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

Any worse than the concocted reasons for Dempsey avoiding Wills, or the Gans-McGovern fiaso, or LaMotta-Fox, or Ali-Liston in Maine?

 

You're comparing isolated incidents (or scenarios) with the systematic corruption of the whole structure of the sport.
I don't think that's sound.

I mean, little shitty things still happen in the sport anyway, but now the whole structure has been re-engineered to make a mockery of the world championship principle.

 

I agree to the latter point but that is indicative of sport in general with the exception, oddly enough, of MMA.

To the former point, I do not think those were isolated incidents. You are underplaying the mob's control of the sport for the better part of the 20th century.

 

Yeah, the mob are not nice people and tend to corrupt whatever they put their hands on, but loads of crooked and rotten stuff happens in boxing without them.
It's all very well looking back at LaMotta throwing a fight or Carnera fighting a load of set-ups, and wagging our fingers at the gangsters who stood in the background but people tend to do so and then turn a blind eye to stuff that has happened in more recent years.
I've seen dozens of gross mismatches and set-ups on ESPN or ITV or whereever in my lifetime, and fighters who shouldn't even be licensed falling over from bad cholestrol or something, but this stuff hardly gets a mentioned. It's consider pure or acceptable because the mafia don't own the fighters ?

 

The sport is still full of dirty decisions, set ups, tomato can slaughtering, and the like. always has been always will be.

 

Exactly. :good

 

d'accordo...

 

How can you even consider it be worse than the colour line?

 

I'm not convinced that the past, present or future is best.
I beleve secuess in boxing as in any sport starts with natural abillity. You can improve, but there are limits.

What I like about the past.

More fights on Network TV. Exposier gets kids interested to go to the gym and learn to box creating a deeper talent pool which means the greater chance that natural athletes become boxers.

A strong amature program. I'm being American centric here. The big sports in America are Football and Basketball. Both sports have great college compation. In these sports stars are made at the college and sometimes high school level.

No MMA. I have nothing against MMA. However it competes with boxing for talent, and dose a better job at selling its product.

 

Well they were from a hardier stock. Back in the day life was more of a struggle. One had to crack a sweat in mundane tasks, and the fighters themselves seem to have more pride and spark in terms of not capitulating to rough circumstances. In-fighting, body punching, and feinting were better 50-100 years ago.

While I only think a few old timers pre 1930 would be elite level in modern times post 1960, we must remember if something is not practiced or invented, its hard to hold that against a generation.

 

You mean post 1940

 

2 guys in thousands.

They are very good, though. Yes.

 

These posts are largely correct, fighters today fight mainly on instinct
the skills training just isn't there, this why mediocre boxers like the Klitschko brothers stand out because they have been coached albeit euro style in the fundamentals of boxing. In the US, boxing seems to have been lost in high schools and colleges and and Golden Glove tournaments seem to have lost significance. These erosions take time and we are now winessing the results. who would have thought heavyweight boxing would be in the parlous state it finds itself in now, basically club fighters are being churned out for low rating cable fight nights. I can't even say they are fit! they largely turn up overweight undertrained and undercoached with lunging punches being the order of the day. It gets worse, after three rounds what they bring deteriorates even further, we don't expect Louis or Ali, what we do expect is professionalism from paid fighters.

 

............because they were compared to a shorter period of boxing - A boxer from the 1920's has a greatness measured against about 30 years of the sport - A boxer today has their greatness measured against about 120 years of the sport...

 

Very good point one I never really considered, that still doesn''t explain the deterioration in basic skills, ie everything being set up from the jab, combination punching , hooking, ripping to the body, high defence etc. with talented exceptions they they just don''t have these skillsets today.