How Much Difference Do You Believe is there between 12 rounders and 15 rounders

Big big difference IMO

 

Beterbiev would still have a 100% KO RATIO and be undefeated p4p #1 at 41 years old if 15 rd title fights were still in effect. Just one example of many.

 

When a heavy looks gassed by 6-8 in a 12 you just know Marciano or Frazier would absolutely sink them in 13-15, Ali would outright clown them

Then you have smaller guys that also looked gassed by those rounds and Hagler or Duran would 100% eat them for breakfast and crap them before lunch

 

A 15 round fight really helps out the slow starting, grind em' down type of fighters or a game plan that requires time to be more effective.

It also shows who has a greater heart, the stronger will and a better boxing brain in addition to having superior stamina, strength and conditioning.

 

I think it makes a difference but exactly how big a difference depends on the type of fight it is. A highly attritional fight that goes beyond 12 rounds of the nature of a those title fights that took place in the early 80s (Saad-Lopez 2, Leonard-Hearns 1, Pryor-Arguello 1, Gomez-Pintor etc) are the type of fights that can be potentially career ending and life altering and you can understand why the boxing authorises changed world fights to 12 rounds after that.

Ray Leonard talked about ‘going beyond’ in terms of physical capacity during those final championship rounds and given the likelihood of dehydration and the level of will being displayed it was shocking but perhaps not surprising how in those fights it seemed that a fighter could suddenly just collapse during the 13th or 14th rounds because the toll taken on their bodies was so great. I do have some sympathy with the rule change at that point, particularly after a high profile ring death (Mancini-Kim).

To look at it another way, would we have wanted to see Chavez-Taylor go into a 13th or 14th round knowing now the damage Chavez inflicted on Taylor over those first 12 despite Taylor being ahead on the cards?

In those longer title fights, a slower starter could build momentum over the second half of a fight - how different it would have been if the Taylor fight was scheduled for the longer distance. Chavez could still have given away most of those first 9-10 rounds and known he still had 5 more to go. It seems inconceivable that had the fight not been stopped at the end of the 12th that Taylor would have made it through three more rounds. And if he had, Chavez would likely have made up the points deficit. This was a reason Chavez was considered a 15 round fighter trapped in a 12 round era.

Thinking about heavyweights, there are only really a couple of current heavyweights I feel who would be able to handle the 15 round era - Usyk and possibly Fury.

And in a boring fight it’s 3 rounds fewer to have to suffer through so there are some advantages as a fan of not having 15 rounders. It wasn’t like every fight in the past was high-octane action like Chacon-Limon 4 - there were snoozefests that would have been better ended by 12 rounds.

 

Big difference. As many said some fights are snooze fests and better off ending after 12 rather than 15.

 

3-rounds

 

Signifcant.

 

I don't think people realise that it's a bit like comparing running 12k to 15k. You adjust your speed and pacing accordingly. Guys aren't laying off the conditioning 'because it's only 12 rounds'.

I don't even think there's that many guys with amazing workrate from the 15 round era. You've got Armstrong, Marciano and Frazier and then I'm left scratching my head

 

When you are teaching a fighter how to be a professional, one of the biggest things that you teach him is how to build a fight.
In amateur boxing, fights are 3 rounds, sometimes the rounds are less than 3 minutes, so you have to get busy quickly. As a pro you need to learn to take your time, to put i n he work that gets you to the outcome that you want. And it starts slowly; typically, most new pros fight four rounds. But it is a process because you are simultaneously building endurance- as fights progress from 4 to 6 to8 to 10 rounds- and teaching the fighter how to build a fight.
In this era, everybody is looking for quick, easy knockouts as they build a fighter which is wrong. As you move up you are going to find guys that you can't knock out in 3 minutes and a fighter shouldn't learn about adversity for the first time in a world title fight. But that's how it is now. If you don't knock out every opponent in two rounds, if you ever get hit back, you have been 'exposed.' And your career ends if you lose. So lessons never get learned.
Real pro fighters, in a 15 round fight, know that there is no hurry. You don't have to win every second of every round; you came to win the fight. The arena is booked all night, you don't have to finish early so that Van Halen can set up and play after the fight. Real pros will spend a round or two or three letting their opponent work; they are learning and there is no pressure because you don't have to win every fight or every exchange. Just the fight. And you pick your spots and do your work and build hyour fight.

 

It makes a clear outcome more likely robberys are much rarer over 15 rounds.


Two main ways 15 rounds effects fights.

It makes the lesser fighter winning a decision much less likely.

It is harder for a fighter to carry early momentum to a points victory if they cannot get the stoppage. In a 12 rounder if a fighter can't go 12 rounds but has a good first half of the fight and score a KD they have an excellent chance of backing into a win. Adding 3 rounds totally changes the math on that.

 

You've made the main point that I came in to say. The people who have a temperament that can follow a strategically different pacing will just make that change. But some guys just don't have that temperament, and much fewer of the guys who don't also have stamina that will make that significant. Overwhelmingly, as much as there's a feeling among old school fans that those extra rounds are separating men from boys, it just won't matter to the outcome enough to make it a different sport altogether. Every once in a while it does make me wonder naggingly about certain fights, granted.

 

I think 15 rounds would also have seperated the Golovkins from the Canelos.

 

I have to agree with this on a conditioning perspective. If you're talking about pure action and output the 10 rounders from the older eras were actually the best. They didn't wait to get started and just got going immediately. Quite a few of them I'd say were more brutal watches than most 15 rounders, from the film I've seen. 15 rounds is peak for strategy and trap setting though imo.