Often times when boxing is discussed, due to its long rich history modern oriented fans of this sport will sometimes say that modern methods such as s&c, nutrition, training, and so on are automatically and decisivley superior and would make an open shut difference. I like many find these arguments tiresome. The primary reason why mind you is mostly because these things are thus far entierly thrown out without example or explanation, without even referencing the sport itself, and usually brushing aside and not properly adressing counterarguments, such as the Usain Bolt vs. Jessie Owens Simulation. So I would like to ask a series of questions, to help set the record straight,and to foster discussion to have a better understanding of these arguments. Please keep in mind that by using terms like "modernist" and "classicist" im not trying to be divisive nor do every one of these questions represent the full opinions of either party. Im just trying to run the full gamut of questions I believe the "side" seems to believe for clarification. *What is your response to the aforementioned Owens vs Bolt Simulation or in other words that increases in pure athleticism, such as sprinting, might seem to mostly be brought about by mechanical doping via standardization? *Do you think there is an upper threshold of worthwhile pursuit of pure physical performance in boxing compared to other sports such as the NFL? *How reducible to physical performance do you think boxing is, under the assumption that a fighter already is fit enough to fight the 12 rounds without worry of tiring? *What are your thoughts on square cube law and its effects on athletes? i.e. Do you think there a upper threshold of (healthfull) weight/physical dimension in a heavyweight that could actually serve as a disadvantage? *Can you prove that a superior diet amongst athlete already trying to eat their best could have such a decisive impact on fight per fight performance? (Such as steak an potatoes vs grilled chicken and rice vs grass fed steak and organic potatoes with a whey protein shake, to use an approximation to the evolution of diet). *Do you have any direct (as in the ring itself) examples of the translatiblity of these increases of athleticism in mostly unrelated sports such as weightlifting and sprinting, that could be used conclusely prove your point) with evidence? Sorry if some of these questions where redundant.
Due to weight classes...a welterweight will always be the same weight as a welterweight, 147 lbs. No matter when and where. The only difference in sizes are all these super and junior weight classes. A heavyweight is always a hw, and so on and so forth. I guess in other sports, athletes who play the same position have doubled in size and strength over time. but look at all the injuries in this modern era...the olden days fellas had a longer shelf life= hundreds of hours, tons of bouts. There is a little bit more wiggling in the amateur system, with weight classes and all, plus they wear helmets nowadays with more humanity being practiced. Some of these old kayos, dudes were literally killing each other, Mercer Morrison, Tua Ruiz etc. And it was worse years back, a couple of deaths in the ring that were not supposed to happen had people clamoring to get rid of the sport. Barbaric as it sounds, there are other sports out there. Lemme break this down: in Holyfield Tyson 2, holy got stopped by way of having his ear bitten twice. It was a dq against Mr Tyson. Kid A says to his father," dad, what do I do when I play baseball and the pitcher strikes me out? Do I go retaliate by hitting him? Because that's the example Mike taught me." I feel like we're beyond that as a boxing fraternity, it's not everyday a 200+ pounds human being is trying to take your head off and render you unconscious, you will have no help by anybody else. He can use his head, elbow, teeth, whatever to aggravate you not to mention the ref cannot be perfect. Mistakes happen at work, reffing is work. I guess what I'm trying to say is all era fighters are built by a different cloth, my online cronies can agree "even if they weren't atgs" nuff said! And like the great Fernando vargas said" everyone is a hw when theyre not making weight" lol. Sorry for my rant!
When folks use "literal" I must object, the statement goes out of its way to say the claim is precise. Those fighters you mentioned-none even got known brain damage, let alone were killed. I know of no sport where the average size literally doubled-even in weight-although strength, sure. Divisions are not at all the same, since the 1980's guys have had day before weigh ins, so a WW is now more like-sometimes well over-a MW. While they changed HW, & added a division CW that used to be HW.
