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

I'm sometimes thankful I can still write on forums and talk.

At least on my death bed I can tell my kids I came, I saw, and I got hit in the face by a lot of guys whose names you should know. That's pretty cool in my book.

Big George once told me I was like some sort of punchers yearbook; Everybody had signed.

All I've gotta say is, I hope I gave some of them hombres some papercuts.

 

i see it as an exception because these guys don't do the things you see in old film clips of 'primitive' fighters.

I see modern athletic superman huffing and puffing after a couple of rounds.

 

Maybe because they are facing other athletic supermen as their opponents rather than the guy who was working the docks earlier that day.

 

Muscles consume oxygen.

We're stronger today, but we need to make some serious stylistic adjustments. A perfect example is Jean Marc Mormeck in his first fight with O'Neil Bell. I've heard Mormeck's training routine consists of 10% running, 20% boxing, and 70% modern bodybuilding(Weights, weights, weights, plyo's, iso's, and some weights). Looking at his body, I believe it.

Bell, I know firsthand, works out very traditionally. In fact, I would say he boxes more than he does any other training habit.

In the beginning of the fight, Mormeck went for it. He really wanted an early knockout. And Bell had nothing for him. He was brutalized and bulled around the ring. He looked like a boy against a man. Just overpowered.

But, slowly, Mormeck's uneducated, hyper aggressive attack began to exact a toll. This toll was exacerbated by all that muscle, all that strength; The more power and frame he had built, the more body he needed to fuel. When he desperately needed to calm down and collect himself, he couldn't recover. He takes several rounds off, and can't catch his breath. Its around this time I'd imagine his starved muscles begin to seize and cramp. We see he becomes off balance and his hands begin to drop. His body is just toast.

O'Neil gains a foothold, and then ascendancy in the fight. And when Mormeck is to beaten and exhausted to stand, Bell sees him off.

The story of this fight is a perfect example of the strength AND weakness of modern training.

I train with some pretty revolutionary fitness guys, and I'm stronger and faster than I have ever been. Its not even really a contest. But that isn't necessarily the best thing for boxing, because I need to work that much harder on the road(And now, in a pool) or my conditioning falls apart quickly, that great power and explosiveness I worked so hard to develop exhausting my body quickly. I also needed to really focus on getting in the comfort zone when I boxed; Nervousness makes one waste motion and breathe incorrectly, and this exacerbates the issues.

It's pretty basic exercise science. The reason Evander Holyfield's conditioning was great was that he worked 8-10 hour days making sure his body could function, and because he was as relaxed as anybody in the ring.

The older fighters had an easier time with conditioning because they worked harder on their hearts and lungs, because they lived in a less lazy time, and because they simply had less body to fuel.

 

I've reduced my workouts to one simple exercise, the farmer's walk. I carry a 150 lb cast-iron barbell back and forth across a football field. Repeat until born in 1878.

 

If you want to see an MMA example of what he describes here with Mormeck, watch Frank Mir when he was a small heavyweight and then when he bulked up. Mir thinks he needs the size for power in the division but he moves so much slower and it has killed his cardio, he looked horrible against Nogueira in his last fight and then got lucky when Nogueira got greedy.

Going away from size, I feel a part of it is the lack of match activity. Sparring's fine, but to be Allen Iverson for a second, it's practice. Who's going to be the better football team, a team with 3 games under their belt or the same team with 11 games under their belt later in the season? If you only fight twice a year compared to say six times a year, the 6-a-year guy will be better technically (although more beat up). Even if it's just 3 stiffs out of 6 in there, I still feel it's better than sparring because in sparring your opponent will hold back and if he gets a good punch it's just a nod for "good punch" while in a real match you're being actively challenged and a good punch knocks you to the ground.

 

it is weird how the 'classic' scientific boxers knew but today some people still fall for muscle = great, goes against the science progressing argument. obviously it does but that doesn't mean its always listened to/interpreted properly.

 

Modern conditioning is great for most sports....but not for boxing....going on aesthetics anyway.

 

Body building is not good conditioning for boxing.

However, most modern conditioning coaches know better than to follow that path, at least the ones I have followed.

