Are Today's Heavyweights the oldest ever

I think its a no brainer.. In the early 90's people made a huge deal about Foreman and Holmes' age and there were only two of them, plus a select few guys in the top 10 who were in their thirties. Today its become the norm.. Men are staying in the amateurs longer and remaining in the pros longer as well. And i'm not sure I attribute it to better training either. I think there are just fewer people going into boxing anymore, making it more possible for older guys to have a career.

 

Every division is older.

Look at the ages of all the Champions and P4P guys right now:

Marquez 41
Wlad 39
Mayweather 38
Froch 37
Stevenson 37
Pacman 36
Uchiyama 35
Cotto 34
Rigondeaux 34
Golovkin 32
Kovalev 31
Bradley 31
Huck 30
Gonzalez 27
Saul 24

I would say longer amateur careers is the main reason. Also less activity, your average seasoned fighter maybe only fighting twice a year these days at best.

 

Athletes in general are playing later in life these days. Lots of reasons why. The money. The medical / surgery improvements. HGH/supplements.

You could say 36 is the new 33.

There is some young talent in the upper weights.

Fury - 26
Joshua - 25
Usyk - 28 ( Perhaps a future heavyweight champion )

And at least three grade A type prospects under 30 in the amateurs.

 

Athletes are getting older in every sport

 

Athletes in every sport have longer careers due to the drugs and hormone replacement therapy.

In heavyweight boxing this is compounded by an abundance of guys who pick up the sport late. There used to be boxing gyms all over, not so much anymore. We have heavyweight guys starting boxing in their late 20's 30's. The heavyweight talent pool is so shallow right now that these guys make it to the top. Of course the champ is a guy who actually started boxing and receiving all the perks of top notch training at a young age. This is why he is so much better, even though he too is getting older.

 

It's not just "drugs"…

It's better managed careers, better medical treatment, smarter training. Guys like Mickey Mantle and Gail Sayers (sorry, Brits) had career ending injuries that today would have only caused them to miss a season. Vitali, with his knee and back injuries, would have been able to make comeback in the 50's.

And as well noted, it's happening in all sports.

 

Walcott and Moore continued fighting into advanced ages way-back-when without all the modern developments. Shows how weak the competitive field was back then.:hi:

 

When you factor in things like PED's, lack of good quality HW's, fewer rounds and a much less demanding schedule you can see why heavyweights are staying in the game longer today. As much as I respect Vlad K he isn't really swimming in a sea of dangerous opposition which isn't his fault but he really hasn't been pushed to the limit often and forced to dig deep to pull out a hard fought victory. He's the best out there no doubt and has a good solid boxing background behind him but his challengers don't. There are no more Ali's, Frazier's, Foreman's, Holmes, Tyson's or Holyfields not to mention Lewis' out there anymore. Now it's beat up the latest tough man contestant and take it easy for awhile. I guess it's the same in all sports nowadays. When was the last time we saw a pitcher complete a full game? After 6 innings he's looking to be taken out. Gotta protect that multi million dollar arm after all. Makes me pine for the old days...I guess I'm getting older.

 

That is quite true.

No, they are not. No change proportionally. Competing professionally is not about needing money or receiving money or about medical improvements. It is about competition or the lack thereof. You don't remain a professional because you want to; you remain a professional only if you can still compete with younger men.

You could say it, it just wouldn't be accurate.

Except they are not. In the US, the NBA is unchanged with a rather static average age that is the same today as twenty years ago. In MLB, the average player age is actually lower than ten years ago. In the NFL, you have a static average age. The average runs from 25 to 27.5 across the three major sports which attract all of the top talent from America's youth.

Actually they don't. What you mean is that some number of older players have and have had longer careers due to performance enhancing drugs (including hormone replacement therapy) and better surgical success rates over time but in the aggregate it has not made a material change in the average ages because of the depth of the competition and the high participation rates in these sports. Being a healthier older player or being a repaired older player doesn't make a substantive amount of difference to the aggregate numbers when there are young talented men in their mid-20s competing for your job (especially if some of them are also utilizing PEDs) and inevitably taking it. The differentials are too slight for injured (repaired) athletes to easily maintain their position just because medical science can make you walk or even run again.

The career extensions created by steroid use at its peak on through to the present has elongated some careers but it is more than offset by the competitive field which can only be represented by youth as sports or endeavors that require stamina, agility, durability, speed, quickness, reactions, and power are the domain of those at their peak physical condition. That is not a 36 year old athlete.

That is true.

Heavyweight boxing has a bunch of older athletes because few to none of the talented ones in peak physical condition and in their prime years are pursuing this sport. Older athletes remain at a competitive disadvantage in all highly competitive athletic endeavors regardless of some notable one off, anomaly, or other "exception".

When there is an abundance of young athletes competing (even in a "dilutive" environment in which the sport's popularity results in the expansion in the number of teams (resulting in more "jobs") which has occurred in the three major sports over the decades) for a limited (i.e., fixed) number of professional "slots" the differential at the margin remains slim. The benefits of better training methods, or sports science, or career management, or dietary knowledge, or medical advancement, or greater pay, etc., whatever, are not exclusive to older athletes. They are available to all and thus it is clear why it doesn't affect the averages.

The only material factor is the depth of the competition. When everyone wants to do something that is limited in availability (e.g., be a professional athlete), the data has been available and is compiled year by year to show essentially where the peak physical age period is on average, how long careers last in respective sports (even by position), and how tall or how heavy athletes are on average to be successful in their career (including by position).

 

Today's Heavyweights are not the oldest ever.
Mid 1990s up until 1998 had old Foreman, old Holmes, James Smith, Trevor Berbick, Mike Weaver and Joe Bugner. all over 40 and some nearing 50.
It also had Tony Tucker, Jesse Fergusson, Tim Witherspoon, Greg Page, Tony Tubbs, Michael Dokes (earliest and youngest retiree out of these names at a mere 39).
Most of these names except Foreman and Bugner carried until after 2000.
That was inarguably ze oldest HW era ever.

 

An excellent post, well thought out but don't forget there is another World out there outside the USA.

 

But how many of them were actually still top 10 let alone "reigning" the division? Sure you had a lot of guys who were 35+ all the way to being in their 40's, but they weren't necessarily the best heavys around whereas today they are. George Foreman was the only truly elite senior fighter in the early to mid 90's, while a select few others cracked the top 10 but didn't stay there long.