Boxing & Horse Racing vs the other sports

Skill level plays a huge role in boxing, unlike other sports that rely alot on physical attributes. Don't get me wrong boxing requires the right physical attributes but the emphasis on skill is there because the weight divisions separate the fighters who's physiology is much different.

 

Well Football (or soccer as you might call it) is also a sport where I would say most fans agree that past players were better than their present counterparts.

 

Well I'm taking about the great players of the past:

Pele, Maradona, Cruyff, Platini, Best, Eusebio, Beckenbauer, Puskas etc.

In general a better bunch of players talent wise than today. I mean who apart from Zidane really matches the greats of old?

 

Fair point, but I was comparing at the creme de la creme of present and past. I may have missed or misinterpreted the general gist of the thread question.

 

I think it's a question of change. Like boxing, football is a very different sport from what it was 30 years ago, and certainly 50 years ago. Back in the 1950s, heading was rare (because the ball was very hard), tackling was rougher, goalkeepers were built like rugby players (because they could be pushed over the line) and the game was much more physical.

The modern style means that football players are more technical and faster, but also much more frail and weak. Put a modern footballer in the 1950s and he'd never make it through a whole game, because their constitutions are so weak. Put a 1950s footballer in a modern setting and he'd look much slower and less technically adept.

It's the same thing with boxing. Wladimir Klitschko would get roughed up and/or run out of gas in a boxing match 100 years ago. James J. Jefferies would be just getting warmed up by the time the 12th round ended today, and would likely get multiple points taken off for dirty tactics (and probably knock out the ref in frustration due to the clinches being broken up so quickly).

Sports evolve, but as with evolution, it's not a progressive process, it's an adaptive process. That's why "highly evolved" is a bit of a misonomer, since it applies a linear process that doesn't exist. Modern humans are weaker, frailer and less fit than humans of the ice age and before. Sharks and crocodiles are similarly smaller and weaker than their ancestors, because requiring less food is evolutionarily advantageous for them.

The same goes for sport. Heavyweights today are bigger because it's more useful to be bigger. Being 6"8 and 250 lbs would be a massive disadvantage in a 15 round or more fight, because a boxer of that size would have difficulty putting up a good pace for that long. It takes a dedicated gym-rat like Lewis or the Klitschko brothers to be able to fight a good pace over just 12 rounds at that size, and even then all the big heavyweights have had their stamina questioned at times.

Sports technique also changes along with equipment. The style of American football in the 1940s I'm sure was very different, since they didn't have the protection of helmets and armour. The same is true for boxing. You couldn't get away by throwing punches like Joe Calzaghe did in the age of small gloves and little to no wrist protection (depending on when we're talking about). Calzaghe is barely a functional athlete with that technique today; if he tries it in the 1910s, he'd never make it to the final bell. The same goes for similar "bad" punchers like Ali, who'd have hand injuries in every fight unless he adapted his technique. Punchers of the past did not primarily use straight punches JUST because they land more quickly!

Changes in the financial situation of boxers have forced adaptations as well. No longer does the average Joe Boxer have to fight 12-40 bouts a year. A prospect like Amir Khan or Alexander Povetkin can afford to be more adventurous and put more into every fight as they rise up the ranks, while old-timers almost always had to fight conservatively in their early bouts so that they'd still be 100% in a fortnight's time.

At the top level, the reverse has occured for heavyweights: modern heavyweight champions like Lennox Lewis or Evander Holyfield fought far more actively than some old-timers like James J. Jefferies or Jack Dempsey, because the former's primary source of income is as boxers rather than as celebrities. While the stage and film were the best sources of income for many past heavyweight champions, even an articulate all-American white belt-holder like Tommy Morrison was able to make more out of boxing than the cinema. This has changed the expectations of heavyweight champions- can you imagine the outcry if Holyfield took 1998-2001 off from boxing, with no defenses, and instead starred in films or pursued a musical career (as a modern equivalent of the stage)?

The American philosopher John Dewey argued that thought (and therefore life) was a constant process of the individual adapting to his environment. The same is true for sportsmen and sports technique. Boxers today are no more "better" or "worse" than a modern eagle is in comparison to its repitilian ancestors. Adaptation is necessarily relative: you can say Wladimir Klitschko is better adapted to modern boxing than Marcus Rhode, but you cannot say that he is a better boxer than James J. Jefferies, because boxing has changed. Equally, it is not rational to say that just because Jermain Taylor would be unfit for boxing in the turn of the century, it follows he is a bad boxer.

Nostalgia aside, I think it's ridiculous to have this sense of "progress" rather than "adaptation" in boxing. Scientific knowledge progresses over history. Politics (arguably) progresses over history. The accumulation of facts progresses over history. Sports adapt over history to changing conditions. Whether one finds boxing from the 1920s more exciting to watch than boxing today is certainly a reasonable topic for discussion, but a very different one.

 

And less strength/toughness; after all, modern players get injured often enough in the low-contact sport that football has become. Michael Owen has to be practically wrapped in bubble-wrapper between games. David Beckham would probably get an injured knee during the national anthem if he was playing in the 1960s. Peter Schmichel, one of the greatest modern goalkeepers, would have a joke of a record if forwards were able to push him around.

"A good save by Peter Schmichel there."

"And it's in! Poor strength and reflexes on the part of Schmichel there; he was practically thrust into the back of the net. Obviously he's a far lesser player than we were led to believe by the future experts."

~~~

"This is some very impressive footwork by the Portugeseman here. The young Ronaldo is showing... And he's been tackled well by Stanley Matthews! An excellent tackle, but they're getting the stretcher out. And the Portugueseman is off, surprisingly considering the softness of the tackle. The fans are somewhat shocked at this young chap's poor constitution. This is a classic sign of poor nourishment: his diet in the run up to this game was clearly deficient in beer."

 

Great post.

 

Soccer players of the past knew little about team play besides not being so athletic, why Pele, Maradona and others stood out so much (even the most effective individual player can be neutralized by good team play of the opponents). Also, one of the signs of soccer being more and more dependant on athletism and speed, is the much higher frequency of death accidents where players couldn't withstand heavy duty of training sessions and official matches, and died of heart attacks.

 

"Poor chap! David Beckham is out cold! He tried a courageous header, but it was quite foolhardy, and the young fellow is being carried off, reducing the future England side's number to just four valiant players, two of whom are staggering like drunks from their over-exuberant use of the head."