Are we seeing the rise of Boxing 3.0?

Wow, thanks for the responses everybody. I wasn't sure if this thread was going to get any traction because most of the threads here are less conceptual and more topical. But it's been everything I've hoped for. Thank you!

Now some responses:

Dangerousity -

A few responses here have been similar to yours, so I'll use this as the basis for responding to everybody. It's important to clarify that it's not so much about a confirmity of "style" to having everybody fight exactly the same way. That's not how it was with Boxing 2.0, or Boxing 1.0. Rather, it's an observation of the changing of the "base" of boxing. It's not dissimilar to how in the really old days, you would see boxers hold their hands in what looks like two uppercut positions and would just walk in circles around each other. In that "base" there were still boxers who imposed their personality and style on it. There were essentially boxers, sluggers and punchers who all did their thing starting from the base of holding their hands in the uppercut position and circling.

In boxing 2.0, there were still boxers, sluggers and punchers. But the difference became that movement became more important, the jab became far more important, and boxers became more aware of spacing and distancing than before. A slugger would set up the jab as the basis for closing the gap and then close it on his terms. There isn't as much reaching in for Boxing 2.0 as there was for Boxing 1.0.

Compare Jack Dempsey
http://www.youtube.com/v/jmaPxa-eZss

With Arturo Gatti
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjvMer_8q6o"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjvMer_8q6o[/ame]


They're both known as sluggers, but you can see the strong influences of the base boxing style in them. Gatti employs the trademarks of Boxing 2.0 to set up his slugging. Note how, compared to Dempsey, he employs liberal use of the jab, uses footwork to move in, and then throws varied combinations. That's Boxing 2.0 as employed by a slugger. Even though he's a slugger, and even though he's called "old school" in the boxing community, there's a scientific underpinning to his slugging that wasn't as present in Boxing 1.0 until it was introduced some time in the mid 1940s.

Compare Armstrong and Frazier, and you'll see the same thing. They're bombers who go about bombing in entirely different ways and you could see the respective influences of their boxing base.

And I think that's what it comes down to with my point here. I'm not describing so much a style as I am a new principle or base of boxing that is becoming increasingly widespread - the principle of athletic or "tag boxing". We've already seen it employed by a power puncher in the form of David Haye. And while I can't think of one yet, over time, I suspect we'll see the rise of brawlers who use it to establish or reestablish favored range, although I do think that brawlers will start falling out of favor or a forced evolution will take place, similar to what we're seeing with Pacquiao.

Reaper:

It's important that I emphasize that Boxing 3.0, despite the name, isn't necessarily a positive evolution. It's not a qualitative analysis that I'm making. It's a notation of a shift in the base style is beginning to emerge as compared to 1970 - 2010 and 1920-1970. It may very well be very bad for boxing. Maybe it's a regression. Or maybe because we're in the beginning stages it's simply a work in progress very much in its raw pioneering stages. I don't know yet because it's so new. But I wanted to call attention to it because I'm seeing more and more of it, usually coming out of the amateur ranks.

I disagree, and feel that Ward's technique is markedly different than the technique from generations ago. Ward and Dirrell both employ the same base. I think you're seeing one as being effective and one as being less effective and you conclude that therefore they can't be the same. But again, my point isn't that there's anything inherently "better" about Boxing 3.0. If you look at Dirrell's and Ward's footwork, look at their movement, look at their core strategy, the same basic signature is there. Ditto with Khan, and Haye, even though they're MUCH different fighters. Of that group, some are far better than others. But the base concept is still the same, and it's distinct from what we've seen before.

Looking at it, it's more similar to what you see from Jones - the use of natural gifts and athletics to pounce in and out. Also, I hold fast on saying that Mayweather's technique is far more modern than I think people here are giving it credit for being. Hopkins is old school, yes, but not Mayweather. Of course, Jones and Mayweather aren't strictly Boxing 3.0, the same way that Pep and Louis and Robinson weren't strictly Boxing 2.0. When you're a pioneer in something, you become an innovator. You become the embodiment of the transition of styles. Clay was the first true Boxing 2.0 champion because he was the finished product of the experiments and work put in by his predecessors. Likewise, whereas Mayweather and Jones are the Pep and Louis and Robinson of Boxing 3.0, the likes of Ward, Dirrell, are Dawson are the first finished products fully indoctrinated in Boxing 3.0.

I think there is a long way to go in terms of evaluating whether this is just a trend or a fundamental shift, and also whether it's an evolution or regression. I think the next few years will go a long way to making that determination. Will Haye dominate the heavyweight division? Will Ward win the tournament? Will Khan establish a real legacy? And more importantly (and in response to Masterold's point), what will happen when they age? Will sports science sustain that athleticism so that it becomes a long term option? They're questions that will take a decade or more to answer.

I'll answer McGrain's post separately, since I think I took up enough space here already.

 

I think Tunney has some very early elements that were later picked up by other boxers. I think there were other boxers who did some slipping and moving, others who were able to fight off the back foot. But when we think of pioneers, we think of people who ushered in a fundamental shift. So I'm not snubbing Tunney. But the sea change was some decades away due to the high profile of three simultaneous or near simultaneous boxers who forced a rethinking of boxing. It really took their collective success to impose a change on boxing.

I think that's the nature of early adopters. I mentioned this in my previous post, that the earliest inventors of a new style aren't necessarily fully practitioners of that style. What you see is more of a hybrid, or transitional style. Even though Pep and Whitaker are both Boxing 2.0 practitioners, their base is quite different because Pep is using a transitional base where you see some strong elements of Boxing 2.0 but you also see a lot of the old style as well. I think Clay was really the first finished product practitioner of the 2.0 style, and Robinson, Louis,and Pep each contributed elements to defining that style.

I think if you talk to just about any modern great, from Jones to Leonard to Mosley to Holmes, they'll cite Ali has a huge stylistic influence. The type of outside jabs and dancing mobility he employed became the standard for virtually every boxer after that.

I don't know about Dawson and Dirrell's freak status. I think success on its own can breed the argument that they are physical freaks. As I said in my previous post, its preliminary because we don't yet know their long term success. While one could argue that boxing, being a sport, requires that its practitioners be athletes, we haven't seen quite the proliferation of overall athletics employed in boxing as we have with the last couple of olympic classes. You could say that Arthur Abraham is an "athlete" simply because he's strong, in great shape and boxes, but there's a world of difference between that type of athleticism and the type employed by the likes of Ward, who could play pretty much any sport and is naturally gifted in ways that Abraham is not.

And maybe that's part of it. You say that fighters placing emphasis on athleticism is a dangerous prospect, and maybe that's part of the shift. It could be the next phase of boxing will lead to a weeding out of people who can learn the sport in favor of people who are genetically predisposed to being good at what boxing is currently transforming into. The same way that not just anybody can become a great basketball player, no matter how smart or dedicated they are, or not just anybody can become a great american football player, we may be also seeing the beginning of a template for a base requirement of what a boxer should physically be. Looking at the builds of Ward, Dirrell, Dawson, there are strong similarities there as well - length and reach.

I think, to your point, we may be seeing a shift away from the technical emphasis of boxing and more to the athletic emphasis of boxing. This isn't unprecedented. Both Tennis and Golf went through very similar shifts over the past decade where athletic gifts simply overwhelmed the more cerebral aspects of those games. I think this all comes down to the evolution of sports science. People are stronger, faster, longer lived, and better preserved than ever before. And it could be that these attributes are beginning to outgrow boxing the way it has in other sports.