Has Boxing Technique Been Better or Worse

I wouldn't say it has gotten worse, but some of the finer arts are neglected. Parrying, effective glove-blocking, feinting, concentrated body punching, accuracy, and defense has all faded/declined considerably. Boxing is obsessed with lateral movement, flashy, ineffective combination punching, and headhunting. When you see boxing at all lately, all guys do is take turns unloading combinations on each other and abandoning ring generalship.

 

This is interesting, and i agree with Bokaj that it would be interesting to see how much time is devoted to weight lifting and compare where that is taken from (I tend to think that weight time would largely replace road work) but i could be totally wrong.

I fighters are using strength and conditioning (and to be fair i am talking mainly heavys), it really does seem that the strength work is more succesful than the conditioning work. and i have to wonder whether eating really has improved. I think that during camp it probably has, but one of the big things that seems to be changed is out of camp, where 90 percent of heavys seem to just blow right up between fights. I think this is a massive problem and one of the reasons why weights have gone up recently. It never used to happen as badly, in most cases. At least it didnt seem like it.

 

ahh hard to say

things are similar and yet different
i do think that many guys today are not as skilled as the old guys but some are
very skilled

another thing to remember
is that there are styles around now that
were not around back then
mainly coming from europe and russia

the kind of in and out school russian style boxing
where you even throw some of the punches different

to the high guard type of style you see a lot of german
fighters like strum,zbick,systver etc using

then you how the polish guys like adamek,dariusz M, fight
every country in europe has a similar and yet different style

this was not something that was seen to much back

 

I think road work is changing as well, with more focus on intervals. But that will vary and probably go up and down over time.

On the one hand boxing is about maximizing your perfomance over 3 minute intervals, not over 40-50 minutes continous work. But on the other hand an increased lung capacity decreases recuperation time and therefore allows you to train harder. Or that's what I've heard, anyway.

 

Its hard to say. The worlds differant today than it used to be. The culture seems differant today, more liberal and less traditions of working the ring a few certain ways. Less obeying the trainer and customs of old boxing and more emphasis on pushing the envelope and making your own individualistic mark. This does mess with the conservative classic ideas of boxing technique.

It used to be a type of sport where you would work 50 - 100 fights in a career because it was your job with a consistant work rate. The sport seemed more relevant to a wider audience so you went about your profession. Today is a lot more condensed with fewer rounds and better atheticism and conditioning, more pressure for spectacular individualistic displays that the audience wants.

Matching the beast fighters of today vs the pure technicians of yesterday could have interesting results. But the times and the sport have changed together.

 

I think it was between the mid/late 20s and early 80s. But overall I agree. :thumbsup

Well, but that´s your problem, isn´t it.

 

Some same, some worse, some better. The more I study the sport, the more I think that the skill levels and the styles of every era have several representative types. You have always had attackers and boxers, punchers - the huge one punch guy, the guy who beats you down with consistency, the quick snap puncher, the heavy handed strength puncher, and the boxers - the guys who stick and move, the guys who run and grab, the guys who are fast and throw a lot, who throw less but hard and fast and also move, the guys who can punch but are cautious, who can punch and are reckless, who have some defense on the inside or outside; the guys who are versatile and can box and punch, inside and outside, the guys who rely on head movement, others who rely on footwork, some more than the other, some who use guard, some who use speed and reactions and clinching, those who use more subtleties. There are representative samples from every era. Listen, the guys in boxing today aren't enlightened geniuses, nor are they total morons, and the same can be said of the fight folks of yesteryear. Fighting is fighting, and it always has been. Fighters adapt to the rules, interpretations, and scoring parameters of their eras, and are judged accordingly.