Bob Arum: "Tyson Fury would beat Mike Tyson"

Yh, and THAT Cunningham was also an ancient old man by cruiser-weight standards, where he shouldn't have even been boxing but still managed a knockdown on Fury and schooled him until Fury decided to impose his size. If Fury was a prospect, Cunningham himself was ancient, so that evens out.

Furthermore, Fury still struggles the same as ever against smaller opponents and he himself admitted it. Today's Fury could not beat Wallin in a boxing match and instead needed to become a weight-bully to turn the fight around. This has not changed. Fury has not evolved as much as you think he has, at least not against a certain TYPE of opponent.

So you're also guilty of using FLAWED LOGIC in favor of Fury, when you claim there's so much flawed logic used against Fury.

 

Fair enough, but I am saying that you are saying not that everyone is delusional, but every single one of the many-& it can easily be most in many cases-of people who believe much smaller specific fighters such as Mike Tyson beating a Tyson Fury is lying.
That is an extreme & untenable assumption-without even the empirical evidence you rightly say can be misleading.

You make an extreme conclusion about gambling too.
If you claimed that some folks who gamble follow wishful thinking, not their deeper or true beliefs, fair enough.
But it is not at all likely that, most, let alone everyone, who votes with their money on the "wrong" side must be doing it for emotional reasons.

Much more consistent with Occam's razor would be that most who bet, especially more serious amounts, or doing it with their heads.
That is however sensible you find their wagers, they really believe that they are likely to win.
Most do act in their perceived self-interest, whatever other limitations might apply to the assessments!

 

Some are delusional, some are ignorant, some are lying. I suspect most on boxing forums are lying, though delusion can take the form of lying to oneself. I have no evidence because there is no evidence either way (without lie detector tests). I follow my intuition instead that most boxing fans, informed by the the Anglosphere media, are typically biased against modern fighters when in reality sports have universally seen elevated standards over the generations. Those who make claims like Mike Tyson would beat Tyson Fury are not betting; nothing is lost for discussing absurd hypotheticals. I've seen a poll from about 5 years ago where most voters claimed that Dave Allen would beat Ortiz coming off the Malik Scott fight. Virtually none of the voters actually believed it; they just like to fantasise about Ortiz getting battered and KO'd by a "bum". When people bet their emotions often get the better of them; they visualise something happening in their minds (like Tyson KO'ing Fury) and because they can imagine it, it seems plausible and it's very appealing to them. They convince themselves that their desires are really their rationality, so that what they want to happen will happen. If this was not the case and most gamblers were cool-headed logicians, the vast majority would not be losers. A large percentage keep going even though they know they have lost more than they've won because they are addicted to the buzz of betting in itself. I don't think it's a good parallel with having a gun to your head and the trigger being pulled if you got it wrong.

My initial claim was too strong: there are some people who genuinely believe that Mike Tyson would beat Tyson Fury. What I'm saying is that the actual percentage is much smaller than what is claimed. Furthermore, if their lives depended on it they would think very long and hard about the answer, without so much emotion or BS. After seeing the face-off (never mind the press conferences) the vast majority of the picks would be for Fury. But if there is zero cost to spouting emotionally gratifying opinions on a boxing forum, so naturally many people will say things that they don't really believe.

 

The size difference alone would surely be too great, Mike wasn't even 6ft and Fury dwarfs opponents of 6"3.

 

Well you make a very good scaled down claim/case!
Although the folks who convince themselves of something...No cause to believe that a terminal threat would change that-it might solidify the belief.
Also the house is favored in gambling, most would be losers anyway overall, although if relentlessly logical they would not gamble so much!
Granted the face off would change some minds.

