Are Ad Wolgast and Battling Nelson obsolete by modern standards?

Nah, they both slow flashes of skill, Wolgast’s uppercut on the inside for example, and Nelson is a good pressure fighter in any era.

And of course, both had insane levels of stamina and endurance. They’d be just fine IMO, and of course they’d probably be bantams or super bantams today.

 

I'd l

I'd love to see them be able to apply that level of conditioning to the 12 round distance as opposed to budgeting it for a 45 rounder.

 

They were great for their time and now. And ultra tough. We are still talking about them so they did something right.

 

I cant see the link, but have seen them before.My answer is no.

 

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Longer version.

 

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I love this one. This was after the Wolgast fight, so obviously Nelson was past it, but someone the size of Moran beating him is crazy (Moran had fought at 124Ibs the previous year, and had fought at Bantamweight a couple years before that). Moran shows a lot of good defensive skills too.

 

I'd say they look a bit rough around the edges technically (but by no means terrible).
What needs to be considered though is that even in their own time they weren't considered great technicians; they were awesome fighters primarily because of their absurd stamina, work rate, chin, and toughness.

Furthermore, how would modern fighters fare against them under old school conditions?
Wolgast and Nelson IMO are prime examples of fighters uniquely suited to a specific rule set, in this case fighting for extremely long durations.
I know that the more radical of the modernists are probably going to say they would get their asses handed to them by x modern fighter, but consider this: If we eliminate the hardest punchers who could possibly knock them out, and the stamina freaks who could maybe make it to 40 rounds, what is the rest going to do?
I mean, even if modern boxers are that much advanced in technique (which I'm sceptical about), even if they punch e.g. Nelson's face in for 12 rounds, what happens after that?
He's not going to go away except maybe against the hardest of punchers, and he will keep coming at them with a brutal work rate round after round after round.
Would a modern fighter - no matter how slick - ,who is used to fighting 8-12 rounds, really be able to stand up to or do much against such a sustained barrage when he is probably too tired to keep his arms up after 20 or so rounds?


Just my 2 cents, cheers!

 

To begin, these two were tough as nails and definitely made for this era. As for transitioning to modern era, I would say Wolgast would have the better shot at it. I really liked his footwork and inside work. But he was small for a lightweight at 5'4" 1/2 to Nelson's 5'7" 1/2. Indeed, he was really only a featherweight, weighing 127 in his previous fight. But you go where the money is. I do think he would do great today at 126 and 130. As for Nelson, I didn't see him duck once - he took everything coming his way. Was definitely made for that era where he could simply grind an opponent down through sheer pounding. But today would probably get outboxed over 12 rounds. Still, this is not to say if they were brought up in this era that they wouldn't be able to fight differently, we're playing the transplant game here.

 

Consider that Roman Gonzalez weighs around the featherweight limit in the ring and think about Wolgast vs. Srisaket, Gonzalez, Estrada...his place in the modern game appears much more feasible, assuming he can make the cut.

 

My guess is that they would have no problem with the transition as the skills are definitely there. They fought accordingly to their era and probably wanted to limit their movement as much as possible given they are going 45 rounds.. That's just insane. Some boxer's today have trouble going 12. I think they would probably fight differently today in a 12 rounder

 

Couple questions: how big was that ring? I realize the guys are small, but it looks like a 40' ring to me.
Second: how large was that outdoor crowd? Looks HUGE.

Third: as has been mentioned, they came in the ring expecting to go 40 rounds. What should be obvious even to the most casual of observers is that they couldn't fight in the same manner as being in a 12 rounder.

So it's hard to compare apples to apples here.

Basically I think both guys would have been loved by Mexicans, since they were fighting "Mexican Style" for 40 rounds!

 

if that fight lasted 120 minutes, that video only showed maybe 1-2 minutes of actual boxing...so who knows what happened for the vast majority of the fight? Since this was the minute or so chosen by whoever edited the film, one has to assume those were the "highlights" of the fight, at least from the editor's perspective? They may have looked completely different during the other 118-19 minutes, but from what was shown, the boxers didn't show any skills that one wouldn't expect to see from two amateur novices fighting today.

They did do things that trainers have been teaching not to do for many years like bending at the waist, "walking" with their punches, throwing uppercuts from outside, lunging, etc. For their time, they were probably "as good as it gets" but in that 1-2 minutes of action there was nothing shown that a young boxer today doesn't know how to do or hasn't been told not to do. And, please don't waste your time by compiling a video of more modern fighters doing things like the mistakes I mentioned above. It won't make this video more impressive.

 

This is my first reaction every time I see people heralding this fight (and video). Would like to know more about the other two hours of ring time.