Are boxers better/more skilled today?

Moorer>>>Charly Martin

Joshua's power is good but he does like to grab behind the head and rabbit punch to get his man down. Any means necessary. Just sayin'

I think Joshua's boxing skills are underrated, though. I do think a good mover would befuddle him. Fortunately for him this is too early for Parker. He lacks the craft and the ring IQ. His trainer is poor.

An older experienced veteran from the good ole' days could take him to deep waters and drown him once he started depleting. If you gave Ali the supplements and put him on the modern day training regime he'd cause problems with his footwork and handspeed alone.

I feel anyone who sets a high pace vs Joshua and can take a whack beats Joshua. Maybe it's Parker? Who knows. I doubt it, though. His Ring IQ is lacking i feel.

 

The best version of Wladimir?

For all of Wlad's talent, he's always been mentally weak.

He let him off the hook big time, after spending most of the rounds tentatively pawing out a jab.

Bruno was also vulnerable, but he'd have given AJ something to think about.

Norton would also have presented him with a challenge. Because he'd have fought him hard with no fear, whilst being aggressive.

You are too dismissive.

 

You're both wrong. Staminakills, the talent pool is roughly the same because even though the population of the earth has grown, the sport's popularity has shrunk roughly in the same proportion. As the popularity waxes in the UK it's waned in the US. It's a global sport and the sport isn't equally popular everywhere on the planet any more than all weight divisions were brimming with talent at a given time. Some are hot when others are cool but it evens out. The past is full of Japanese, Cuban, German, or British champs so it's been a worldwide sport for more than a century; and you can't say that it was just a domestic sport in the US even though we dominated it.

The talent pool for a sport isn't every person on the planet, it's just the percent of people who have an interest in the sport and the ability to compete. Pre-1960 boxing was a more lucrative sport than baseball, basketball, or football and it drew more professional athletes to it's ranks than those sports. As those sports grew more prosperous, they got the pick of the best athletes and the talent pool for boxing shrunk. Now, boxing is maybe the eighth biggest sport in the country. It used to be the only sport where an athlete could support himself and his family without a day job. Now, it's just one of many. Tv shows used to have an audience of thirty million viewers back when there were only three channels. Today, when there are hundreds of channels broadcasters have to content themselves with perhaps a single million viewers on a successful television show. It's the same way with boxing. The pie got bigger but our share got smaller.

And Neebur, there are 70,000 professional boxers in the world today. Since the population of New York was 5.6 million in 1920 I doubt that 1 in 80 people were professional boxers. It's more like 1 in 20 when you factor women, children, and old people out. Boxing was never 5% of New York's economy.

If you check the boxrec database, although it's incomplete, especially the further back you go, it has data showing how many bouts took place in a given year. Somebody ran the numbers back in 2009 and found that the 2000s was roughly on par with the 20s and 30s. http://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=101907 The conclusion to be drawn from those numbers is that boxing is currently as popular as it's ever been in terms of sheer quantity. It's not more or less popular than it was in it's heyday.

 

Be fair, the 2000s saw Pac and May two ATGs plus HOFers like Mosley and Cotto in the division. That's as good as Napoles and Griffith. Plus, when you look at annual division rankings, they are seldom impressive stuff; but over a decade they fill out. It's actually fairly rare to have a stacked division for any length of time as people are always moving through divisions, retiring, or losing and being knocked out of the top 10.

 

Jack Johnson grappled more than Floyd and Klitschko combined, more than mma even. He is not who I would point to as an old time model of pugilistic skill. Why not pick a Benny Leonard or Willie Pep as examples instead?

 

You seem to have totally ignored the skill I discussed.

 

I mean, to be fair, in many ways this is a logical argument; it certainly SEEMS like a logical argument. If a sport is less popular now than before, that would make up for the rise in talent pool of world population and world participation, right?

The problem is, it just doesn't fit available data. Data points: A. No other sport demonstrably behaves in the manner you describe. As discussed ad nauseum before, virtually every sport that boasts an objective, tangible record, has seen that record surpassed in the last 35 years. Many of those sports are less popular now, with less practitioners, than they were in earlier eras (javelin throwing anyone?!!). B. Most of those sports have seen a similar increase in size as seen by HW boxing. In the post war era, HW boxing has seen a gradual but steady increase in the size of both it's champs and top performers. Such an increase is commiserate with the increase seen in sports that see tangible records broken.

Conclusion: People with appropriate skill sets FIND their way, either from independent forces or by themselves, into sports at which they excell. Maybe not 100% on par with the increase of the overall talent pool of the population, but certainly enough to increase performance from prior eras.

Also, you mention earlier that Michaelangelo etc are better than modern artists. It's true, in a way. In a similar way that I would grant Louis and Ali are better than modern HWs. They had an IMPACT, in era, that was greater than the in era impact of modern artists(or boxers). Certainly they had their own qualities, independent from what anyone else could have provided. But do you really think, if they lived in the present day, they would be given the respect that they are given for their works from earlier? Of course not. There isn't room in the post modernist culture for such wide acclaim.

At the end of the day, how many football players are in small division schools vs how many are in large schools? About the same, right? But, why are those schools separated into different divisions for fairness sake if they both have the same number of participants? It's because the larger talent pool gives an unfair advantage; the best participants tend to find their way into a sport.

