Different Fighters Different Era's: No Comparison

I find it hard to understand how different fighters from different eras can ever be compared. The reason is for two primary reasons: 1) Head to Head they should never be compared because the level of conditioning has improved vastly over time. 2) This era is all about PPV and building a fighter to this level and then they tend to fight once/twice a year.

Therefore many good champions currently, if they were imported back in time with their sheer athleticism could dominate the sport. If you put a guy like Naseem Hamed into a 1930s featherweight division I see him beating so many opponents just like other Featherweight greats. But thats not to say he's better than a Pep or a Sandy Sandler, its just people now a days have much better strength, speed etc. If you don't believe me, look at different fighters body and you can see marked differences in their bodies.

Willie Pep and Saddler

1) http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/images/angott-sammy-44.jpg
2) http://www.sports-photos.com/catalog/images/SandySaddlerBW.tif.jpg

Compare with Floyd and Pacman

1) http://b2bcmo.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/floyd-mayweather-jr11.jpg
2) http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/files/2009/10/manny_pacquiao1.jpg

Old time guys never had more than a month or so between each fight and therefore guys in that era in order to be successful needed to rely on skills, intelligence, and resilience a lot more than today. As a result there core strength and speed would be far inferior to a fighter who has spent 8-10 weeks in camp working on all that different parts of their game.

Therefore I think in Head to Head terms the two should never be compared.

To compare achievements is also a trivial task because now a days there are 4 belts in each division meaning that a lot of championship fights now, are not really that significant, in historic terms. People also criticize fighters for ducking each other but the reality is all fighters throughout history have choose fights which present the low risk/ high reward. In the older era this was done by ensuring fighters fought often against weak competition and then every now and then having a big fight. In the modern era this is done by having two PPV fights, where every other fight has usually got to be competitive or PPV sales will drop. Different era, different strategy employed in making money, but the objective of low risk/high reward is a constant.

It's also important to note that if one of the old time legends had 6 months to prepare for one fight their advantages may now disappear. For example fighters back then had tougth training schedules which consisted in a lot of sparring and a lot of running w/ speed bag and heavy bag. Now if you have a fight in a few days you will simply not have enough time to dramatically increase your stamina for example. Therefore many old time greats were known for having great stamina etc, such as Pep, Arhcie Moore etc. Now if you place them in todays scene, boxers (elite) all have very good stamina levels because they have camps of 8-9 weeks long which involves running 3-4 miles each morning. So therefore lots of the advantages such as Stamina that these old fighters had would simply be equalised, taking away their strongest weapons.

In conclusion, each era requires very similar skills because ultimately boxing is boxing. In the past heart, resilience and stamina were all at the forefront of great fighters. Now it seems that stamina is a given for a great fighter but athleticism is the key ingredient (Mayweather, Pacquiao, Jones Jnr). There are always exceptions in each era (Hopkins great fighter but not the best athletically) and similarly Sugar Ray Robinson ( Great Athletically).



All a fighter can do is be the best of his era. Nothing else Nothing more.

 

Killer Instinct...cheers your spot on

 

Hi McGrain - thanks for responding in a way which I can actually respond with rational arguments. Thanks. Not many people argue like you anymore.

1)Well in regards to your first bit about the jab...I never said you could not compare their skills or their technique and I agree with you we should.

2)In regards to the head-to-head bit I agree that older fighters had much more nuance for the finer parts of the sport, but it is my opinion that only when fighters have at least comparable athletic capabilities will skills and other stuff come into it.

For example Marciano's heart etc would not even come into play if he fought a cruiser weight Holyfield as the conditioning is uncomparable and would allow Holyfield beat him with atheletic alone. Willie Pep would be unable to compete with Gamboa now because he would simply be too slow and not powerful enough and therefore all his skills would be irrelevant.

My analogy: I see it like a fight between a 16 year old who has the skills of Floyd Mayweather vs a guy with good skills (ODH) but who is in his physical prime.

But that is not to say that the old school fighters could not win, its just that in most instance where there is huge physical disparities, skills and experience play little role. Hence the need for weight classes.

3) In regards to the pictures, I did this to show muscle mass in fighters has improved since improved living conditions and increased scientific knowledge. I'm not saying who is more defined or more ripped is better. But what I am saying is that Pacman, Floyd, Tim Bradley, Amir Khan all have a base level of athletic ability which is far superior to older fighters. So in this era for example great fighter all have let's say 80/100 stamina and 80/100 strength. Therefore the differentiating factor in most fights is still skills. Similarly back in the day fighters would have a lower base level of athletics let's say 60/100 therefore only those with exceptional skills could compete with today's fighter.

4) Also your example of Sam Peter is a really poor one. I choose Floyd and Pacman because they are two of the greatest superfeather/featherweight of the era. And I compared that with Pep Saddler who were also the two greatest featherweights.

5) Why did you compare Sweet Pea who is a natural 135 pounder with Langford who had the frame to go up to 185 etc. It's like comparing Tyson with Chad Dawson...just because Tyson is smaller does not mean he can not go up in weight.

6) In regards to the last bit neither of us can say...fighting bums on a fortnightly basis is actually a poor way to train compared sparring top quality fighters and training on speed bag, running etc. But then this argument could be turned around if sparring is with poor fighter etc.

 

Mcgrain in regards to your second post, I agree with most of what you said...I probably did not phrase myself clearly enough to get this across