How does Ruben Olivares & Carlos Zarate fare against today's Bantamweights?

I’ve noticed that you have real issues with the sport’s progression.

Not just on this thread, but on many others too.

Nobody has said that the athletes become worse 50 years later.

However, MANY past divisions contained a LARGER number of very good-great fighters than what they do currently.

You are terribly ignorant to assume that everything today is better.

It isn’t.

I’ve told you repeatedly that the sport doesn’t keep progressing.

Yes, it certainly has done, but it doesn’t keep doing so.

For a long time now, it’s just ebbed and flowed.

I don’t why people can’t grasp this.

We have periods where some divisions are great, some are mediocre and some are weak.


It would be like you saying that Canelo is the GOAT at SMW, and me telling you that today’s division is considerably weaker than it was 30 years ago, before you replying back with:

“Why would Boxing be the only sport in the entire world that saw athletes become worse 30 years later? Come on.”


That’s basically what you’ve said above, regarding the 50 year comment.

Stop being ignorant and focusing on the stats.


‘Monster’ is a great fighter who’d have caused huge issues in ANY era.

However, he’s not currently fighting in the strongest of eras.


Whether you like it or not, many divisions of the past contained better fighters than what we see today.

Again, there’s been no clear progression in the sport for decades.

 

Fantastic!

And WTF does that have to do with 2 guys fighting each other in a boxing ring, where fights are ALWAYS won depending on how the 2 fighters match up on the night stylistically??


You’d have to be as bright as an eclipse to even think about comparing other sports to boxing.


Great fighters are great fighters which could fight in any era, where they would have mixed results.


Now let’s take on board your fast ball data, but then compare today’s MW and SMW divisions, which are NOWHERE NEAR as strong as what they were THIRTY YEARS ago.

Nowhere near as strong, either in depth or ability.

The MW’s and SMW’s of THIRTY YEARS ago were BETTER fighters.

That is the opinion of anyone who lived through those eras.

So if your theory holds up, how could that be possible?

And that is just an example of only TWO divisions.


This level of ignorance absolutely boggles my mind.


If athletes keep getting better and better, as per your fastball stats, then please answer this question:

Why are there a NUMBER of athletic records still yet to be broken, where some of them are YEARS old??

How is that possible?


Your data is 10 years old.

Whereas some athletic records are decades old.


Usain Bolt is the fastest man to ever live.

His Beijing record from 2008 still stands.

Why’s that?

That was over 14 years ago.


Stop being ignorant.

 

There are no athletic records in major sports that are based on an objective metric not relative to competition that are 50+ years old. The idea that boxing would be the one single sport that wouldn't hold true to this just because we can't measure boxing ability in objective terms is laughable. I can grasp what you're saying, it's simply not true. Like every sport in the world, boxing has progressed in the past 50 years. This doesn't mean that every single athlete now beats every single athlete then, but as a whole the sport is better. It also now receives professional competition from the former USSR when it didn't in the 1960s.

Boxing is not always made on styles. Sometimes a guy is just way, way better than another guy. No journeyman is going to beat Naoya Inoue or Terence Crawford just because they have a stylistic advantage.

 

Thank the lord that you had to catch that bus.

 

Ha!

 

It works both ways doesn’t it.

Not everything modern is better either.

And in some instances, the past did contain better fighters.

 

They aren’t though.

That’s the point.

There’s a whole number of fighters and divisions that were better years ago.

There has been no progression for years, and there’s certainly no gradual progression.

 

Answer the question:

How can those old athletic records from years ago, still exist, if all sports keep progressing over time?

How is it possible?


Why isn’t every athletic record a brand new modern one??

Explain it to me.


The records don’t have to be 50 years old.

There isn’t a 50 year gap from Inoue to Zarate.

If your theory held up, there wouldn’t be any old records left at all.




Why does Bolt’s 14 year record still exist?

That’s 4 years older than your baseball data.


Why would you even comprehend comparing baseball with boxing??


