Do you think technique evolves?

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I would actually say the reverse is true.
Technique evolvement seemed to have reached its peak in the eighties, and has been in steady decline ever since. Despite superficial improvements in diet, to much emphasis is placed on weight training, hence them usually being gassed by the end of only twelve rounds.
Even with multiple camera angles, they can appear quite static on film. There is very little head or upper body novement, and the jab seems to be an increasingly distant memory.

 

Of course it doesn’t.

I’m not sure why anybody would believe otherwise.

It’s just that we have different styles, with many different divisions.

 

Nobody is disputing that it hasn’t evolved.

But you have said that it continues to evolve with each generation.

That is a different argument/debate altogether.

For example, a knowledgeable fan who’s been watching the sport for decades, isn’t going to believe that in general, all of today’s fighters have better technique than the fighters from the 80’s and 90’s, from 30-40 years ago.

Who would believe that.

 

It doesn’t evolve with each generation.

 

What are you talking about?

No, they don’t.

And anybody can single out a couple of names.

For his theory to hold true, it would have to be generally noticeable across all divisions.

Technique has evolved.

But it doesn’t keep evolving.

There’s many fighters of decades ago who were far more skilled than many of today’s fighters.

How can it keep evolving?

What, a guy who throws a left hook in 2024, executes it better than any fighter who came before him?

There are only so many techniques to master.

Then it comes down to the style in which the fighter fights, and the division that he fights in.

It’s not a generational thing.

The best fighters in each division today, aren’t better than the best fighters of the 90’s as a whole.

Go and see for yourself.

Go and compare the fighters.

There’s been no evolvement in technique for decades.

 

Nice sarcasm.

But back in the real world, we know that not every fighter today studies older guys of the past, just because the footage is available, just like not every fighter takes advantage of today’s era of sport’s science, even though it’s available to them.

Fighters are influenced and moulded by the trainers who they use, in the environment that they find themselves in.


Now there’s plenty of great modern day fighters, who have wonderful technical skills. But the techniques don’t continually evolve with each generation, to the point where a fan can say “Yeah, those guys of the 80’s and 90’s were great, but they’re obviously no match for today’s best fighters here in 2024”

You’d have to be a moron to believe that.

In the late 80’s-early 90’s, we had Mike McCallum, Micheal Nunn, James Toney, Sumbu Kalambay and Bernard Hopkins etc, at MW.

So who today at MW, over 30 years later, has superior technical skills?

Nobody.


We have these ridiculous evolvement debates every few months here.

And the theories can be torn down in mere seconds just by applying some common sense.


Now If the techniques and the skills kept getting better with each generation, then the most modern fighters would be the best fighters in history.

It would mean that the MW’s of today would clearly be head and shoulders above any other generation of MW’s.

It would mean that the HW’s of today would clearly be head and shoulders above any other generation of HW’s.

And the same would apply to each and ever weight class.

Yet, any knowledgeable fans knows that this is not the case.

Therefore, the theory can’t be correct.


There’s great fighters of today, and there’s been great fighters of the past.

But skills and technique don’t keep evolving with each newer generation.

But if you or anybody else thinks otherwise, then you can try and explain why there’s a huge number of divisions today, that aren’t as strong as what they were decades ago, both in terms of talent and depth.

 

Name me a single heavyweight throughout history more skilled then Usyk. There isn't any. Put the top fighters of today in any era of the past and they would still be top fighters. Put top fighters of the past in today's era and some of them might still be top but plenty wouldn't be. Sport has improved as all sports do over time.

 

an opinion.

You can't directly measure the eras. While I think boxing is in a crappy state right now overall, the state of the sport ebbs and flows. It will be stronger again.

However, the old techniques can be studied and incorporated where they are superior. In many cases they have. Fact is that theoretically modern boxing encompasses all the best techniques since the inception of boxing, and builds on them to boot. Of course the technique evolves. Just because the improvements are less and less noticable, doesn't mean that they are not there.

 

Yes, I'd agree that the Heavyweight division, anyway, has improved overall through the years, at least until the 90s. I believe Seamus pointed out on another thread, correctly IMO, that the 90s, not the 70s, was the Golden Era for Heavyweights. Aside from guys like Povetkin, the Klitschkos, Ibragimov, AJ, Usyk and maybe a couple others, it seems like the Heavyweights have hit a lull for the past couple of decades are far as the depth of the division goes. But, to your point, I suspect that the top 15 fighters from the 90s may come close to completely supplanting the top 15 from the 30s (minus Louis) if you were to send them back in time.

 

Exactly besides Louis rest of the Heavyweights in 30s were quite archaic. And I think Heavyweights is looking quite good rn it seems the lull has passed and we're in a new great era with plenty of top fighters fighting each other and new comers rising up the ranks.

 

For most of boxing history it was a few decent big men and a load of shitty ones. It’s the same thing now, but the amount of few decent ones has grown exponentially. Then again, you can sometimes find weird instances like where 6’7 Bill Tate looks decent, even though his record was like 20-41.

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I always appreciate your posts, Grey - I wish you’d post more. Deep, but practical insight, and written in a way that’s easy to read and understand. Like I said, I wish you’d post more, but I’ll take what I can get.

 

Are they stronger and do they hit harder though?

The only noticeable difference is obviously due to the change in the weigh-ins.

So the WW’s today are bigger than the WW’s of the past. But not due to the evolution of man, just through rule changes.

A WW today would have been a JMW-MW back in the days of the old WW’s, who had to weigh-in on the same day.

But if you compensated for that, then there’s not much difference.

I’ve watched the sport for decades. And I couldn’t say that today’s guys are noticeably stronger, where they hit harder.

 

An absolute pleasure to read.

 

The sport has clearly evolved. But if you’ve been watching the sport for decades like I have, it doesn’t evolve in a continuous cycle.

Dorrian is claiming that each generation gets better.

Well, it doesn’t. Because if it did, then that would mean that today’s generation would be head and shoulders above everyone who came before them. But that is clearly not the case.

Today’s fighters aren’t the best fighters of all time, across all weight classes.