First off, apologies if this has been discussed before, although I can't see a recent thread anywhere. Within the last few weeks, I've been having some great in depth debates, on whether boxing has progressed or regressed on a whole? In my opinion, boxing has definitely regressed as a whole, SKILLWISE. We may have seen an obvious improvement in sports science, nutrition and training equipment etc as the years have rolled by, but I don't personally think that a fighters skillset has improved. I think fighters of the past had better footwork, better head movement, more stamina, were better at fighting on the inside, were tougher, and threw more body punches, double hooks and uppercuts etc, than today's fighters. Fighters of the past used to live in the gym, and they learnt their craft under great trainers, and they used to fight with a lot more regularity. I personally believe that great skills have been lost over the years, and the majority of the best fighters of all time, were all from yesteryear. I believe that if you were to pick the top 5-10 fighters from ANY weight class, either based on accomplishments or on a h2h basis, I believe that they wouldn't be many modern day fighters who'd make the list overall. So, to all the great knowledgeable posters on this site, please give me your honest opinion. Please no trolling. Have boxing skills progressed, or have they regressed? Many thanks! Loudon.
I think it's regressed because of a lack of boxing gyms. The best way to be introduced into boxing is to go to a gym, and with a lack of gyms there are fewer and fewer boxers. The government is to be blamed for the lack of boxing gyms because land is being turned into freeways, roads, suburban homes, or public school thanks to subsidies by the government.
I agree with the skillset argument,but bear in mind fighters records and achievements are taken to pieces with a microscope now Mayweather pacquiao wlad klitschko Roy jones are examples of fighters whose records are slated daily This is ludicrous and I feel all 4 compare well across all eras
The correct answer is both, or “its complicated”. Many people might expect me to launch an impassioned defence of the old timers given my track record, but I think that boxing often owes more to individuals than to trends. The next dominant heavyweight champion will probably emerge from the former Soviet Union or the United States, but there is no reason in theory why he couldn’t crop up in Luxembourg. I think that the old timers score pretty highly on desire. Basically, if their boxing career didn’t pan out, their future was pretty bleak. Even on that basis Evander Hollyfield clearly had a much better drive than Jack Sharkey. The biggest factor in favour of the old timers, is the fact that boxing was a much bigger sport back then. There were more professional boxers, more boxing matches, more genuinely good trainers, and fighters fought more often. This obviously resulted in some pretty tasty customers. Modern fighters have the benefit of modern training methods. While most of the stats favour the old timers i.e. number of fights, quality of opposition, the best modern fighters such as Mayweather and Pacquio are setting new records for longevity at the top of the division. Above all, I would suggest that you never view a fighters era as an argument for or against him being the best in his division.
Anyone with a decent eye for boxing ability knows that the current guys don't cut it. Guys like Floyd and Bernard have dominated much longer than they should have. There's nobody with the proper ability to take the torch.
In America, but overall, according to boxrec the only era that had a lot more participation was the 1920's. There are more boxing matches today then the 1970's. This is a tired argument, but I just thought i'd point that out.
What Janitor said. Basically there are fewer boxers now; they box less - they spar less in fewer gyms. There are fewer of them, they practice less and they fight less. On the other hand some of the specific skills that have gone missing have gone missing because of ruleset. So if you brought a 1940's guy to now he would be using skills that have "died" (not really but you get it) but they wouldn't work.
I agree that skills have taken a back seat to fitness almost,when I mentioned this on the classic the general consensus was due to the weigh in rules we have today that a boxer will spend a lot of camp and pre fight concentrating on diet and rehydration It's hard to say though,there are more people participating in the uk today in the pros and amateurs than ever before but this could be an exception to the rule.the superpower America who produced the last golden generation with hagler Leonard hearns has probaly lost a vast amount of potential boxers to other sports that will affect elite level quality When I think back to the last say 10-15 years or more ill think of pacquiao,morales,Marquez,Barrera,Hopkins,jones jnr,Calzaghe,de la Hoya,Trinidad,toney Mayweather,Lennox Lewis,Holyfield,hamed etc Then some epic battles gatti ward,Castillo coralles,pacquiao Marquez And some exciting new stars broner,canelo,donaire,golovkin,matthysse,rigondeux,mikey Garcia etc Then suddenly boxing for all it's faults has an exciting future,we have had endless classic fights in 2013 so maybe it's regressed in a move away from the traditional teaching of old school boxing training methods and mainstream significance but there's still a lot of life in it yet
I'm not taking sides in this argument because if you are real fan you can appreciate fighters from all era's. Boxing fans have always, for over a century, dismissed their contemporaries while ignoring any faults for the old timers. Nostalgia is king.
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But I doubt that the 1960/70's etc are missing tens of thousands of fights. I agree with your last point.
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In GENERAL the very best today are the best ever.. But In the past there were more "contenders" ie. More strength in depth
So then we would have the 1920's> 60/70/80's by a huge margin in terms of talent. But nobody really believes this, they probably did when those decades were taking place because this is something that boxing fans always do. Now we talk about the golden age of the 70's HWs, the Fab 4 etc. Guys who saw fighters fight live in the 20's looked down their nose at Ali when he was competing.
