Gerry Cooney V Jess Willard ?

Spinks was the undisputed reigning king of one weight division when he stepped up to fight Holmes. I'd say that skill wise M. Spinks>>>>Jess Willard

 

We can't recognise differences in technology, medicine, economics, demographics, attitudes, equipment, rules, techniques?

 

That was never in dispute.

I am comparing them as heavyweight champions, without reference to how they got there.

 

Cooney's skills and power IMO were never in question he had decent hand speed, footwork etc...he us underrated

IMO he does better with a bigger man his own size than he does with a faster smaller man

Cooney rocks him he can wreck him with his power faster than Dempsey did but under the 3-8 count era Cooney settles for a decision...Cooney was a destructive force for 1-6 rounds but beyond that he slows down

The only thing Cooney proved is no fighter can fight a few rounds in a few years and then be expected to beat a future ATG Heavyweight champion over 15 rds and alcohol and drugs can kill anyone's potential

 

But that's just the point - you DON'T recognize the MASSIVE differences between now and 100+ years ago. If you did, how can you pick Corbett to beat Tua... or favor Burns to defeat Wilder?

 

We can, but we can never be sure that one era is superior to another.

It might just turn out that the fighters of Willard's era were better, because they grew up in tougher condition/fought more often/trained for longer fights etc.

We just don't know.

 

Come on now, to think that the best of the 1910s in any sport can even compete well against the best of more recent decades is just plain silly. Growing up in tougher conditions is as likely to ****** yout capacities for sporting excellence than it is enhance it. Fighting more often might make you get damaged earlier, in fact when you look at a lot of fighters of the first half of the century you tend to see that and besides fighters today might actually fight more often (but in safer conditions) when you factor in amateur bouts, Willard certainly didn't fight much.

 

This is a debate that we have frequently here.

The idea that boxing has advanced, in the same way as say track sports, is a hotly disputed topic.

I personally doubt it.

 

Surely any sensible debate should revolve around just how much it has advanced (probably less than most sports) rather than whether it has or hasn't.

 

That is clearly not the consensus here.

 

That is one crazy consensus then.

 

Then presumably you will overturn it?

 

Maybe you could learn way people think that, instead of dismissing it.

In the last 100 years we haven't turned into a race of super-humans.

 

And how/where do you propose we can learn that?

 

Here, by actually asking why people think that, or by reading one of hundreds of old threads on the topic to see the arguments for that position.