Does anybody employ the "advances in sports" argument consistently?

Damn, if someone said they had sparred with Foreman, Tua and Wlad i would never had picked Wlad as the person they said hit them the hardest, but i guess that should be expected with the much older, slower Foreman. Still, damn

 

they do say its the punch you dont see that hurts the most, and from the story it sounds like wlad just caught him when he wasnt looking.

im sure if each of them punched him when he was expecting it, wlads would not be the hardest.

 

I thought that too considering he said that he and Wlad were "swapping jabs" while Foreman's jabs were "nosebreakers". Also from what i heard old Foreman didnt go all out in sparring but im not sure about Wlad. Then again, he obviously has sparred with Foreman and Wlad on more than one occasion so he'd be in a better position to say who hit harder. I can definitely see Wlad's punches being more crisp while Foreman being thudding clubs which would make Wlad's punches seem harder.

 

When George hit me with his jab, I'd check my face a lot for nosebleeds and the like. Big George could hit ya and your face would just come apart. Thats what is most memorable about my sparring sessions with him. He just wasn't that intimidating as a technician. Big, powerful man, but I always got my licks in, and I got the better of enough rounds to feel prideful. I'd just usually have a blackeye or a headache afterwards.

Wlad just kicked the **** out of me. I could never time his jab or his right hand, he'd hook off his jab over my own hook and that never felt good, and that right hand is absolute dynamite. He hit me with a hook right hand out of a clinch situation that I didn't even feel, but my body went to jelly and I had to take a rest. It was absolutely intimidating; He regularly has to pull his punches in sparring because partners can't handle the heat.

Knocked me down with a left hook the other time, took my headgear half off and made my left leg go numb. I was just utterly concussed.

I need a drink after writing this post. I'm gonna be dumb as a rock in another ten years.

 

:rofl
What about Tua and Lewis? What were their punches like?
(Hope i ain't giving you a headache thinking about all hard shots you've taken)

 

Ya, they hit hard too, man

I'm a large human being. Trying to imagine being a small heavyweight like Chris Byrd and having to square up to these monsters. Nuts.

I just didn't like Lennox when we shared ring time and I really wanted to knock him out. He hit quite stoutly, beat me soundly, hit me with plenty hard shots, but I remember mostly just trying to stone his head off in retaliation. SO frustrated to get schooled on the road. I was a better fighter than I showed. Just executed in completely unprofessional fashion and got soundly beaten.

In sparring, Lennox was more measured. I remember some hard body shots, and I got a pretty bad cut lip from an uppercut up sort of close. He was rough and aggressive, though. He beat ya up and made you work, made you real sore. Super friendly, though, I felt like an ass for holding fire toward him. Huge hands...At his best, guy was built like a gorilla. Went by to visit his camp when he was switching gears from Kirk Johnson to Vitali, saw him lifting weights, and just, man. I'm strong, real strong, have never been that strong.

David Tua was probably the worst fighter of the name guys I shared a ring with(Which is no insult, Dave was a stud, Holyfield, Lewis, Wlad, and Big George were just better), but neither him nor I moved our heads so well, so we'd just tee up big shots and slug away. It was no fun at all; He'd cop a big one, and want to give it right back harder. Knocked my gear clean over my eyes, and blasted my mouthguard out regularly. Thank God I have a huge neck. My back hurt real bad after our one big session; I think it was because my spine was swiveling about. Dave can take a shot though. Anybody who eats my best left hand and just wants to hit me with a harder one is a bad, bad dude. I think my best stuff hurt my hands more than bothered him, which is terrifying. I don't do a ton well, but I can put a boy to sleep with a big shot, and Dave was just immune.

 

...And this is just the problem: PED's. It invalidates a lot of the old school vs. new school argument simply because we're not comparing apples to apples any longer.

How many pro athletes use them and to what extent?
I don't have an answer to that, but my common sense tells me that in the professional arena, where one's future and earning capacity are determined by success, that they're used extensively by athletes across a broad spectrum of sports, including boxing.
It's basically a necessary evil these days, and has been for more than 20 years.

I don't doubt that there have been significant advances in sports science over the years, but perhaps, just perhaps, a lot of this advancement has not been down to science so much, as it has been down to chemical enhancement.

Sorry chaps, but we can't ignore the big white elephant in the room.

 

im sure alot of old time boxers use ample amounts of pain killers, smelling salts, amphetamines, ect.

 

Yeah, boxers with hand problems took pain killers so they wouldn't give em trouble in the fight but they're not considered performance enhancing drugs..

I guess the real question is have people got athletically better or have the drugs just got better?

 

well i think pain killers have alot to do with being able to take 20 rounds of punishment as well.

 

Pain killers generally are used for a specific areas and are done by injections, which even the likes of Ali did for his hands tho at the ass end of his career. Pain killers that numb the whole body are very powerful and would seriously impact a boxer's performance so i think that's outta the picture...

 

If you write your memoires, I would buy the book.

 

I will say one thing against 'modern day' techniques and that is it is owner to an outstanding amount of bull**** in its attempt to hypnotise us with fancy words.

Because it has become part of modern lingo, when someone says their athlete makes use of 'advanced isometrics' are we supposed to be awed because someone has encapsulated a branch of exercise which has been performed since day 1?

I have heard every argument from health and fitness buffs and they all fall into the same pit...boxing is a character-based contest, and mechanistic applications like engineered fitness programmes will always be laughed at by the intangible element that every swing brings with it.

And boxing ain't maths. Even if you had two men who had the same mentality but one had a superior fitness regime, that ain't no guarantee that's he's going to win, not a chance.

Problem is the health and fitness geek would swear by it, a boxer would say no.

At best its application for a winning recipe is suspect to say the least.

 

Out of curiosity what weights were these guys throwing up MN?

 

Maybe you should give him a chance to describe how he kicked the **** out of someone like Wimpy Halstead so the memories aren't all one-sided.

I can't imagine getting in the ring with all those monsters. Tough way to make a living.