At what point did modern boxers surpass old ones?

Every now and then somebody mentions that fighters are better conditioned now because we have modern athletic training. Sure, I guess somewhat, but did you ever look at how ripped the athletes of former times were? There are pictures from around 1900 of Young Peter Jackson where he's obviously in better shape than anyone I can think of today. I mean look at these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Peter_Jackson_(boxer,_born_1877) He wasn't even one of the best fighters. Just look at a young Jack Johnson or Barbados Joe Walcott. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados_Joe_Walcott

Anyone who thinks that past boxers didn't know how to train to the pinnacle of excellence needs to get a look at Battling Siki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battling_Siki And it's not just those couple I mentioned. I combed through hundreds of those old photos and there are guys who have modern boxer's physiques as far back as the 1850s. I even put together pictures of the ten best boxers from each decade going back to the 1890s and mostly they look like modern day fighters. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f6/d7/e9/f6d7e9961e234ece20fbf838604fbaed.jpg

 

After watching Hagler vs. Leonard in Hi-Def on ESPN2 last weekend it struck me that SRL - who is no middleweight, very much a natural welter (although he did technically hold a title as high as light heavy, thanks largely to imposing his A-side status on LaLonde to get him to agree to a ridiculous two-division catchweight bout) ...namely that exact version of SRL, old & rusty, six years removed from his prime - would very likely thrash every active middleweight today. And I don't consider today's middleweight scene particularly weak, either. They'd just be hot butter through which SRL would go like a Ginsu. Skills have eroded, drastically, in boxing worldwide but especially in the United States, and just within the span of my lifetime (I'm 35).

 

On the other hand, you're looking at Ray Leonard. He was the best fighter of his decade. It's not fair to take the temperature of any decade by it's greatest star. There was only one Sugar Ray Robinson in the 1940s. It's better to gauge an era by the top 10 elite fighters. Just a year or two ago we had Joshua at heavy, Usyk at cruiser, Kovalev at light heavy, Ward at super middle, Golovkin at middleweight, Canelo at JMW, Floyd at welter, Crawford at lightweight, Lomachenko at Featherweight, Rigondeaux at Bantam, Gonzalez at Fly. That's about as good as it ever gets. When you get in your time machine and take a snapshot of an era, in any given year, there are hot and cold divisions, stars and filler. Sometimes there are no elites in a division. Other times it's a golden age and the division is packed, but the one just below or above is a graveyard.

Sure the 1980s welterweight roster is Leonard, Hearns, Duran, Cuevas, and Benitez, but JMW is a ghost town and middleweight is just Hagler.

 

The real trick is when you look at not only the very best in a division at a particular time, but the 2nd and 3rd best. Benitez couldn't best Leonard or Hagler but was an ATG himself and would certainly rule today's Welterweight division. Same with Gavilan and Basilio who were bested by Robinson, or even the likes of Trinidad, Fernando Vargas and Ike Quartey who weren't even from that long ago. It's not true for every division in every past era of course, but there are a lot of examples of past depth looking much stronger.

 

Yes, you are correct, I don't accept them. They are not accurate analogies for the reasons I explained at length. Try again.

 

Stupid much? Honestly, this post is extended idiotic bull shot from a hopeless moron and it's not worth responding to you further. My prior points entirely answer each feeble attempt at a point you make, but I'm at peace with your inability to perceive or understand that. Have fun in your life of stupidity, you clearly have ample company.

 

You go round and round, but you simply lack the intellectual firepower to actually address any of my points. It's funny, I'm reading a book how the American medical community refused to accept clear data points and logic regarding Joseph Listers principles of the advisability of antiseptic methods of surgery in the 1800s. The medical community made the most innane distinctions imaginable to try to justify their conceptions, and why the data Lister showed them wouldn't apply. Logic stared them in the face but they were too stupid and or set in their ways and biased to come to grips with it.

You show the exact same inability to perceive or understand logic when it comes against your preconceived notions. I'm not going to write a tome in response to you. Frankly, there is absolutely nothing in what you say that I haven't already completely addressed and shot down. Boxing is a world sport now, more people are in the world, in boxing, and a much greater talent pool has access to the sport. That talent pool shows itself in virtually every sport with tangible, traceable records (IE not sports where you are competing against other people, whose own performance can improve). And it manifests itself in the increased size among both HWs and most sports that have tangible records broken. You, and others, won't accept this because you CANT. You lack the intellectual depth and honesty needed to do so. I feel sorry for you.

 

Lol! How old are you, darlin’? 12? 13? Seriously, lighten up Francis - this too shall pass. FWIW, you represent what’s wrong the internet and democracy. Good luck on your journey.

 

This bull**** shield you're trying to use is laughably transparent. I just dissected each of your arguments with numerous counter-arguments, pointed out logical inconsistencies, and put forth my own points, all of which you've ignored to hide behind generic vague insults and some tangential bull**** to keep the facade going.

I just disputed your numerous inconsequential points and substituted my own more coherent and logical counter-argument, which you are choosing to ignore because you can't contest them with any credibility. "Ha, I'm reading this book where one time these people were dumb, that's you, I'm not going to defend the arguments you just dismantled though, cuz you're stupider than me har har". Stop embarrassing yourself.

That's right, save your energy and totally refuse to engage the pin-pointed, efficient counter-arguments I made while making the same logical fallacies analogizing to other sports while refusing to look at boxing's more variable components. It will save me some time and you further embarrassment. The number of times you've had to rely on vague insults to save face is pathetic. Go home.

 

When the PEDs got better.