 

Mine do. I feel more formidable in my 40's then I did in my 30's.

 

but it still doesn't explain why they're out of energy and their punch output sucks after the 6th round.

and you still didn't adress the fact they don't exhibit things shown 50 years ago, by primitive fighters.

 

The "advances in sports" argument applies to things like football(soccer) and tennis, where mere athleticism and technology are so critical. It does not apply to boxing at all. Far too many people think that because a guy has a six-pack and drinks Gatorade then he must be superior to those who didn't have six-packs or the benefits of vitamin supplements etc, but it's just bull****. Look at the current scene. Guys like Jean Pascal, Kelly Pavlik, Marcos Maidana, Denis Lebedev, JC Chavez Jr, Andre Berto, Amir Khan, Devon Alexander and Juan Manuel Lopez are all highly ranked fighters in their divisions, despite having very poor technical abilities compensated for by various physical strengths. The very idea that these guys are somehow crazily superior to the likes of Jersey Joe Walcott, Kid Chocolate, Tony Canzoneri, Willie Pep, and so on, well, it's enough to make me almost **** myself laughing. These modern meatheads would get trounced by true old-school technicians, despite their probable advantages in strength and fitness. Boxing is too skills-dependent for it to be thought of in the same way as something like athletics, where obviously Tyson Gay would embarrass Jesse Owens. It's a different beast entirely, and the same logic simply does not apply. In a way, "advances in sports" have actually led to the decline in skills in boxing, because now guys like Juanma Lopez use their physical prowess to overpower early-career opponents, and so stop working on developing their technical abilities because they are having such success by just using brawn. If a guy like Nicolino Locche came along now, he'd be perceived as the second coming of Christ, considering the way people insanely overrate the abilities of guys such as technically-woeful Joe Calzaghe.

 

Popkins hit the nail on the head. Fighters today are able to get away with more brawn/less technical ability because the talent pool has been diluted and less is expected of todays fighter. Fighting once every year or two doesn't demand the conditioning of yesteryear....or the need to hone one's skills as finely as the ATG's did. Ray Robinson had 202 fights. Benny Leonard had 212. Willie Pep had 242 and Joe Gans had 156 profesional fights. And let's not leave out Harry Greb who had 299 fights for Chrissakes! How many of todays fighters come even close to those numbers. Drop those fighters in todays scene and they would clean house, despite ( or perhaps because of) thier "old school" training methods. Many of these fighters employed many of the same training methods of todays fighters. After all, sprinting up a hill and swinging an axe or a sledgehammer wasn't invented last month. The difference was they fought often and often against the best in thier respective divisions...no holding out for years for a mega payday...or not fighting at all for fear of losing thier earning ability. Manny and Mayweather should be ashamed of themselves.

 

On the flip side, guys who are fighting every 2 weeks are bringing a bad product to the ring. They are by definition more injured and less recovered from previous engagements. They are damaged goods most times out. Also, they have less time in the gym to address flaws or adjust to opponents, so you get the same product over and over again, diluted by how much accumulated damage they carry.

 

Every 2 weeks yes but not every few months. To become a better fighter one has to fight. "To rest is to rust" is an old fight adage that certainly rings true. I can understand a somewhat long layoff to recuperate after a particularly grueling fight, but it seems that too many fighters today are taking a lot of time off even after a one sided win. After Ali lost to Joe Frazier in thier 1st fight in March of '71, he was fighting very frequently to get another shot at the title. In 1972 he fought 6 fights...In April, May, June, July, September and November. And they weren't against bums either. Ali knew he had to keep his hand in the game and stay sharp if he wanted another crack at the title and he was a heavyweight no less. And he did it with old fashioned training. When you're fighting often there just isn't enough time for concepts like meso cycles and periodization. You need "bang for your buck" training that's seemingly simple yet very effective. It worked for the ATG's so I don't see why so many are so quick to dismiss it as antiquated an not effective anymore. I guess if you're fighting once or twice a year and making millions for each fight then you have the luxury of hiring a nutritionist and conditioning guru to help get you into shape for your next big fight. But if you're fighting often and all over the place so the public doesn't forget who you are then perhaps "Old School" might still be the best school approach.