Fighters Were Better In The Old Days Because.....

Great post! love it.

 

you might find this interesting about some old Mexican GREATS in opposition to a modern top 10 list of the same. JCC said to be the best but old southern california mexicans who have lived through them all still stick with these past fighters.

it states much of whats been said here but focuses on fighting excellence against other great fighters rather than achievement based lists which I agree with...

from the CBZ

Chavez earned title of greatest mexican fighter ever

I cannot see any of those men listed here fighting Henry Armstrong through fifty rounds in five wars and not being floored or kayoed by the mighty Hank. But old time great Baby Arizmendi did just that and actually beat Henry a couple of times.

Arizmendi was a true great of the pastr, the first boxer to depose Bert Colima in the hearts of Hispanic fight fans. It was he who blazed the trail that would be followed by many other standouts, and eventually by this same Julio Cesar Chavez.
The bull necked Baby was less than 5'6" but he even dared to tangle with the lethal socking Ca. Jackie Wilson, a full strength welterweight who had gone the distance with both Jake La Motta and Sugar Ray Robinson in a four week period back east. Only Robinson and Arizmendi managed to floor Wilson in those bouts.

It was a different game back then.....money was scarce in the fight industry and a fighter took a bout wherever and against all comers, keeping busy for the sake of solvency.

Stayng busy, not unbeaten, was the catchphrase of the era,

hence the strange won/lost disparity dotting the records of so many third world fighters of the day.

Arizmendi, Casanova, Azteca, Bolanos, and then the wave of hot shots that found a waiting fandom created by the old timers.

Our Hispanic Press Club selected the five greatest back in 1951 and no other group has seriously attempted to modify that listing to date.


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I think that there are two main reasons.

one, There were not an endless supply of champions and two, and it is probably because of one, the challengers had to fight the best challengers before they could prove they were worthy of a title shot.

Think about it, of todays fighters, the only World Champions are the all time Greats.

At the moment, you would probably (according to boxrec) have say

Heavy: Wlad Klitchsko
Light Heavy: Bernard Hopkins
Middle: Martinez
Welter: Pacquai
Lightweight: Marquez
Featherweight: Salido
Bantamweight - Donaire
Flyweight - Wonjongkam


With that being the case, look at all the great fighters who would not be world champions, but would simply be contenders. The likes of Vitali Klitchsko, Haye, Mayweather, Adamek, Dawson, Bute, Dirrell etc may all have never ever reached enough heights to challenge for a world title, much less win one. And this is in an era where most agree it is as shallow for depth as ever.

 

The devaluation of the title "world champion" (to the point where dozens of men can claim at any one time to be sort sort of world champion) is possibly the worst thing to happen to the professional boxing game.

Since the 1980s especially groups have been given a free rein in conjuring up new "world titles" out of thin air.
It's crazy.

 

Day before weigh ins would be second to this in my opinion. How can championship fights be looked at with legitimacy when guys are allowed to come in 3 weight classes higher than the title they're fighting for? I can't stand that.

 

I've mentioned this a few times before - but I think this is really relevant - and not to say fighters were outright better in the old days (but certainly the way they performed under certain circumstances means they would have to translate very well to fighting now) - the thing I'm talking about (and I'm going back to the jack Johnson/Jack Dempsey days here) is that in those days the shoes didn't have rubber soles like nowadays - they were leather soled - what minimal grip you could get had to be ground in by scraping them in resin - but my grandad said that even just walking down the street in leather soled shoes meant you'd have to even walk very carefully so as not to be slipping over all the time - my grandad really stressed to me that the fighters could fight in the damn things was a says something - basically he was saying that if they;d have had the luxury of the rubber soled footwear of today they'd have been brilliant around the ring - it would have had a ten-fold difference in effect .

Similarly when you watch a fight these days - as soon as a fighter loses his gumshield - they immedeatly start running away and appealing to the ref to call time out straight away - and when they do start getting nailed without their gumshield in they really look affected bigtime - they fighters in say the days of Jack Johnson just flat out fought - they would'n't have known about gumshields really - if someone put one in for them now they'd have been like "ah!! this is better - I'm really gunna kick his ass now!!" reverse the roles and put a modern fighter into an olden day ring with no gumshield - no handwraps - really crappy shoes with no rubber on them and tiny gloves and tell them that potentially they may be looking at 25 rounds of fighting and I reckong they'd be going "jeesus sod this for a game of soldiers!!" :-(

 

Gamboa is the best operator at FW. He beat Salido conclusively and JML got his ass whipped by Salido. Refuse to acknowledge Chris John as a factor till he leaves Indonesia.

Anyway whenever this topic comes up I think of Joe Gans-Battling Nelson. 40 rounds in weltering nevada heat. This couldn't happen today. It wouldn't be a celebrated sporting event either. It'd be decried as inhumane.

 

when you look at it like that, this era isn't that bad. it's just a shame that you have to strip away so much rubbish to see who the real champions are. it makes it difficult for the casual fan especially.

 

The problem is, with so many rival paper champions and pretenders, the principle of contenders competing against each other is more or less redundant.
With 2, 3, 4 "champions" to shoot for - (or if you're fighting in two divisions, easily possibly nowadays with so many divisions, as many as 8 champions you can shoot for !) - there's no incentive for young up-and-coming contenders to go up against their peers on a regular basis.

 

Which is why the concept of the "ring title" is so great. I think they should be more liberal about handing it out though. it should at least be active in every division.

 

yeah of course. i was just commenting on the list of names really.

 

Wow, that's an excellent point about the shoes. I'd never thought of that before.

 

Were hungrier,and developed their skills better.

 

Better trainers.

More than any other reason. Period. Straight up. Better trainers. We are inundated with awful coaches anymore. The Europeans have a better teaching pool! And we wonder why they are gaining so much ground and passing Americans up...


The old school training philosophy was an art form. A great trainer taught several others, who became great trainers and repeated the cycle.


Nowadays, you got an assortment of punchy ex-pro's, enthusiasts who think they know what makes a fighter, and hustlers out for cash training the next generation. I visit gyms across the nation, and one in maybe 50 teachers I see is worth their salt.

Ugh. Sad.

 

You don't think highly of Manny or Freddie?