 

The only thing transparent is your brain. Your stupidity just knows no bounds. You dissected absolutely nothing. You make pathetic attempts to distinguish that have no logical basis. I've refuted your repeated nonpoints ad nauseum and again in this and the last post. You can say " na na, boxing is completely different from other sports" in the same way someone can say that sprinting is completely different from swimming. Or 19th century idiots say America was different from Europe as to why antispetic theory was inapplicable. The point is, you have absolutely no logical leg to stand on. And you are too stupid and intellectually dishonest to admit it.

 

Yes, because we need less logic and intelligence on the internet and democracy and more blithering idiots who yell "fake news" and refuse to listen to reason like you. Good luck in your mindless meandering through life.

 

Tell you what, since you are too stupid to understand I refuted your specific points by general ones in my first response to this post, I'll make this a little easier for you and refute them specifically for you one more time. Answers are in caps above.

 

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Why did you bother making the same illogical arguments? This has nothing to do with you being too supremely intelligent for anyone to understand-your arguments don't make sense.

Firstly, I argued that boxing has many variables, more variables than the sports which depend on a purely athletic ability with far less technical, strategic, and man-to-man competitive elements. You haven't refuted that, just called it incoherent without any reason why.

You say size is the most important factor in boxing and fail to address the reality that weight classes take it out of the equation for all divisions but Heavyweight, and then fail to address arguments about skill. Posters have made repeated arguments about skill, and all you do is hide behind the argument that skills aren't observable or provable, despite the fact that just like any sport, a general consensus can be formed by the magical act of using one's functional eyes.

Which makes your next point even more laughable. You're desperate to say boxing can only have improved because Heavyweights got bigger and other dissimilar sports progressed a similar way (a correlation, not causation, again), then say that boxing isn't measurable by any distance. You'd think if boxing can't be measured at all by human perception that you would have shut the hell up already.

And then you repeat the correlative argument. Javelin got better so boxing MUST HAVE because it is also a sport. Sprinters broke records, therefore boxers MUST have increased in quality. Forget skill, ring generalship, versatility, it doesn't matter, they got bigger.

And let's not forget the fact that you made ridiculous claims-such as that the jab has never been used more effectively in the Heavyweight division, and then refused to substantiate them when I named specific fighter comparisons who refute that.

Stop hiding behind vague insults, stop making correlations that don't correspond to boxing's particular elements, and explain to me why Keith Thurman would beat Sugar Ray Leonard, why Jorge Linares would beat Esteban De Jesus, and why Deontay Wilder would beat George Foreman & Mike Tyson. Explain how size difference and the fact a javelin thrower can throw farther now than they could 50 years ago somehow makes the fundamental skills of boxing a necessarily improving or otherwise irrelevant factor. (I know you won't, but I want that to be clear when you backtrack and say you're hand holding when all you're doing is failing to make an argument.)

Oh look, you've numbered your arguments. You should have done this in the first place.

A. A general consensus can be formed by analyzing footage. The general consensus is that the majority of champions in contenders were more skilled in past decades. I'll repeat the argument you failed to refute:

We can disagree because it is less easily quantifiable, but the structure of boxing lends itself to recognizing greatness. It's why champions exist and a general consensus exists on the greatness of some fighters. Nobody will rank Amir Khan over Muhammad Ali. Nobody would rank Paulie Malignaggi over Floyd Mayweather. Why? Because there is a competitive structure in place, a pyramid of talent that boxers climb, and when they reach high peaks multiple times, demonstrating observable skills such as punch arsenal, defense, ring generalship, we can gauge those achievements in an athletic sense. It's the same for an individual in a team sport.

Is it more subjective than other sports? Sure. But that's precisely why it's not like other sports, where the objective is simpler and the skill-set is less varied, being prone to less technical error and greater gains due to physical improvement.

B. History has shown that it's not irrelevant enough for you to make categorical generalizations about. Otherwise Wlad wouldn't have lost to Sanders, Valuev wouldn't have lost to Haye, Tyson wouldn't have beaten Holmes, on and on. A Great little man can beat a good big man.

And even if you could successfully make that argument, it would only be relevant to heavyweight.

Again you completely ignore the argument that a larger talent pool necessarily means a better one. Better athletes that could have been suited for boxing have much greater opportunities and incentives to participate in other safer, more reliable, more inclusive, and more structured sports. More people overall doesn't necessarily translate into the best of them participating in boxing. Teddy Atlas and other writers/experts have observed the same phenomenon in traditionally strong boxing nations.

Let me explain, yet again, why the Javelin throwing argument doesn't work.

1. Because the shifts are not as dramatic. As popular as javelin throwing may have been in the past, it was NEVER comparable to the popularity of boxing, and so any decline in popularity is slight and can be compensated for by increased strength & conditioning and other training methods developed over time. Boxing went from a mainstream sport widely available to a niche sport available on select networks totally excluded from mainstream exposure. There is absolutely no way a sane person could argue that attracting talent isn't correlated to the promotion of a sport and the likelihood of financial reward, especially with a sport as punishing as boxing. The risk analysis done by children and parents asks more than simply what sport the child could be good at. What sport they like, what sport gives the best rewards, which sport is safest, and which sport among several the child may be good at all matter. Boxing is looked at as inferior in many of those areas.

2. The javelin throw is a single motion done by a single person. It's essentially the same as a lift or a jump or any other singular athletic feat that requires no strategic component, no direct contact, and no varied skill-set. It is much easier to take one technically simple act and improve it with techniques that maximize a specific type of excursion, but boxing is much more varied than that. These elements, the fundamentals of boxing, are critical to success.

3. Correlation is not causation. You cannot prove a sport has improved by showing other sports have improved. This is a trend that you could use as a hypothesis for a research paper, but then you'd have to go through the task of, you know....actually proving it. Which you haven't done. You've stopped at having a theory and utterly failed at convincing anyone that you have a legitimate reason to believe that the quality of boxers has improved into the modern era.

Try proving your argument if you bother replying.