Do people forget how good older boxers were as we progress farther away, or do they just get cliffed

I think people forget "older boxers" were about 2 divisions down from where they are today. Louis was a big heavy in his day. Nowadays he'd be a average cruiser.

 

People are gonna have nostalgia for what they grew up with, and are gonna hate on what they didn't, it's a pretty common cycle

 

It can go both ways. I know I've had to defend modern fighters in certain conversations and do the same for older fighters in others, it all depends on the people you're talking to. I've been on Discord servers where people think SRR and Duran are ****, and I've seen statements about how Usyk would've gotten plastered by Max Baer, it's just a crazy world we live in.

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Mf really uploaded a file from google drive.
They need to let us upload files from gallery bro

 

It cuts a lot of different ways.

Pretty much people attach themselves to the time they were coming up and getting into boxing. I know it’s true for me and I once had a conversation with Nigel Collins (former editor of The Ring) and he observed that — if you came up during Floyd Patterson’s time, you tend to rate him higher than if you came up more during Ali’s time … if you came up during Louis’ time or Marciano’s time, you tend to rate them higher, etc.

So currently you see a lot of people who came up with 1970s heavyweights like me and a later breed who came up during Tyson’s time who rate him higher/highest. Fewer and fewer 1960s or before fans.

Now, of course new guys come along and can push the oldsters back in ATG ratings — a Roberto Duran comes along and knocks previous lightweights down a notch, a Roy Jr comes along and supplants someone who came before. Maybe Jack Johnson or Dempsey was the greatest heavyweight but most move them down after Joe Louis and later Ali, etc, arrived on the scene.

Some get forgotten. Some have revivals — more people today I think consider Ezzard Charles as a P4P ATG than did during or shortly after his time. That’s how it goes.

 

SRL has repeatedly noted he just had around 40 bouts to the hundreds some of his earlier predecessors had. Sheer weight of competitive experience against a variety of opponents by the time one it prime certainly makes an impact. Also, the best routinely fought the best.

Billy Conn's sensibility also prevailed. "When a fighter's undefeated, there's something wrong." Defeats were a learning experience for standing on to reach higher.

 

A fighters career always looses some context, when the people who were there start to die off.

 

This site is old as ****, I doubt it'll let us ever do that, lol.

 

Do you not know that Louis was below or just above the cruiser weight limit for most of his career?

 

Me personally doing the eye test, I just think that older fighters in the heavyweight divison was better fundamentally.
If you compare Joshua,Usyk and Fury to Evander,Mike,Lennox, none of the former really impress me much.


Joshua, this guy is my favourite atm because he looks like he actually wants to get better and I really like that. But if you watch his fight against Usyk,he really almost looks like one of those guys who is just learning how to box. Before he got KO'ed by Ruiz,he literally could via athleticism,which is what most of these modern guys do. Watching the first Usyk fight, this dude can barely throw proper jabs. he is too robotic and not fluid

Fury to be honest reminds me of a less fundamental Wlad. He basically has athleticism and that's all. Long reach, big size,and the footwork and speed that comes from athletisim.

Usyk imo is not that impressive but is the most technically sound out of all of these. He just looks like someone that actually knows what a jab and left hook is and gets away with a lot because he is a southpaw. The reason for his success is because most of the ones above really have all been relying mostly on athleticism. He has athleticism and a certain degree of fundamentals.

But when I watch Usyk then I watch Evander Holyfield, it just isn't the same. Holyfield out of the 90s crew is the most complete fighter. Great jab, great straight right, awesome stamina , All time high ring IQ at heavyweight, godlike left hook even though no one talks about it,Fluid , great footwork. Very complete fighter, his only downsides is that he isn't a true heavyweight (And he was dirty but still)

For Mike, just watch Mike fight Roy Jones which is his most recent fight then watch whatever Usyk/Joshua/Fury fight. Both Roy and Mike are fundamentally just better than all of them.

Lennox was a fighter that had skill. But his punches were just more fundamentally sound than the current division. He had a better sense of range than these new heavyweights, he was surprisingly evasive and knew how to use his size.

These new heavyweights are just not as fundamentally sound

 

It’s the cycle of life, if you notice one thing when reading about older boxing it’s that every single generations has shat on the proceeding one, and the newer generations pretty much always craps on the older more “primitive” generation.
The same thing will happen to Mayweather, Usyk, Fury, Inoue, etc eventually. It will be wrong, but it will still happen because that’s the way humans are built