If the old-timers could criticize OUR boxing...

Applying the standards of good boxing from the 19th century to modern stances, as the reverse is generally practiced. I occasionally find myself slipping into 19th century language, a consequence of reading too many manuals one after the other:

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Fault: 20th century boxers have lessened their emphasis on linear punching, despite its proven superior efficiency vis-a-vis round blows. The latter are far easier to spot coming in from a distance, and at close range the knuckles damage sufficiently that straighter blows, which reach their target first, will more than compensate for a slight decrease in power. Their boxing stance is designed to facilitate round rather than straighter blows, despite the fact that the latter are inferior.

Fault: The toe of a 20th century boxer is turned in, decreasing considerably the power, straightness, accuracy, and effectiveness of the left lead.

Fault: The stance is too deep for rapid motion, which makes it more difficult to control range. Especially the case against a fighter who grapples above the waist, as is the case in LPR.

Fault: Hands are insufficiently outstretched to control the range or to stop blows with a greater margin for error from long range.

Fault: Combination punching requires that the individual enter into a zone that has far less room for error and skill than on the outside. This middle-range thinking is a consequence of excessive use of the mufflers.

Fault: Ducking and lowering one's body is a deplorable habit--it leaves one open not only to the uppercut, but to several species of chancery: one may be chanceried and uppercutted, chanceried and fibbed about the ribs and back, or chanceried and throttled into unconsciousness.

Fault: The head is excessively defended, while the body (extremely vulnerable to blows, which may occasionally prove fatal) is left with less protection than one would deem proper. The erroneous belief seems to be that the head cannot take care of itself adequately by hair's-breadth slipping. Lack of said slipping results in energy-wasting excessive head movement.

Fault: Reliance upon the gloves when blocking. This needs no explanation--it defeats the purpose of gloved fighting, e.g. to practice for situations when the mufflers are absent.

Fault: Feinting, the hallmark of a good boxer, is less frequently relied upon. Counterpunching and effective offense are therefore lessened.

Fault: Reliance upon the referee to force a halt to hugging, compounded by the readiness to enter middle range where hugging is more difficult to avoid.

Fault: Eyes insufficiently turned to one side, thereby preserving one side of one's vision from punishment--as most competent boxers will endeavor to inflict.

Fault: The hands are kept comparatively still, rather than being used in a slow cycloidal motion to keep one's adversary in the dark as to the intended target. Moreover, boxers do not seek to "get in time"--to shift the guard from slightly square to slightly linear to account for the difference in one's opponent's range.

Fault: Hands and arms are used in such a way as to endanger them if connected cleanly against with a solid punch.

 

This is a very interesting list! It gives me something to think about. Could it be, that Boxing in former times was more oriented towards self-defense?

 

I am confident that the old timers would totaly ridicule modern technique particularly among the heavyweights. Certainly not all changes have been for the better.

There is always a tendency for fighters and trainers from the previous generation to see changes as retrograde steps.

The great bareknuckle fighter and trainer Larry Foley was highly critical of Jack Johnsons methods particularly his stance. Jim Jeffries and Jack Johnson did not think much of the technique of fighters of the 1930s, perhaps with good reason in some cases.

If I had to single out one area where the change has been genuinely retrograde it is the decline feinting and hand movment. If you put John L Sullivan in the modern ring this is one thing that he would be able to do far better than any contemporary heavyweight.

 

Fault: Those newtimers throw punches that are too fast and must tire quickly as a result

 

I suspect it would not be quite that simple.

 

Has anybody ever considered that Lennox Lewis might have been lucky to fight in an era when few people could feint effectively at heavyweight?

Oliver McCall and Hasim Ramhan got their lucky breaks by accident. A guy like Max Schmeling or Joe Walcott might just be able to engineer one.

 

It's a good thing we have correctly-timed film from the 1870's to determine how much slower they were.

 

Why is it the footage doesn't make SRR look slow, but the rest do -questionmark-

 

Perhaps because Robinson was even faster than the film shows--and of course, this has no bearing on the supposed speed of guys who were never filmed (the pre-1900 guys I'm referring to).

More to the point, you don't refer to speed but to "sharpness" when criticizing old-timers--a rather indefinite quality which you have never elaborated upon. For all we know, that lack of perceived sharpness is attributable to your viewing old, grainy films.

 

The only argument you will ever be able to come up with to defend the dark ages regards those magical 'intangibles' - if we measure the speeds of modern and dark age boxers with some calculations from the footage, it is a guarentee that overall the modern fighter is quicker - "but the war made them tougher!"

 

How can you calculate handspeed in footage that is incorrectly timed?

In any event, I welcome you to try. How do you plan to measure the speed? And how do you plan to calculate handspeed from newspaper reports?

 

Yep, they probably would criticize that. However, I chose to ignore the social aspects.

 

What? Peter Jackson bemoaning that there are too many black champions?:huh

I choose to ignore your other thread, giving you the benefit of the doubt, but with comments like that, I start to question my judgement.

 

You calculate by what scale the footage is off by