Hey, in all fairness, you seem to be a very comparatively intelligent poster. I don't think this argument will influence you at all because I frankly think you've made up your mind and are unreachable to any argument or data point. Most people, even otherwise intelligent people, are unreachable on subjects that they feel strongly about. It's one of the most demonstrably studied points of politics (which I very intentionally avoid any mention of in these forums: it's enough to have to face the headlines every day). Hopefully someone with less firmly set beliefs is reading this and will recognize the logic. Honestly, people sometimes accuse me of hating old timers. I actually think Louis and Ali can never be matched, in the same way Leonardo can never be matched. I don't dislike them, I dislike irrational thought, and biases getting in the way of objective conclusions. Actually, I hate that that happens. And the nostalgiaism for H2H is the #1 example I see of that on these forums, so it really bothers me. But oh well. Hopefully someone reads this and changes their mind. But I understand the difficulty of that. I'll try not to get into an ad nauseum, repetitive war over this. I always just have to respond to the same points over an over again. Louis is probably my #1 HW of all time, for his historical impact. I just separate that from H2H. For me, it's not too big a deal to do so. But I guess I can understand why it would be that hard for others.

 

Well.... They can cheat, get caught and still play the victim. So in essence, with roids up to the gills, will make them better the fighters of old.

 

Boxers have much better PEDS today!

 

Might as well! Let's start with Middleweight.

Golovkin
Canelo
Jacobs
Saunders
Jermall Carlo
Demetrius Andrade
Derevyanchenko
Lemieux
N'Dam
Stevens

The 90's:

Roy Jones
Bernard Hopkins
James Toney
Mike McCallum
Julian Jackson
Michael Nunn
Gerald McLellan
Sumbu Kalambay
Chris Eubank
Nigel Benn


The 80's:

Marvin Hagler
Hearns
McCallum
Iran Barkley
Michael Nunn
Don Lee
Herol Graham
Steve Collins
Michael Watson
Mugabi
Kinchen

The 70's:

Carlos Monzon
Rocky Valdez
Bennie Briscoe
Nino Benvenuti
Emile Griffith
Vito Antuofermo
Alan Minter
Mike Colbert
Rudy Robles
Bobby Watts

The 60's:

Ray Robinson
Dick Tiger
Nino Benvenuti
Gene Fullmer
Joey Archer
George Benton
Terry Downes
Joey Giardello

Can't go much further than that. Again, I think line by line, the older decades have it better. Charlo is perhaps better than some 5th place contenders.

 

I was being fair, that's why I said "You could argue I left out Floyd and Bradley" but like I said, after the top talents the rest looks inferior. I'm also giving this welterweight division the benefit of the doubt and saying we should see how the rest of the decade turns out, but I don't see too many major changes aside from the newly arrived Crawford (who I included). With regards to the spots 5-10 it's no contest IMO.

 

Of course boxers of today are more skilled, healthier and better prepared than their peers 100 years ago.

 

Expert opinion:

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MR: What is the perfect fighter for you? If you could create the perfect fighter, what would that be to you?

Freddie Roach: He has to understand ring generalship, which is not taught anymore. He would have to understand body shots, which is not done anymore. Everyone is headhunting all night long now. The knockouts come from the headshots but in the old days it was set up by the body shots. And then ring generalship. If you keep yourself in good position 90% of the time then you are gonna win 90% of the fight. It’s not that hard, but it’s a lost art. There are no teachers out there anymore that teach that part about boxing.

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Kenny Adams:

"Boxers don't have great skills anymore, and that's the thing you try to teach them and that's what I'm doing with Sharif. I'm teaching him all of these great and different skills to get him to the next level. All of the guys now, they are in shape and they can throw one-two's and a lot of punches, and they are just in great shape. They are trained like they are football players, but they have no skills. It's all just bang, bang, bang. They take a punch to give a punch and that's not my school of thought."

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Excerpts from "The Arc of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science" have detailed explanations of the disappearance of quality trainers and specific techniques that have been forgotten to the detriment of the fighters. Roach, Steward, and Atlas are all quoted, along with various others.

https://books.google.com/books?id=M...VGw1kKHQXfCvY4ChDoAQg6MAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

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Better athletes don't necessarily mean better fighters.

 

This. The funny thing is even prime Foreman didn't have bad stamina. Foreman struggled against crafty guys, who were quick on their feet, since they would make George wear himself out hitting air. They would also keep him fighting on his toes and leaning, which Foreman hated doing.

Joshua is also vulnerable to this type of fighter. Takam's counter punches to the body and upper body movement was really wearing Joshua down, but Takam's stamina only allowed him to do it in spurts, which allowed Joshua to recover and start landing his shots. I could see Jimmy Young, Ali, Byrd, and Holyfield wearing Joshua down, since they won't tire and would make Joshua wear himself out.

Chris Byrd in his prime made a career out of wearing big guys down with his craftiness to the point that their shoulders and arms would be sore in the later rounds and he would start really going to work.

Gregorio Peralta 6'0" 197 lbs vs. Foreman 6'3" 213 lbs

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Ali 6'3" 216 lbs vs. George Foreman 6'3" 220 lbs

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Jimmy Young 6'2" 213 vs. George Foreman 6'3" 229 lbs

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Takam 6'1" 235 lbs vs. Joshua 6'6" 254 lbs

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