Although I do not buy that it is at all a forgone conclusion that Fury wins.
Yes sports progress-but especially within a few decades there are outliers on all sides.
Also take something like sprinting for example. Much more a single physical capacity & increased scientific efficiency-boxing has other factors not directly tied to athleticism, toughness, fighting more often & experience helps so that if modern fighters had to do this now they would suffer. Just like pitchers throw so much less so although better overall, the gap would narrow or more if guys had to start often & pitch complete games-old fashioned work & habits sometimes maximized efficiency.

Back to sprinting. If you look at the progression of world records you will see steady improvement.
Men reached 10.3 seconds & 10 seconds flat at the start of the 1930's & 1960's respectively.
Now it is 10.58: but it has not changed since 2008, & nobody else is within 1/10th of a second of the phenomenon Usian Bolt.

However let us take a more granular look & see if the mere numbers are deceptive: even for something less complex & likely to be equalized much less than a combat sport where psychology, toughness, will, & quirks of style & strategy are not as easily (or at all) accounted for as the science of training & refining a very specific fast twitch muscle fiber talent & developing a well defined technique.

To be skeptical of "my" side, I acknowledge that hand held timing often was a little faster.
However when we look at whether records were stunted or times became more difficult to break when it became more common & then mandatory in 1977-we do not find that correlation.

On the other hand we KNOW that tracks have gotten significantly faster.
Equipment, mostly shoes & starting blocks, have progressed.
When guys try to run under more ancient conditions, they lose a good deal of speed.
These factors are *different* than greater science & training-where we can say that yes those advantages made athletes better, but the records accurately reflected their superiority when those opportunities arose.

But what part of "progress" is illusory: that is, if you & I raced-or a perfect model of each of us exerted the exact same effort, but one of us had better sneakers/spikes/tracks...
Whichever model had the better equipment, down to bathing suits in swimming, would look *better* than they are relative to the other guy merely because their tools made them able to go faster. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_metres[/url]

Bob Hayes anchor leg in the Tokyo Olympics, unaided by altitude or wind, is still among the fastest ever run. Some say it is #1.
In inferior conditions. His lane for the 100 meter final was chewed up by race walkers & fooling around wrestling Joe Frazier of all people meant a shoe was lost; he had to use borrowed shoes (for the relay too I believe).

Then there are drugs. Illegal, performance enhancing drugs.
I believe it is still a fact that the top 10 performers in this event all tested positive for a PED sometimes. Except for Bolt.
Who either is a huge outlier in ability (quite possible given his unusual proportions) or never got caught.

But PEDs are like better equipment & conditions: if unlike advances in training technology they change capacities illiegally: you are not seeing the actual true athlete's precise abilities or legal accomplishments.

So then: IF all athletes in this event always competed under the same environmental/equipment conditions, AND all were clean (much more common before the last 50 some years)...

Even in a sport & event where a simple trainable talent rules the day, how much LESS would the world record have changed over time?
I would say it is a significant amount.
And if Bullet Bob Hayes (& Jim Hines, also from the 1960's, also likely always clean) had the same modern conditions as the best sprinters ever...AND nobody ever drugged up...
They may have been not only competitive with, but maybe better than ANYONE later-with the very possible exception of Usain Bolt.

Can we really KNOW if the fraction of a second between them & everyone else is perhaps ONLY due to better equipment, tracks, shoes, starting blocks, & PEDs?
Even with NO more modern training, if magically reincarnated even WITHOUT being given any PEDs, running on & in much better surfaces, the gap would close very significantly!
We know that just observing relative times under all conditions.

And for something I researched a bit obsessively a while back...
I submit that Hayes' 100 meter relay anchor leg would clearly be the best *ever* run under neutral conditions.
Not even considering if the athletes were juiced.
Because it could be the best ever run under ANY conditions.

Thanks for your patience.
I am illustrating how the amount, or sometimes even the presence, of advancement of achievement can be false, illusory, or at least exaggerated by other factors, despite having seemingly had, but in reality context-dependent, "hard" numbers.

 

Hmm, Arum's making the same arguments I have nearly word for word. Not sure what to think now
Arum is spot on