80s boxers overrated

obviously a few guys are transcendent of generations. mickey mantle still has the longest home run ever. guys like joe frazier were short, fat, and had NO athletic ability. he was beat at weightlifting by snow skiers and soccer players on the superstars. guys he out weighed by twenty orb more pounds.

 

Yet, Frazier had the ability to defeat the considerably more athletic Ali in FOTC, and to give him hell in Manila when he was half blind.

 

And two guys (K2) with one foot in the 90's are dominanting today. They transcend this era in much the same way that SRR did years ago.

 

Frazier was a Heavyweight boxer, and a fine one at that. WTF has weightlifting got to do with it ?
This place never cease's to amaze me.
Plank by name, plank by nature.

 

Joe - in his era - was a hell of a fighter. Of course he was not much of an overall athlete. Frankly he embarrassed himself in that superstars comp, almost drowning in the swim meet

 

Yeah, he wasn't much of a swimmer...to say the least. It should be noted that Shane Mosley didn't do much better in one of the later editions of the Superstars series.

 

Fans generally tend to overrate the athletes from long ago.
But 30 years isn't that long ago. No doubt in my mind that the 4 you noted - in their best weights - would be very competitive today or champs. You're correct that 4 fighters should not be able to carry an entire generation.

Where it gets absurd is w/the HWs. Todays model is clearly bigger, stronger, and better than those from 30+ years ago. But for mostly dubious reasons (based on nationality and/or race), some fans want to say the HWs of days gone by were better :nono
Most of the top HWs of the 60s, 70s, 80s would hardly be fringe contenders or top sparring partners in this era.

Comparing the lighter weight fighters of yesteryear w/those of today is much more reasonable.

 

Clearly the thread starter has very little knowledge of that era. Even outside of the Fab 4 there were plenty of great/good fighters. McCallum, Benitez, Pryor, Curry, Holmes, Tyson etc.

 

There'd be more than a few guys. There'd probably be hundreds of examples to give, that would create a good debate. People are just generalising, and there's no evidence behind it. For the last 6 months, we've had people on here, saying how athletes and boxing has evolved. It's all bull****. Sports science, nutrition, technology, training equipment and facilities might have improved, but that doesn't mean that boxing has, and today's fighters are the best. I don't know why people try to tie boxing in with other sports.

 

Wow some fans of this generation are just down right ignorant !

Fraizer was short and fat atsch

 

Had a hell of a mean streak and frequency for a short fat lad.

Watching his fights with Ali wears ME out.

 

It wears you out imagine how he felt

 

besides the fact that they aren't comparing like for like. If todays boxers benefit from better nutrition and science, then yesterdays would have benefitted too. So its not an intrsinic improvement.

Every scientist knows that if you aren't comparing like for like, with all extraneous variables controlled for, then you aren't making a valid comparison.

 

Oh boy, looks like another kiddie who doesn't know **** about boxing signed up......

 

Boxing was at peak popularity then, 70-late 80's. That's why in peoples mind in the 80's were almost all the great boxers.i bet klitchkos could challenge ali,hopkins and jones could give hagler a hell.also trinidad,de la hoya,mosley could easily compete at 80's.hearns,benitez and SRL were not from different univerce when comparing to those.mayweather,pacquaio could very well beat duran.

Only reason people think they were somekind of monsters from mars was simply that boxing popularity was highest then.i laugh to everybody who think that hagler would run trough hopkins or jones.or duran would ko pac or may easily.

honestly i don't who would win and it's impossible to say.it's also ****** to say modern fighters don't have a chance against 80's great fighters.

only reason why people think like that.is people think oldtimes were better.it's sad that people keep downplaying modern greats and act that if they have fought 70-80 they would be some sort of journeyman.and if you take modern 'normal" champion like cotto,hell tho these people he would be a waterboy at the gym!maybe if generous could be sparring partner for SRL or benitez..