are boxers better from say 60 years ago to now..

I think that this is very, very debatable. IN fact, i would argue that it has not improved. It has changed. With the empshasis more on strength and explosiveness than on conditioning.

I dont necessarilly think that dropping the conditioning emphasis is a good thing. IN fact, i think it no coincidence that the one heavyweight i can think of who places more emphasis on good conditioning is Wlad Klitchsko and he is in fact clearly the best heavyweight of current times, and most of his wins are simply by wearing his opponents out and maintaining his power late in fights. And i also think it is no coincidence that guys like Tua, Chambers and anyone else look to be at their best when they concentrate on conditioning training rather than power, and drop lots of weight.

In fact, i think that the whole concept of trying to bulk up is wrong for a fighter, across the board. 60 yrs ago, condition would reign supreme. this means that a natural middleweight/light heavyweight, would stay and fight against other middleweights for most of his career, meaning that even when he did fight against heavys, he rarely went up too much in weight. For Example, Tommy Burns. Contrast this with a modern chris Byrd who was a natural light heavy adn would have been with older training but he bulked up and fought as a heavyweight quite successfully. Chris was an inshape fighter even as a heavy, imagine how many smaller light heavys could have fought at lower weights if they trained the old way. to me, it stands to reason that if you fight at your natural weight, but are better conditioned, you are going to have an advantage over other fighters who are coming up to that weight but are naturally much smaller fighters. This would suggest that even at the lighter weights, the older training methods give fighters the advantage. Although i suppose this could be offset by the different weigh in rules.

I just find it hard to believe, taking one look at 90% of heavyweights in the top 100 today, that these guys really train as hard as the old days. Incidentally, this is in total opposite to other sports such as athletics, where it is quite clear that todays athletes train every bit as hard, and probably harder as their counterparts from yesteryear. When combined with undoubted equipment advances (shoes, clothing, tracks etc) as opposed to boxing where we now have bigger gloves, softer rings, less rounds, less topline fights to learn from etc. It is quite clear that sports like athletics or swimming are not a good guide to boxing.

And incidentally for those who like measuring sports as guides, Can you just let me know, how close today's professional billiards players get to the scores of Walter Lindrum from many, many years ago, despite the help of modern equipment and training techniques in that sport.

 

60 years ago as in Sugar Ray Robinson's prime?

 

op

 

Archie Moore
Rocky Marciano
Sonny Liston
Ezzard Charles
Jersey Joe Walcott
Floyd Patterson
Jake Lamotta
Sugar Ray Robinson
Willie Pep
Carmen Basilio
Sandy Saddler
Kid Gavilan
Randy Turpin
Rocky Graziano
Gene Fullmer
& a LOT more

 

That's a good list for comparison. There are many quite skilled technicians in there.

I'll try a similar one between 1940 and 1950:

SRR
Charles
Louis
Moore
Burley
Cerdan
Armstrong
Zale
Graziano
LaMotta
Walcott
Pep
Gavilan
Zivic
Bivins

 

I think we can be too hard on the current crop. I think it works both ways. Until we can look back at the present scene with hindsight it’s a little unfair. with hindsight we can look back on the 40-50s and say it was a great time but did the fans think that then, or did they thing the 1910's -20's was better? I am coming to warm to the 1990's (which I thought was awful while it was happening) in a way I warmed to the 1980's during the 1990's.
I have read magazines from the late 50's full of articles on how TV ruins good fighters. In that period there was a worry that with the small clubs closing a useful prospect gets burnt out too quick on TV fights. Two articles in particular used Alex mifeff and huricne Jackson as examples of fighters who in an older era would have made the grade under a slower progression in lower risk fights.
Older fighters had hundreds of fights but how many were seriously competitive? They were certainly very well preserved for all that action. A lot of old timers possibly had careers similar to a Mexican record where they beat on bodies in the clubs just to stay busy where as now a fighter has sparring partners shipped in only to have fights cancelled.
I will say this. A great fight is still a great fight whatever the decade.

 

Very good post.