Do past fighters get overrated because of nostalgia.

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Some people do overrate past fighters due to nostalgia.

Some people also dismiss and underrate past fighters due to ignorance.

On this forum, you’ll quickly see that many fighters are both overrated and underrated.

What you need to do is to seek out the better quality posters and improve upon your knowledge.

If you’re not sure about something, take time to do your own research.

Keep educating yourself on the history of the sport and look into the careers of as many fighters as possible.

 

It works both ways.

How many people here immediately dismiss an older fighter in a hypothetical fantasy fight, based upon his era, and NOT on how they would realistically have matched up stylistically?

How many nuts are there who are convinced that the fighters keep getting better every decade, before then trying to prove it by quoting sprinting and swimming times etc?

 

Pre 1960, perhaps even 1950 fighters often fought much much more frequently, an attribute missing today. SRR and LaMotta fought twice in three weeks- they still had cuts and bruises from the first fight in the second fight. You also had 15 rd fights into the 1980's. Heck, back in the early part of 20th century fights could last until someone won. Glove sizes were smaller also.
Although there is some undeserved reverence for 'old time' fighters, much of that reverence is justified.

 

Thanks for that lol. Obviously they are in the minority

 

i think choco could do 18 tbh, even at his pace.

 

yep
but fighters fight twice a year
back in the day they could be bsck in a week two weeks later
Straus mouse fought twice in one night

 

It's not so much the fighter, but human evolution regarding your second point.

When the only thing is a time or a weight, and it's a world record and it gets beaten, but not just that, that old record would be say in the second half of the top ten, you cannot argue with that. Yet some still do.

And let's be honest, if you're fighting twice a fortnight, you WILL NOT BE fighting the absolute best each and every time. There HAS to be some filler fights in there too.

 

Depends on the person.
Both past and present fighters can be underestimated, overestimated and realistically assessed (this is the most difficult).
It all depends on what path you decide on.
Will you favor the fighter whose fan you are, and list the "arguments" to confirm that.
Or they will ignore emotions and show pure boxing knowledge.
So it all depends on: nostalgia, emotions, boxing knowledge, creating an image on the forum (whether you will argue indefinitely), ... and much more.

 

The argument is:

It has nothing to do with boxing.

It’s not that the times aren’t respected.

It’s that the fights are won based upon styles, and has nothing to do with getting from point A to point B in the fastest recorded times.

These people are terribly ignorant.

They make huge assumptions without actually looking at what’s right in front of them.

We get these guys every few months.

Their mind tells them that because the sprinters and the swimmers are recording faster times each decade, that that must mean that the fighters also keep getting better and better each decade too.

Yet any knowledgeable fan knows that that’s not the case, as there’s whole divisions today which aren’t anywhere near as strong as what they were years ago. And not just in terms of the depths of the division, but in terms of quality and the ability of the fighters. There’s fighters today who are nowhere near as good as some of the older generation.

There’s ignorant fans on both sides though.

I’ve seen it numerous times myself.

There are some fans who think that the older guys were superior and that they would beat all modern day fighters.

That’s ignorant.

Yet there are many, many fans on this forum who think that no older fighter could beat a modern one.

Like I tell everybody else:

A tournament between old fighters and modern fighters would yield mixed results, depending on how they matched up stylistically.

The fighters don’t keep getting better and better over time.

The sport just ebbs and flows and has done for decades.

 

A good lyric from Anti Nowhere League, 1982, about how their generation (the boomers) were mocked for not being manly like older generations:

"We talk of stories yesterday
Of how we worked and never played
How that things were better then when lads were lads… and men were men"

The manly generation is always two generations away, even before technological advancement was so rapid, Greeks complained about it too. But it's more true now due to technology of course.

 

Yes

People love to wear nostalgia tinted goggles

 

So, I think it works both ways.

Old fighters do get a bit of a nostalgia bonus, but they also get to have their careers in full focus. Often during a fighter's career certain wins that are 'ok' at the time mature to be quite impressive indeed. For example, Greb whooping Tunney.

On the other hand current fighters get a bit of a 'hype' bonus. After a fighter has KOd his latest victims in a killstreak of KOs, the casuals begin the hype train. I clearly remember AJ several years ago being proclaimed by Galvatron as not only better than Ali, but that he'd blow him out.

It sometimes become difficult navigating muddy waters.

 

It's that the level of athlete is getting better. So if the level of athlete is getting better, and Boxing cannot be improved on really as its a limited skill set, then the Boxer must be improving.

Just look at the film. Would Joe Louis really stand a change against Mike Tyson?

 

Just out of interest, are you playing devil’s advocate?

Or are these your own opinions?


No, the boxer doesn’t keep improving.

The sport has evolved from it’s roots, but it doesn’t keep improving over and over throughout time.


Regarding Joe Louis, IMHO, he wouldn’t have beaten Mike Tyson, purely based upon styles.

It would have been a tough stylistic match up for him.

That’s my honest opinion.

It’s nothing to do with what era Louis fought in.

I think that Louis would have had mixed results in ANY era, depending who he’d have fought.

This is why boxing is beautiful as well as brutal.

Tyson may have knocked out Louis, yet Louis could possibly have beaten some of the guys who Tyson couldn’t have.

Are people in 50 years time going to be saying that George Foreman couldn’t even have touched a modern HW?

Every fighter has a stylistic nemesis.

Styles make fights.


Joe Louis was extremely skilled technically.

He had great power and was a ruthless finisher.


Again, my argument isn’t that there hasn’t been any improvements/advances.

Only that it simply doesn’t keep improving with each passing decade, like some track and field and swimming disciplines have.

Again, there’s whole divisions today that were better 25-30 years ago, both in terms of ability and depth.

How is that possible?


Nobody thinks that today’s fighters are the greatest of all time in their respective weight classes.

Nobody looks at today’s group of MW’s and says that they’re the best group of MW’s of all time.

Nobody looks at today’s group of HW’s and says that they’re the best group of HW’s of all time.

Nobody does that because they can’t.


There’s been no gradual improvement, where we can all see that the best fighters of today are much better than the best fighters of the 00’s, and where the best fighters of the 00’s were much better than the best fighters of the 80’s and 90’s etc.

There has been no gradual improvement to the point where you can predict that in 10 years time, that all the fighters are going to be better than what they are today.

The HW landscape in 10 years time might be the one of the strongest we’ve ever seen. Or it might just be decent. Or it might even be one of the weakest for a number of years.

We won’t know until it comes. But we can’t even make an educated guess.


Whilst you’d laugh at the notion that a top sprinter from the 70’s could beat a modern day one, I would bet my house on some of the top fighters of the 70’s being able to have beaten many of today’s best fighters.

That’s because boxing is a stand alone sport which is decided upon by skills and styles.

You simply cannot compare a race from 2 points, to 2 guys pitting their styles against each other in a ring.