Your postulating how modern guys might be better does not imply the "in other words"-that it must be mostly PEDs. Even sprinting is not pure athleticism, there is a lot of technique. What do you mean by the drugs via standardization? Also even if there was no change in anything-& you did not mention a much larger population, more exposed to sports & better coaching etc... Reincarnate Owens to the 2000's or send Bolt back to 1936 & they get better & worse times respectively because of better or worse tracks, shoes, starting blocks, etc. It narrows the gap.
I guess I've become a modernist as I've gotten older, so... What do you mean by "mechanical doping via standardization"? Doping is definitely one of the advantages "modern" athletes have over their predecessors. Albeit an illegal one. There's probably a ceiling of how fit you can get for your genetic profile, if that's what you're asking. Of course, that barrier will probably eventually be broken as well. Physical traits are very important in boxing. If they weren't, it would be odd that fitness is so emphasized. Skill, toughness, and other personal traits are also very important, though. Obviously. It will come into play eventually, but I don't think we've gotten to a point yet where the square cube law overrides the advantages of greater size. Elite basketball players are bigger than elite boxers, and don't seem to be crippled by their size. I don't think any single training improvement since the 1970s has had a "decisive" impact on its own. Except maybe PEDs. And even then, they seem to need auxiliary support. What would this kind of evidence you're asking for look like, if it existed?
Incidentally, you might like this: https://kensingtontv.com/index.php/2016/08/05/equalizer-summer-olympics-2016/
Never said that. Compared to boxing it is pretty much pure athleticisim, and it is a notoriously genetic sport, where it is mostly about your levers and muscle fibers, dont have them? cant "technique" around them. I dissagree they where more exposed to sports than now and i think the obeisetey rates reflect that. Evidence for better coaching? This is what I said.
Cool thread, I don't have energy to respond in the depth I want to but I'm going to make an effort to try and provide my opinion. However useful it is coming from a sophomore in college who has never played a sport. Regarding the square cube law I don't think it has much application to combat sports, especially boxing. Muscle slows fighters down. It requires a lot of energy to use muscle. It doesn't take an old head in a gym to tell you that punching power comes from numerous factors and speaking historically none of these factors involve lifting weights. Square cube law would be useful if muscle density was a determining factor. It really has no bearing on a fighters power in my opinion, Langford, Walker, etc, guys who fought above their weight, while still not entering the weightclass of their opponent is enough to make this argument for me. If muscle mattered in the sweet science everyone would be a power lifter. Boxers with modest physiques can have enormous, bone-shattering power, example being Joe Louis (by modest physique I mean he isn't absolutely ripped). While hotties like Cleveland Big Pectoral Williams or Mike Weaver are considered hard hitters at best. If you were to put the men side by side and ask the layperson which one can punch you in the ribs and crack a vertebrae in your spine... perceptions are deceiving. Moving on to PEDs. Modern boxing seems to lean very heavily into the scientific, empirical, side of training methodologies. There is always some new method, new diet, new measuring scale, new new new. PEDs for example. Now there is no reason to not take them, every body does, all modern fighters. I see this as a limitation. I think PEDs introduce a crutch that limits fighters from finding their actual peak by providing an artificial boost , they arrive at it early rather than naturally and likely have a hard time ever progressing beyond it, and as a result I believe are less effective fighters. Even Holy using PEDs was after he was an extremely accomplished amateur and LHW, he had reached his peak (or gotten extremely close) and a way to move beyond it was enhancing drugs. That is the defining difference. For all of Wilder's power, he has not inflicted the damage that Louis or Dempsey did in their own careers. What is that indicative of? To me it shows PEDs are a factor but not a replacement for execution of technique, kinesthetic and boxing knowledge, and good old determination.
I cannot see where you indicated that it would be closer due to equipment, but I know you must know this. When you wrote "...that increases in pure athleticism, such as sprinting, might seem to mostly be brought about by mechanical doping via standardization?" it seemed like you were asking if most of the gains in athletic ability are due to PEDs-my question still stands, what do you mean in this context by "standardization"? Sure sprinting is testing more a basic natural capacity. Having outlier fast twitch muscle fiber proportions & other genes is necessary-but not sufficient-to dominate. Nobody can be the best with zero, or a little training in technique. Even Bolt took years to master the sprint. Coaching may often be better OR worse...I meant having access to certain advances like in fitness. While we are less healthy as a group, the population is dramatically larger, & more folks have the potential to become boxers (or sprinters, more developed nations nurturing sports) than before. While what you mean is true; boxing is less common & nurtured per capita.
