Is there another sport where a consensus of experts thinks the players 50 years ago..

Well said. :good

 

Chess? I'm not really familiar with world level chess, but boxing is like chess, except with outrageous physical conditioning and the violence is real...

In a game where skill, strategy and stamina are the most important attributes, someone from 100 years ago like James J. Jefferies can be an ATG in any era.

 

They just don't make Russian midget bowlers like they used to...

 

take off the rose tinted glasses, pal. Russian midgets are generally close to 4ft nowadays, theyre bigger, stronger and faster

 

I agree with that.
Boxing cannot be reduced down to pure technique and body-mechanical performance and straightforward effort like many of these other sports.
It encompasses far too much.

 

Not true. Things were just different. The great Magyar's side of the 50's played pure team football to as high a standard as has ever been seen before or since. Give Cristiano Ronaldo the old style ball and boots and see if he could do twenty stepovers or match the close control of Matthews or Hidegkuti. Not a chance. He'd probably learn to adjust in the end as would Matthews and Hidegkuti to wafer-thin boots and the feather-light ball of today.

 

The one thing you can point to in baseball is pitcher conditioning. No pitcher is ever going to do what Nolan Ryan and the other great pitchers of the 60s, 70s, and 80s did: that is, throw 300+ innings with velocity that is top tier today, for 20 years without their arm falling off. Pitchers are too babied today.

 

If you want to go real old-school, no pitcher is going to have 511 wins, either!

Cy beats them all.

 

The point was that in the modern game not many do. I'm saying the reason so called old school fighters were better is because they were more active. More practice = better.

 

Of course, it's a valid point. But can you imagine how injured those guys must have been both in training and in their fights? Guys like Greb or Langford, or later Robinson rarely had enough downtime to heal. The chronic injuries must have been immense.

 

"how good an American footballer would slow of foot Ali . . . have been."

Vince Lombardi commented back in the sixties that he thought Ali would have made a wonderful NFL linebacker. I guess the question is--How fast afoot were Ray Nitschke or Dick Butkus, or Bill George and Sam Huff?

 

The NBA wasn't even founded until 1950. The NFL also wasn't much until after WWII.

The key is that the players in both the NBA and the NFL come from the colleges. The vast majority of young men did not go to college prior to WWII. Quite a few did not even go to high school. I have a friend who boxed when young. He discouraged his son from boxing and is encouraging the boy to concentrate on basketball and football. He figures the kid has a chance of getting a scholarship and an education. He does not think there is any real chance his son will ever make it in a pro sport but he might have the ability to play for a smaller college and pay for his education.

There is no question that boxing, which was a mainstream sport prior to WWII, is now only a fringe sport in the US. I just don't think very many kids dream today of growing up to be boxing champions. They dream of the NFL and basketball and perhaps baseball. Why not? Proficiency in these sports will not only possibly produce fame and wealth, but if you can't grab the golden ring, you can at least use marginal talent to secure an education.

 

Sword fighting. Cricket.