I have never said that boxing hasn’t progressed. Just that it hasn’t progressed from a number of years ago, and there is no gradual/continual progression.


Now what is the point in posting the baseball data from 10 years ago, when I have given you TWO whole divisions which were considerably better 30 years ago, than what they are today?

Do you understand that?

The fighters who fought at MW and SMW 30 years ago, are BETTER what they are today.

We’re not talking about an anomaly.

We’re talking about two groups of guys.

And I can also do the same for many other divisions too.


These guys in question fought in a better era than Monster has.

There is nothing biased in saying that.

They simply fought better competition.


Yes, fights are always determined on styles.

I’m not talking about guys who are on completely different levels.

Yes, of course a domestic level fighter couldn’t beat an elite level fighter irrespective of styles.

I’m saying that world class fighters beat fellow world class fighters based upon how they match up stylistically on the night.


There has been no progression in the sport whatsoever over the past decades.

If you think otherwise, then you simply weren’t around then.

Just go and look at the Ring’s old ratings which are available.

Go and look at the old P4P lists.


You are an ignorant man.

Somebody tells you that these older greats had better competition, and your first reaction is to become defensive, where you trot out BS lines such as:

“How can the athletes today be worse?”

You simply cannot accept that there were a number of fighters from decades ago who were better than SOME of the guys who we see today.


The 80’s is now coming up to 40 years in age.

Where is the noticeable progression from then?


The 70’s were 40-50 years ago.

The world class guys we see today aren’t noticeably better than all of the world class guys of the 70’s.

 

I will prove that your line of reasoning is fallacious.

My argument is that a positive trend in athletic ability exists, and I provided evidence from baseball to prove that. You will notice that even in baseball the absolute fastest fastball wasn't thrown in the few years. We will get to why this is later.

Evidence that your line of questioning is fallacious:

Chess improves on a year to year basis at the top level. There's almost no disagreement among elite chess players on this point. More importantly, computers show year to year improvement in accuracy at the top level. Still, Krammnik, who was the second best player of his day, would be the second most accurate player today, according to computers. Ie, the second best 18 years ago was stronger than the second best now, despite the irrefutable fact that quality of chess play is improving. <----- We have now established that your line of questioning is fallacious.

The overall technical quality of an activity can improve on a general basis without the best performance improving.<----- Provably correct statement.

Now I will explain why this is: Outliers. People who are outside of the trend, either in terms of being exceptionally weak or exceptionally strong for where they place. The existence of outliers does not prove that a trend does not exist, as you can see proven in the example above.
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I posit that given enough time, whether it be decades or centuries, the overall technical ability will improve enough so that large amounts of people will beat any record. Obviously this is a non-falsifiable statement, so I will make it falsifiable and so far evidenced to be correct:

I posit that given 70 years, no record in athletics can stand due to improving quality of athletes, even accounting for outliers.

 

You haven’t proven a damn thing.

You can’t even answer the questions that I have asked you.

Not all sports progress at the same rate.

Boxing is a stand alone sport.

It cannot be compared to other sports, and especially ones which rely more on athletic ability.


I have been watching and studying the sport of boxing for over 30 years.

Within that time frame, there has been no progression, irrespective of your evidence of where some other sports have progressed within the same period.


My examples don’t contain anomalies or outliers/exceptions.

I’m talking about a number of whole divisions, containing a huge number of fighters.


I haven’t even said that the sport of boxing hasn’t progressed, only that it doesn’t continually do so.

I only responded to you initially due to your ignorance.


Many posters have told you that although Inoue is a great fighter, that Zarate etc, faced tougher competition.

Yet instead of acknowledging that and saying “That’s a fair point….” you instead scoffed at the notion, by saying “How can athletes get worse in 50 years?”


Yes, I agree that in 70 years, I can’t see many athletic records not been broken. That’s an awful long time. However, there’s still many athletic records that are still yet to be broken from years ago. Which again proves the point that not every sport progresses, and not at the same time and in the same way.