I agree with much of what you say, but it is too extreme-the mirror-image of guys who automatically assume every modern technique is an improvement. That weight training was not common & looked askance at for most of boxing history does not show if it helps some people-although other strengthening means also can, weight training can work on specific muscles & efficiently maximize strength. Not that more, or the most possible, muscle is better. It is a fallacy that if muscle mattered everyone would be a power lifter. You are taking the most extreme example, a competitive lifter, or making every pound of weight you can move an improvement for boxing. But many use all kinds of power, weight, & Olympic lifting to improve. Just like guys need not be elite or any formal runners to have benefited from road work from Time Immemorial. Although many, at least at certain stages, would do better to save their knees with different cardio...Or maybe run on a beach. You are just mistaken about what the consensus opinion of Williams & Weaver are. Big Cat was among the hardest hitters around-to call him merely a hard hitter is an understatement. Foreman named him, Lyle, & Cooney as the hardest hitters. The latter achieved power more from a whip-like effect-there are many means to achieving power, more with muscle, bulk, or length of bone, speed, technique/snap/kinetic chain efficiency, muscle fiber type... Weaver hit really hard, not "at most hard". Williams must have hit harder than Louis, & Tyson, as many did. BUT not as fast or accurate or effective in combinations. Oh let's be more precise re: muscle. Weaver was muscular, but look at his height, weight & body fat: you can see he was not an outlier even for the time, & would have less muscle than average in later times. His having low body fat accentuated his muscle-& likely not as much leg muscle, both factors certainly apply to Holyfield: who did need PEDs to be so good as a HW. We weigh the more notable upper body mass more heavily, but usually 60% of muscle lies below the waist. It is an interesting perception that many limit their potential by relying on PEDs. I believe that applies sometimes, the question is twofold-if using them early allows others to become accustomed to their "new" body & capacities & obviate this... Or if not fully, whether the physical advantages-which might include drugs for more endurance & red blood cell capacity like EPO & blood transfusions-if even so the brute abilities might make them better than they could naturally. Now I am strongly against any of these artificial means, cheating & lying-that may rob honest men of money, glory, success, fame, their livelihood... But it is not reasonable to either assume nobody ever caught was using-or that everyone caught was a false positive... It is ALSO irrational to assume absent very good evidence that everyone or nearly everyone uses or even ever dabbled it PEDs. We just do not know how common it is. Although more common in sports that directly benefit from increased muscle or endurance with less complications about whether it will help much, backfire-like pro bodybuilding (not even testes), long distance cycling, & weightlifting. PEDs absolutely do not replace the other virtues & talents. However unfortunately they help many. And when rules change or are enforced to put a premium on power & weight nor endurance-larger gloves. Shorter fights. Clinching prohibitions permissive... Then anabolics become more of an advantage & offer less drawbacks that oxygenating such tissue produdes-yet our rule set minimizes the necessity of.
As in specially designed shoes on specially designed tracks and more carefully predicted weather. Recently there were shoes that actually returned a little bit of energy to the wearers to significantly reduce times. And a while ago there was a design of swimsuit that that made some waves (pun intended) because it allowed swimmers to swim that much faster just by wearing it. Thats the kind of stuff i'm talking about. Something like comparetive video evidence I assume, But honestly I don't know. The people who use that argument seem confident enough to have it. My above response to cross_trainer.
