's size and still knocked him out. The interviewer asked him after the fight, why he didn't get in shape. Duran was like "Why should I, if I can knock him out without doing a sit up? Now, let's party!"

 

Fantastic Post.

 

Yeah, I get what you mean! Every now and then you come across some weird person, who thinks that Robinson (and the other greats from his time) would be nothing but a journeyman today. Likewise, you have people claiming that the present crop of fighters are sissies with no heart, who would be schooled by the old-timers.

I have no horse in this old vs new race. I'm interested in boxing and it's history, and don't really care which eras are "greater" - and I find it difficult to have a serious discussion about this, when you are faced with agenda-driven opinions all the time... like Lemieux beating the crap out of Robinson, Corbett beating Tua, Fury being a POS, etc. It's a pity, it has to be like this!

 

I think that boxers have grown more defensively oriented over the past 30 years or so. From a technical and especially tactical perspective, they tend to be far more defensively responsible than their predecessors and well-trained fighters tend to avoid reckless exchanges.

But I don't see any reason to believe that guys 100+ years ago threw more punches per round. Less distance fighting, less jabbing and working off the jab, and a lot more planning, posturing, and exaggerated feints.

 

Neither do I.

In fact, with all the fights many of them had back then, I would expect there to have been (at least in some cases) a mutual understanding, that it would be in everybody's best interest to go a bit easy on each other… so they would be relatively fresh and uninjured, to take another fight already (in some cases) the next week.

 

I think it might also have been like the top professionals who fought 100-300 times were mostly crushing inferior competitors, sparring partners basically, and didn't need the same amount of recovery time as they would against actual contenders. Instead of burning them out, I think the monthly or bimonthly fights might have kept them in shape.

I heard a story once about Greb going long with a weak opponent. Someone yells at him to stop playing. Greb yelled back that he had a contender to fight in three weeks and didn't want to hurt his hands. That sounds like he was mostly using the guy for sparring purposes.

Of course, then you have to ask yourself, how is Jake LaMotta always struggling with his weight and coming in over when he fought 106 times in 13 years?

 

its the opposite of what the argument should be - they were fitter back then.

 

agreed, his work would consist of the famous fraudley skydive three seconds in.

 

thats like nearly all cases these days!

 

feinting requires concentration and movement, its a draw on your reserves.

"moderns" would do less because their own bodies are often a draw on their resources.

 

This.

As the great Kenny Powers said, "I'm not trying to be the best at exercising."

 

You don't know that - nobody does!

 

nobody knows that fights were longer sure.

nobody you knows.

 

How can you not know, that fights were longer back in the day? I thought we all knew that.

What we don't know (and obviously have no way of determining), is whether the old-timers were fitter than today.

 

I think in many cases they are fitter today. But it is situational and more of a generalization than a universal fact/opinion.

I don’t spend a ton of time watching HW’s but general thoughts from a couple of fights. Norkus vs Nardico from the 50’s, limited skill fringe contenders but showed very good stamina conditioning and work rate. Followed by Ernie Shavers vs Roy Williams the conditioning by both guys was pathetic as they were so poorly conditioned that from 6 on they were so arm weary that output and punches of substance disappeared almost completely. By 8 their legs were gone as well to the point that Williams makes shavers fall to the ropes for a standing 8 count, followed by Williams doing the same...then Williams collapsed from exhaustion before the could engage.

I don’t think it affects the lower weights quite as much although losing and rehydrating can be a factor their. But having drifted away from HW boxing from the 80’s on, although I still punish my self occasional by watching them. I hear people rip HW’s of the last 20 years but the conditioning of many from the late 70’s on has been pretty bad.

but again they are generalizations and don’t depict everyone from every era.