"He fought in a bad era"

The total number of fights listed doesn't account for am fights or how many fighters were active (i.e. 10 fighters fighting once per year is a larger talent pool than 2 fighters fighting 5 times per year, but it's the same number of bouts).

There's also population genetics. Since there are more people today, there are also more gifted athletes to choose from.

 

The manuals are useful to an extent but there’s really no substitute for watching fighters in action, to see whether and how they actually implemented the type of tactics and skills covered in the manuals.

I guess I would also look at the schooling and pedigrees of the top fighters of a given era. All things being equal, fighters who have more years of experience training and competing with top fighters, professionally and/or in the amateurs, should tend to signify a stronger era, I would think. Conversely, eras where top contenders were cowboys, farmhands, and stevedores who learned how to fight as adults in small gyms with unknown trainers before meteriorically shooting to the top of the rankings would tend to be weaker eras.

 

True, though they both started fighting as children (Calzaghe was 9 and Brock 12) and fought 100+ amateur fights and won national titles, etc. By the time they turned pro, they weren't really "coming out of nowhere." These weren't men who first threw on gloves in their 20s. And FWIW despite his very long amateur career, Calzaghe was a pro for 4 years before he made the Ring ratings and 9 years before he took over the number one spot. Brock only appeared in the year-end Ring ratings once, 4 years into his career.

 

Interesting. The idea that similar levels of talent share wins, losses and draws seems like common sense. However, your idea, overall, seems too abstract a concept for it to have a "closer to the real world" application and it takes away somewhat from the essence of competition, improvement and contention for the championship.

The use of the term "ceiling" appears to be an inverse description of the champion setting the bar. It also provides little accommodation for development over time, amongst the contenders, and the different rates of improvement, leading to levels being achieved at different points in individual careers; creating gaps in ability across the pool.

I'd also suggest that the implication there is no room for improvement, beyond the 'bar', is problematic and does not take into consideration the many factors, which might cause variable performances, in relation to that bar... ...both amongst the contenders and even by the bar-setter himself.

 

You're touching on something very interesting here; perhaps one of the most essential problems when comparing eras: How many active boxers were there, at different times?

Can the huge amount of fights during the 20s and 30s be the result of a very large pool of fighters - or a smaller pool where the boxers, on average, were much more active than today?

As you say, 10 boxers who have one fight each, during a given period, will produce the same number of bouts as 2 boxers having 5 fights each. Seeing the huge career-numbers some boxers raked up back then (often in excess of 100-150 fights)… my gut feeling tells me, that I should probably lean towards a moderate pool of very busy fighters.

 

Yes, if that were possible, it would help us get a better understanding of things - but where can we find the number of licenses and boxing gyms outside the US, for a given year?

 

It's pretty much subjective what you class as a weak era. Let's take Wladimir for example, for any boxer you can go through their record with a tooth and comb and make it look poor but I guess the general consensus of the argument for Wlad would be that he had a distinct size advantage, cheated with the excessive clinch and many of his opponents were shot, undersized or simply not world level. It probably doesn't help that his brother shared ruling the division for a while and contenders were cut in two (although Wlads resume is far superior tbf).

But let's break it down:

Old and past it -

Ray Mercer 41 years old, last world level win was six years prior.
Jean Marc Mormeck - 40 years old, seven inches smaller and has about five fights total at heavyweight.
Hassim Rahman - 36 year old with best days behind him.

Fringe contenders -

Frans Botha, decimated in his previous step ups, doesn't have a win at world level.
Francesco Pianeta - domestic level at best.
Marius Wach - done little at world level.
Alex Lepai - domestic level at best.

Too Small

David Haye gave away three inches and 30+ pounds, doesn't have a very good heavyweight resume.
Eddie Chambers - gave gave five inches in height, outweighed by over 30lbs.
Chris Byrd - gave up four inches and 20-30lbs.

A few examples of what is said. After that he has a string of top five to ten contenders at the time such as Povetkin, Pulev, Peter, Thompson, Jenning, Ibrahimov.

I don't think Wlad was in the strongest era tbf but ultimately he took on a pretty decent list of contenders of all sizes, styles and ages. I guess you can level he didn't avenge many of his defeats, just one from the five men who beat him. Not many contenders he didn't fight, really only Valuev and Adamek I can think of who he could have fought.

 

Can anyone provide me an example from the Charlie Chaplin era where people moved as well as this?
https://streamable.com/18td4

If not, we must conclude that people back then couldn't move like they do now.
They don't have that smoothness, that slickness in their steps like they do today.

Hell, they couldn't even see in color back then.

 

I disagree with anyone who says the craft of boxing has gotten better.
And I disagree with anyone who says it has gotten worse or declined.

Some have said that the "art of body punching is lost."
What?
Have you watched Errol Spence Jr box?

Just look at a guy like Yordenis Ugas's last performance.
He'll never be a superstar fighter, but he put on a masterclass performance against Barrionuevo with his clever heat seeking body attacks.

Boxing goes through waves.
Inside and outside the sport.
The perception of boxing gets most drastically effected by cultural shifts in the outside world.
This last century especially has had a media technology explosion that effected this perception more than anything else.

But the craft has remained generally the same for an incredibly long time.
Wherein the main outliers of the sport have been exceptional human beings utilizing their own mental and physical ingenuity coupled with basic knowledge of combat. Not those who've had access to certain tools.

The individual remains to be the greatest factor.
More than technique, form, power, reach, height, speed, the individual, the person behind the wheel, is the strongest variable.

 

I was more referring to the concept of the craft being neither in decline or going through evolution.

The pertinent fundamentals of the sport remain generally equal.
But yes, there are certain factors and individuals that had an effect on the talent level.
Although the effects of such which often get exaggerated or used to drive inaccurate conclusions.

 

I'm only talking about heavyweight, which was lacking talent in that era. As far as losses go, you'll see plenty of them vs non top ten competition on Max Baer and Tony Galento, two of the top fighter in the 1930's, not to mention Jimmy Braddock.

Even Schemling, who might be the 2nd best heavyweight in the 1930's for example lost or drew to the following fighters who I would call journeyman:

Max Diekmann 0-1 TKO 4 loss
Jimmy Lygett sr. 34- 14-4 ( DRAW )
Jack Taylor 36-23-15 LOSS Points
Max Diekmann 5-2-1 ( DRAW )
Gipsey Daniels 70-22-10 KO1 loss

I'm not sure of Gains, or Hamas whom Schmling lost to were ranked when the fight happened.

See my point? If these losses happened to Wilder or Joshua today as #1 or #2, oh boy would they be ripped to pieces.