I love your responses man, always genuine and laid out. we could write books back and forth to each other about the topic. I am a big fan of both fighters, especially Weaver, but I think a lot of users here on the forum ascribe an ability to Williams that he didn't possess. I think he was a solid fighter and continued boxing after an injury that probably would've killed lesser physically developed men. But I think he is in a class lower than big punchers like Liston, Foreman, Lyle, etc. There just isn't enough evidence for me in Williams resume that leads me to believe otherwise. I just can't believe Williams hit harder than Louis, theres just not enough film or literature to indicate such. You are right I definitely over exaggerated the power lifting analogy and thats my bad I shouldn't have represented it in such a way. I have to agree that muscle plays a factor and is developed through a number of means, many of which do involve weights. What I was trying to say and will attempt to articulate better is that most fighters rely more heavily on calisthenics and kettle bells, free weights etc. I really respect your opinion and appreciate the comprehensiveness of your response, sorry I didn't address more, I'm sure you can relate that writing as much as this can become exhausting pretty quick. I feel like I dropped my one big response of the day on the classic forum and am coasting until tomorrow haha
Ok. I see what you're referring to now. Yes, equipment is one factor in era vs era comparisons that people too often ignore. However: I think the journalist who proposed looking at stride lengths to compare Owens and Bolt still conceded that Owens loses a race to Bolt, although it's a lot closer. Bolt remains better. I don't know how that would work. I'm already a bit skeptical about whether you can even use stride length analysis on film of Owens and Bolt to reach the conclusions they do. And sprinting, unlike boxing, is a very straightforward activity. I guess the question would be why we should assume that giving a fighter more strength, power, stamina, speed, etc. wouldn't be expected to improve his performance. That seems an odd stance to me. Unless you want to argue that modern training simply doesn't improve people's strength, stamina, etc. Which again would seem an odd stance to take, since it's used in every other sport. And, for that matter, it's become almost universal in boxing itself. I doubt almost every coach in the world in every sport is deluded, incorrectly believing that weight training, plyometrics, periodization, etc. work when they actually don't. Nor do the improvements in measurable sports come down to just equipment, as even the Bolt example concedes. I'm sure you can dig into the lab studies that back up the notion that (e.g.) weight training improves strength for various sports -- going back to the 60s in the Soviet Union -- but it seems like an enormous chore, since this battle was already fought in sport after sport decades ago.
Very good we overwhelmingly agree & thanks for the good words! You said most fighters rely more heavily on other things-then listed the very stuff we talked about, free weights. How much they use various resistance varies, for decades now weights are often used, as are other things-& kettle balls are weights. Williams was not on the level of the others, but he was a massive puncher. Another quote, from Liston was almost precisely this-he could hit as hard as me, just not take it as well. But of course not as effective, precise, or good in combinations as The Brown Bomber. Just like a few guys in Maricano's time hit even harder, but not as often & were not as good.
That I knew, however that ties into my suggestion that if the advances in sprinting are possibly down to oneish stride all things cosidered then how could something like that translate so overwhemingly into boxing, to claim an open shut comparison people often make about the Ali era to the Klitchko era for example. I assume something like "See that? [Old Fighter] couldn't do that because he didn't have the advantages of modern S&C.". I would seem impossibly subtle to me but I suppose they see it. I just noticed I probably should've put "from other sports" rather than "in" I isn't that per se, in a brass tacks sense it would have to at least a little bit, but to me, as an observer of boxing (like many on this forum are, suprisingly) I dont see the night and day difference many others do in actual, observed, in ring performance. The general trends in boxing performance seems the sameish overall. Another problem I have with "modernist" perspectives is that nuance is sometimes thrown out the window and you cant even use provable individual comparisons, for example the stamina difference between Frazier and modern heavies. In some cases you cant even use compubox or a direct example, like his fight with Bugner, combined with his power to prove he obviously has far more stamina than most heavies across the board. Someone will just say "Modern fighters have this, that, and the other" like a magical talisman and leave it at that. Those are the kind of people im trying to understand, because to me comparing in ring performance, including resume, between two fighters directly is much more accurate way to go about comparing two fighters than what their hypothetical NFL stats would be. Especially if you look at something like the Bronze age of bodybuilding modern S&C has somewhat always existed in some form of unpolished form. If it was night and day someone in the great depression would have picked up on it and dominated because of it, If some proponents of it are to be believed.
